Andrew Napolitano, the former New Jersey Supreme Court judge and frequent television guest news commentator has the opportunity to meet many parents who struggle to balance their work-life with their home life.
In fact, Napolitano notes in the current debate about cutting off expanded Federal Government unemployment benefits early, that it is not simply a matter of cutting off unemployment so people are hungry to work.
The judge has met untold stay-at-home parents who would like to work but they do not feel it is safe to take their children to day-care during the COVID pandemic.
Hopefully, the recent Biden Administration tax breaks will help many who are struggling in this regard, and also as a higher and higher percentage of the population gets the COVID-19, things will return back to a sense of normality.
But it is also recognized as a popular sentiment that many stay at home parents are giving serious consideration to not turning back to work in the traditional sense.
Ultimately, they may give up quite a bit of money by not having a traditional paycheck to rely on, and there may be no 401k or retirement plan as well, but particularly in the case of two-parent families, one that works outside of the home and one that stays at home and takes care of the children, the stay at home parent is looking for incomes through taking up new business ideas.
Yes, there are all kinds of business statistics that 50 percent of businesses fail within the first two years, but there are plenty of businesses that do a reasonable amount of work and provide a sustainable income.
One example is on-demand publishing such as on the Amazon platform. Producing an Amazon book for sale on the KDP platform costs a person between zero dollars if they use free software and no more than $20 to invest in software.
A perfect example is low content books such as journals and planners, which if you have the right cover and do the right research on keywords can quickly generate quite a lot of revenue.
Another business idea is arbitrage. Unless you want to take the kids with you, you’ll either need to do this when your partner is home, or on the weekends, but the idea is to go to various discount outlet stores such as TJ Max and buy items such as tennis shoes and handbags and then turn around and sell them online for a profit.
Another popular job is becoming an Instagram Influencer. If you are a decent and personable talker and have an eye for fashion, or cooking, or any of dozens of hobbies, you can slowly build up a decent and profitable business on Instagram. The same applies to becoming a successful YouTuber.
Before you jump into any such business or dozens more that you can do at home, carefully research what’s involved. Generally, there is a steep learning curve for most of these businesses, but that is true of a traditional business as well. Andrew Napolitano stresses that the big difference is you don’t have to invest a lot of money to operate most stay-at-home businesses.
