Dad and I are in the process of finishing the basement. In said basement, will be the ultimate his/her work at home office! Oh…I can’t wait! We are at the hanging drywall stage, and when there is more progress I’ll post pics.

In the meantime, check out this awesome tree fort office! What a gorgeous view!

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Avoid Work at Home Scams – Our Story

When Dad had his accident in early 2001, our world came crashing down. How could someone in their 20’s who was strong, vibrant, and hard working be struck down so suddenly and told he may never walk normally again?

Thankfully, Dad had excellent doctors who saved his foot and after 18 months of hard physical therapy, he learned how to walk again.

During those first few months, we struggled financially. I had two consulting contracts ending and Dad’s disability income was not enough to pay the bills. In desperation, we searched high and low for a quick way to make money, possibly a work at home opportunity. It wasn’t that we were interested in GRQ (get-rich quick), we simply wanted to PTBQ (pay the bills quick).

What we found, were TONS of scam artists eager to take our money and offer nothing in return.

That 80’s song “Taken In” from Mike and the Mechanics rings in my ears:

♫ Taken in, taken in again
Wrapped around the finger of some fair weathered friend
Caught up in the promises, left out in the end

Taken in, taken in again
Someone saw me coming, a fool without a friend
There’s one born every minute and you’re looking at him ♫

Unfortunately, we fell for an illegitimate direct sale company. We spent $600 for sign up fees and inventory and three months later, the company folded. Ouch! This was a hard lesson learned but one that made us wiser.

Seven years later, there is no shortage of unscrupulous people hocking work at home scams, especially with more and more people using the Internet.

Here are some tips on how to protect yourself from work at home scams:

• Use common sense.  Remember this wise advice: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
• Be wary of companies requiring money up front before providing details of how their business works.
• If a company offers a money back guarantee, get it in writing.
• Don’t allow yourself to be pushed into making a quick decision.  Scam artists often use hard selling techniques to close the sale.  If it’s a “limited time offer” that does not provide enough time to think it over, move on.
• Check out the organization or company.  Make sure to obtain the telephone number, address, and owners contact information.  It’s also wise to check with the BBB and obtain references.
• Work at home jobs and businesses require time and real effort.  If you are promised “BIG MONEY” with little or no effort, chances are…it’s a SCAM!

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I normally do a good job on balancing my work responsibilities and home life, but sometimes a heavy workload threatens to tip me off balance.  Here are some great tips on how to manage work and home.  If your starting to feel like your going to crash and burn, check out my for tips on how to avoid work at home burnout.

5 Tips for Balancing Work and Home

By Craig Rowe  

Most people understand how difficult it can be to balance their work and home lives once they get married and have children. Somehow it seems that work life or home life is always encroaching on the other and causing problems at work, at home, and many times both. However the following five tips are great options to help with balancing work and home.

Make a Schedule

The best thing to do when trying to balance work and home is to make a schedule. Know how much time you have and schedule your work time and your home time. Then, you will know when you need to schedule work and home events. This will make your life significantly easier and you will know which activities fit into which time frame. Just make sure you stick to your schedule.

Share Responsibilities

Many times work and home responsibilities can become overwhelming because one spouse is handling more of the responsibilities than the other. So, learn to share responsibilities at home and each spouse can be responsible for their work. Also, older children should have some home responsibilities as well to help parents balance work and home.

Leave Work at Work

Balancing home and work can be difficult because it is so easy to take work home. If you really want to balance work and home then you will always leave work at work and keep home a sacred place for family and home activities.

Dedicate Weekends to Home Activities

A great way to keep home and work separate is to always focus on home activities during weekends, or at least on days off from work if you happen to work on weekends. When certain days are home days and other days are work days then it makes balancing work and home considerably easier.

Plan

The best way to balance work and home is to always make a plan. There are tons of tips that will help you, but there is nothing like making a plan and then following the plan to really balance work and home. It might be difficult, but if you have it planned out and follow the plan you will be surprised how easy you can find a balance.

SearchArticles.net features thousands of how-to articles and tips on working from home. For more work from home tips, visit http://www.searcharticles.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Craig_Rowe

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