Most women who have always worked have every intention of returning to work after they have had their children. For some, however, the wrench of leaving their little ones is just too much so they decide to be stay at home mums. Another reason, and an increasingly common one, is the cost of childcare, and many mums find that it simply isn’t worth their while to return to work when they add up the cost of their childcare.  Consequently, many are now looking seriously at home working solutions of all types from working as virtual assistants to indulging in such exotic activities such as contracts for difference trading.

While being at home all day every day with your baby may be fab at first, if you have always worked the novelty can wear off to some extent and you may find yourself longing to do something with the spare time that you have. A lot of women also feel inadequate by no longer contributing to the income of the household and feel guilty and uncomfortable at being effectively a ‘kept women’.

Independent women such as these will grab the bull by the horns and do some research in to what work they can do from home. This area is a minefield however, so proceed with extreme caution. Instantly dismiss anything that wants money off you, you do not pay someone to give you work, and chances are they and your cash will disappear into the sunset.

The internet is the obvious place to look, but still be wary. By inputting working from home in a search engine will bring up hundreds of thousands of results, all offering you the chance to make ‘big bucks’ for very little work. 99% of these are scams, and half of the rest will give you very little recompense for hours sat on front of your computer.

One of the most popular results from a search is companies wanting you to decipher ‘captcha’s, those annoying letters and numbers that appear on websites to prove that you are human. This may seem like easy money until you realise you have to do thousands of them to make a couple of quid, the standard currency online, and with the exchange rate you will have an aching head and fingers and will have made approximately 60p!

Another favourite are sites that offer great money for clicking on adverts, yes, they are a scam. You will start as a silver member and be offered the chance to ‘upgrade’ to gold for a fee, normally $100.  This is the whole point of these sites, to get your money. They will have a ridiculously high withdrawal level, say $10,000, and you will never see it.

If you are reasonably intelligent and can write well, one of the best sites is freelancer.com. People who want writing jobs done to go onto the internet can advertise on this site and you apply for them once you have set up your account. Sites like this put workers and business owners together for all kinds of opportunities, such as writing, computer coding, artwork, contracts for difference trading, virtual personal assistants and so much more.

They do take a small commission for every job you are rewarded and the pay isn’t huge but it is genuine and will make you some pin money and keep your brain active.