More and more people are making the decision to work from home. Perhaps a grueling commute is taking its toll, or maybe the desire to spend more time centered around the family is growing stronger. Regardless of the reason, most people find that they can actually save money by working at home.
The Heavy Weight of Childcare. Often when two parents are working outside of the home, the price tag of full-time childcare can rival the mortgage payment on an average-sized house. And once the kids reach school age, after-school childcare is typically not as much of a break in costs as one might think. When even one of the parents’ schedules is re-arranged to allow for time to work from home, a family can usually make alternate and far less costly childcare arrangements.
Working from home does not necessarily equate to being a stay-at-home parent, so removing the cost of childcare completely from your monthly expenses may not be feasible. However, there are a large number of far less expensive part-time options, such as a Mother’s Day Out program at a local church or a neighbor who cares for a small number of children in her home. Think about structuring the care around the times when your children would normally be napping or having a quiet rest time in the afternoons, a time when you would be able to work with the children in the house anyway.
Give The Gas Guzzler A Break. The length of a typical commute can vary in different parts of the country. However, when you get in your car and drive even 10 to 15 miles to work, and then make the return trip home again in the evening, you are likely eating up close to a full tank of gas a week. If you have a longer commute, run errands at work, or have a fairly fuel inefficient vehicle, you may be filling up your tank two or possibly even three times a week. There’s no doubt about it – your commute is a huge drain on your financial resources.
When you can work from home, you may find yourself more typically getting in your only a few times a week to run errands that are just a short distance away. So rather than filling up once or twice a week, when you work from home, you likely will see that drop to filling up every two or three weeks. You will also have to perform regular maintenance on your car far less often as your mileage decreases.
The Lure Of Eating Out. You may have great intentions of brown-bagging-it to work every day, but once you hit the office you are likely to be enticed away from last night’s leftovers by co-workers who invite you to lunch. Or maybe you’ve had a bad morning at the office and need to take a lunch break for the sake of your sanity. When you work at home, these hidden enticements are simply not there. You are more likely to power through lunch at your home computer, or to take a break and watch some TV while you eat.
The lure of eating out continues on your way home from work. Everything from a long day at the office and insufficient sleep the night before to a busy evening with the kids’ extracurricular activities can cause you to stop and pick up something fast to eat for dinner. When you work from home, it’s much easier to plan and prepare a meal at home. You can pop something in the crock pot on your lunch break, or maybe through a casserole or cutlets in the oven, then go back to work at your home office while your meal cooks.
Getting More Done. When you don’t have a lengthy commute, you will have more time to devote to working. Rather than starting work at 9am, you may be ready to hop on the computer at 8am instead. You also don’t need to worry about packing a lunch to take to work, ironing your clothes, or stopping on the way to work to fill up the gas tank.
You also won’t have the constant disruption of working in an office environment with chatty co-workers. You will find that you are a much more efficient worker at home. What once took you an hour to complete in the office may only take you thirty minutes to complete at home. If you work by the hour or get paid on commission, you should expect that the additional time you can now spend working each day provides you the opportunity to make more money.
Working from home can provide you with a far less stressful and more relaxed work environment, as well as the opportunity to save a tremendous amount of money on work-related expenses.