When I had my daughter in 2002, I was very interested in making money from home. However, back then, work from home options was quite limited other than multi-level-marketing ‘jobs’. And, that is what I did in order to attempt to make money from home since I was caring for my daughter during the day.

I remember this all too well. I had joined safe lists which had given people the opportunity to share their spam among other members that were part of the same safe list. And, most of the work at home jobs that people from those lists had shared were MLM jobs. That is how I had started learning about the MLM world.

I had joined the first one which was Melaleuca not long after my daughter was born. And, I had found that I was spending more money on auto-ship and wasting my time trying to recruit friends to my team. All that did was damage the friendships I did have. They were annoyed about me bothering them to join the MLM company and did not want to join, and I resented them for not helping me out.

I also was forced to order a certain amount of stuff each month that ended up sitting in my basement or garage to just collect dust in order to stay with the company. That said, I wasted money, lost money, lost time, lost friends, and accumulated items that I did not need or want that ended up just taking space.

Then, I foolishly thought that maybe Melaleuca was not the right company for me, so I looked to join other MLM companies expecting different results. Those included Maxx International, Scentsy, ACN, XanGo, Herbalife, and the list just goes on and on.

After many years of doing the same insane stuff, I was shocked that I kept ending up with the same disappointing results. It took me years to finally learn and get it. That was when I joined the Warrior Forum in 2010 and found that there were whole other ways to make money that had nothing to do with MLM.

And, one of those ways was joining Fiverr  and selling some simple services on there, and that is when I started to make some money. I also learned about SEO and social media marketing and ended up creating my business in 2011 that offered these services. That is when I finally started to make the money I had wanted to make from home without having the need to spend on items that I did not want and need. That is when I stopped pissing my friends and family off because I no longer bothered them about joining MLMs. Those days were finally over, and I had learned some bitter lessons over that.

That said, I will not be overly harsh on those who are promoting their MLMs and are doing the same thing that I did nearly 2 decades ago. That is because many of them may not even know that legitimate work at home jobs really do exist. And back nearly 2 decades ago, there was not much real work at home options other than MLM, and stuffing envelopes did not count either.

However, these people who are adding their Facebook friends to groups that are about their MLMs for the purpose of making money off of them need to quit doing that. They are not only pissing off their friends. Especially when they are the ones who contact old classmates on Facebook from high school who they had nothing to do with and suddenly show interest in them. That is only because they want to sell them their MLM product and recruit them into the ‘business’. There is nothing that is more irritating than that.

If Facebook had existed when I was part of those MLM scams, that is most definitely the route I would have gone too. And, I am glad that Facebook did not exist at the time because that would have made things even more awkward and difficult.

So now, it is time to quit with the MLM bullshit and start looking into legitimate ways to make money from home without having to spend an arm and leg, or anything for that matter except for actual business expenses.

Here are ways that you can make money from home in a legitimate manner.

Freelancing

Freelancing is not everyone’s cup of tea because you have competition and you may end up finding clients that will nickel and dime you. If that happens, then you just have to stay bold and not allow anyone to do that and tell them that you cannot help them.

However, if you want to give Freelancing a shot, then you could do really well with it! I have no doubt. All you need to do is utilize your best skills and even take courses in enhancing it so you can offer services for people which involve your skills.

You can join freelancing sites like Upwork, however, I don’t highly recommend it because you have to bid on work and you could end up finding a client that is expecting you to do a lot for very little money. That is why I highly recommend Fiverr as a starting point.

You can set and increase your own prices, you can offer services such as writing, editing, and proofreading, social media creation and management, virtual assistance, SEO services, graphic design, and so much more. Whatever you are great at and whatever you enjoy doing, then make money by selling services that involve your skills.

And, just remember. Those who are looking to hire you to provide them with a service that you can do are the ones who you will make money off of. Not by bothering friends, family members, and old classmates to join your MLM team and getting them angry at the same time.

Another great thing about starting out on Fiverr is that clients will find you and hire you to do some work for them. And, you can build a portfolio of the work you have done. Then, you can take it a step further and look for freelance jobs through Indeed. The odds of you being hired by other companies will be higher since you’ll have a portfolio to show them. And, with patience and consistency of looking for other freelancing opportunities, you will end up making quite a bit of money the legitimate way.

And you don’t have to rely on Indeed. If you want to do freelance writing, there are other places to find potential work and clients:

ProBlogger

BloggingPro

All Freelance Writing Job Board

Canadian Freelance Writing Jobs?and you don’t have to be Canadian to find work there.

Contena (but just know it is not free to join, but it comes with a good quality course that will help you with pitching clients).

If you still don’t like the idea of freelancing and you want to find a legitimate work at home job, then the good news is that is possible. And, there are some excellent resources that I will be sharing with you that offer you work at home jobs regardless of where you live.

Legitimate Work At Home Jobs

There are so many work at home jobs around that I cannot possibly put each company that is hiring remote workers. Some of these companies that are hiring remote workers do have some requirements, depending on the job. For instance, if you want to be an online tutor, you will need to have a Bachelor degree or a Teaching degree.

What I will do now is share some excellent resources that have the information that you are looking for on companies that are hiring remote workers regardless of where they live:

The Balance Careers

Glassdoor Blog Post (July 2018)

Forbes Article (September 2018)

Go Banking Rates Article (October 2018)

Dream Home Based Work

WAHM.com

The Work At Home Woman

Rat Race Rebellion

The Zety Work At Home Guide

The Zety Guide For 60 Great Job Ideas For SAHMs

Home Working Club Online Jobs

These resources should keep you busy for a long time! And, if you want to make money by selling crafts, you can always join Etsy and share and sell your creativity through there.

My point is that there are sooooo many options that will provide you with real work at home opportunities regardless of which one you choose. And, that said, there is no need to have a thing to do with MLM again! Stay away from the pyramid schemes out there because that is what MLM is!