Archive for Life as a WAHM
Top Ten Tips for Being a WAHM
Posted by: | CommentsDeciding to be come a work at home mum/mom (WAHM) can be extremely rewarding, but often also requires a balancing act. Many mums have told me one of the main reasons they wanted to work from home is to spend more time with their children and families, but they end up working crazy hours, or family life can overtake work time. Here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way to help you juggle both.
Are you ready to outsource?
Posted by: | CommentsA problem experience by many small and home businesses is simply the time to do it all, and still try to have a life somewhere in there. But what can you do?
You’ve been working hard on your business, and things are picking up speed. Often, you have more work than you can handle, and find yourself constantly working ‘in’ the business and never on your business. Sound familiar? I have definately been there myself, and it is an extremely common problem for work at home mums. You really aren’t ready to bring on an employee, but what can you do to keep up with everything? It is time to consider outsourcing some of that work.
Outsourcing is becoming an increasingly popular way for small businesses and solo-preneurs to increase productivity while keeping costs under control.
The best place to begin outsourcing is with a task that you don’t do well or one you don’t particularly enjoy doing. You should spend your time working on what you are best at in your business, what makes the business stand out and that no one else can do as well as you.
When you are struggling with a project or regular task due to lack of skills or lack of interest, it is bound to slow you down and take more time than it needs to from your hectic schedule. By outsourcing that task, you eliminate the time drain and the frustration. You are freed up to work on tasks that are in your expertise, which adds to your bottom line.
A quality outsource partner will spend time understanding what you need as well as what you want in your business. By carefully looking at your target market, your products and services, your desired outcomes and your budget, you will work together to develop a plan. Once all the necessary information is gathered, your new virtual partner will complete your project while you devote your time to other things.
Outsourcing can be used for a wide variety of office tasks. From accounting and payroll to content production to graphics and websites, outsourcing can help you add an extra pair of hands to your small business – which translates to extra hours in your work week.
If you’re already taking advantage of this, what do you outsource? For those who are new to outsourcing, take the time to think what tasks you would like to be rid of, and then go for it!
My daughter has been happily entertained for three hours
Posted by: | CommentsAnd it’s all thanks to this amazing playdough recipe! I spent quite literally 20 minutes making two batches of this playdough for her yesterday, and she has now sat happily at the table making all sorts of creations for hours on end. Costing just small change to make, this recipe is an absolute must for the busy work at home mum!
No Cook Playdough Recipe
Ingrediants:
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 of a cup of cold water (you may need a little more or less, just depending on your batch)
A liberal amount of food colouring (I used about half of those little bottles you get in the four packs)
1 Tbs of vegetable oil (or any cheap cooking oil)
Method:
Sift flour into a large bowl, then add salt and mix together.Add the tablespoon of oil to the mix, and stir well to combine.
Add the food colouring to your water and gradually add to your dry ingrediants (I found about 1/3 at a time worked well). Stir until mixture resemebles a crumbly dough.
Tip out on the bench and kneed for a good few minutes. The dough will come together and become smooth. This is a great time to kneed in a bit of glitter, which my daughter just loves. If your playdough is a bit wet at this stage, just kneed in a bit of extra flour too.
That’s it! Will keep for ages in the fridge, and if they mix up colours or spread it all over the floor, just make another batch. I will never buy expensive pre-made dough again.
Enjoy!
And now for something completely different …
Posted by: | CommentsAre you busy? I know I am – being a working mum means very little time to myself, especially now in school holidays. However, it’s the me time that keeps you going when your three year old draws on the wall with crayon (note to self: keep crayons on the top shelf!) or when you have a tough client or just a plain old bad day.
Here are a few tips I have to make sure you get some ‘me time’, what do you do?
#1 Add it to your schedule. That sounds like a given, right? Yet many people skip this step. They schedule doctor’s appointments and children’s playdates but not time for themselves.
#2 Make it routine. When something becomes a habit, part of our normal routine and lifestyle, we’re more likely to do it and more likely to miss it if you skip it. Creating regular me time whether it is daily or weekly is a great way to make and keep a commitment to take care of yourself.
#3 Partner up. If you know other work at home mums, then they too are probably looking for a little me time. Consider partnering with them for childcare. You can swap and watch each other’s children, without the huge costs of childcare.
#4 Ask your family for help. Often partners just don’t notice how frazzled you are unless you tell them. However it pays to create a plan in advance. Create a plan of action and present it to your family asking for their support.
#5 Learn to say no to others and yes to yourself. There’s always something else that needs to be done. Always. Learn to say no and to prioritise your tasks, keeping in mind that you are always top priority.
How do you take some time for yourself? I’d love to hear your advice 
.
Taking Us Mums For Granted
Posted by: | Comments“In our own world today, motherhood is rarely sufficiently honoured. One day each year, there are brunches and corsages and little gifts of love. But the rest of the time? As a culture, we do not respect that great gift of mothering. Women’s work in raising the next generation is taken for granted. Yet it is a vital service to humanity one that deserves to be acknowledged continually.”
This post on Nicole’s Modern Goddess Blog really struck a chord with me, as a mother of two young children I see this line of thinking everywhere, mothering being taken for granted. In fact even my husband thinks like that to a certain degree, you know with the old, “what have you done today dear” line every now and then when he comes from work.
Well let’s see, I got out of bed, did 2 loads of washing, hung them out, folded and put away the 2 loads from yesterday. I ironed the clothes for the day, made lunches, made breakfasts, did a general tidy, stopped the kids from squabbling, drove the kids to school, came home made the beds, swept the floor, played with my daughter and read her story and it isn’t even 10 am yet…..would you like me to continue with the rest of the day dear??? As the years pass I see more and more people wondering what us ‘mothers’ really do all day.
It’s not until you swap places or that they have a baby themselves that can begin to fathom the monumentous task that we tackle each and every day. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. My children are the absolute light of my life and I cherish each and every day I have with them, I am so blessed to have been given the opportunity to be their mother.
And once again I am blessed to be reminded of what is really important by my dear friend Nicole, The Modern Goddess.
Too Much Time On Your Hands
Posted by: | CommentsFor many new work at home mums business doesn’t just start rolling in the door from day one. Building your business is damn hard work but it also brings a great deal of satisfaction as well.
Often new business owners seem to have a lot of time on their hands waiting for the phone to ring or for orders to come in so that they have something to do. Remember that old saying, ‘A watched pot never boils.’ How true is that and what a chuckle I got reading Jacqui’s blog post about waiting for her emails to come into her inbox and hitting refresh over and over again.
I am sure we’ve been guilty of it, just sitting staring blindly at the computer screen waiting for it do something, anything would be nice 
Is this you? Do you find yourself doing this regularly? How do you stop yourself from hitting that refresh button over and over again or from checking your send/recieve button on your inbox?
You’re going somewhere
Posted by: | CommentsOk just a quick one tonight, but you really must jump over to the Diva Days blog and check out this You Tube Video and song, it’s awesome. Just another to add to the confidence boost that us WAHM’s need to not only give to each other but also to ourselves.
Enjoy the song and let me know what you think. Click here >>>
How’s Your Confidence?
Posted by: | CommentsThis thing called confidence seems to rear it’s ugly head quite a bit in the work at home mum world. Why is that? Why did we go from being confident, well organised career women, to someone that hides at home hoping that maybe our little business might just make us some money one day.
Why are we unable to stand up and be proud about what we are doing, after all it is the most challenging and difficult job in the world. If you actually think for a moment about all of the skills required for us to just maintain an efficient schedule and get through each day then surely we should have confidence in there somewhere.
It saddens me to see this with the WAHM world. I wonder that just because we aren’t in our little 3m x 3m cubicle in a 20 story office building that what we are doing isn’t seen to be overly valuable. Is that why we WAHM’s lack confidence? The Tall Poppy Blog discusses these sorts of issues all of the time in regards to women in general and Anne from the Tall Poppy has created ‘Confidence In A Box’. Now how neat would that be if we could just go down to the local store and ask for a box of confidence each week in the grocery shopping, that would surely make things easier wouldn’t!
Anne has asked has to help spread the Confidence In A Box around the world so here is my gift from Anne to me to you – ‘Confidence In A Box’.
Are You A Goddess?
Posted by: | CommentsOk this may sound a little off track for my blog, but I need to keep reminding myself that although I may have my own work from home business and although I may be a mother of two and a wife, housekeeper and all the other labels I could so easily list here. The number one thing that I am is “Me” and I need to remind myself of that.
Nicole from the Modern Goddess has done some many wonderful things for me in the short time I have known her. She has given me the courage to look within and spend some time getting to know me. In essence she is helping me find my inner Goddess.
When was the last time you really thought about you, we get so caught up in the busyness of our everyday lives that ‘we’ often get overlooked. Maybe, just maybe if you were to spend more time on you then everything else in your life, including your business would be so much more successful.
I urge you to visit Nicole’s blog and to read it regularly she shares some wonderful information and is truly a beautiful being and I am blessed to have met her (albeit only online). In fact she recently put up this fun quiz asking if you are a Goddess, so jump over and take the quiz, see you there soon.
Looking For A Laptop
Posted by: | CommentsMy husband and I have decided that it’s time to get ourselves a laptop, well technically, get me a laptop That way I can atleast work whilst being in the same room as my family instead of being locked away in my own little office. I can take it with me anywhere and I can still work (even though I don’t call what I do work) but I will have that access whenever I need to.
We started researching and looking around just a few days ago and ‘wow’ it seems a whole new ball game from buying a standard PC. Not only do we need to consider all of the laptop capabilities but now we also have a whole new range of software to look at as well. With the recent launch of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 and then all the varying levels within each of these packages, which one do we choose!!!
It sure isn’t an easy process and one that will take some time for us to decide on which is the right one for us. Have you been down this road? Do you have any feedback that may help me on my quest for my new laptop? I’d really appreciate hearing from you.
Are You The Mum You Dreamed You’d Be?
Posted by: | CommentsSo are you? I know that even though I work from home there are many areas about being a mum that I can really improve on, so what about you? My friend Crystal is, ok so it has taken her a while for her to get to that but she is now living the life she dreamt about before she had her kids. Man do I envy that!
She’s been lucky enough to live her dream for some time now and has created a fabulous website called Happy Mommy News, where she helps other mums just like you and me at Becoming The Mom Of Your Dreams Crystal has an array of resources there covering many areas of a mum’s life.
In fact she is about to do a Live Free Teleseminar, that you can find more details about at Be A Great Mom where she will share some of her hints and tips to a harmonious and happy mum life. Plus it doesn’t matter if you miss the teleseminar she will be emailing out the transcripts so you can read them at your leisure, but you had better be quick cause the teleseminar is on the 13th of Febuary! Be A Great Mom hope to see you there, cause I know I will be.
Today is D-Day
Posted by: | CommentsWell my fellow WAHM’s today is the 1st of Febuary, the official launch of our Private e-networking group.
Are you a member yet?
It’s not too late to join us, a small, close knit, private group of like mined mums that all very serious about their businesses. If you would like some more info have a read of this post.
We are just about to get underway, with challenges, website critiques and so much more.
I can’t wait to get started and am so excited about sharing this with other WAHM’s.
Success Stories
Posted by: | CommentsDo you consider yourself a success with your online business?
Then we want to hear from you. We are compiling work at mum success stories to share with other mums that have either just launched their website or are considering entering the online world, working from home.
We’d love to showcase your story and your website as part of our success stories feature, in our new website, which is due to launch very soon. If you like to know more please contact us at info@oz-e-wahm.com
Looking forward to sharing in your success.
Networking Group
Posted by: | CommentsWell I must say I am pleasantly surprised at the response we’ve received for the Oz-e-wahm Private Networking Group. I’ve been so busy conversing with, approving and listing new and potential members into the group that I think I will need to restrict new applications to a few days a month. We’ll see how we go over the next few weeks with it all.
We are all in the process of introducing ourselves and our websites, getting to know each other and what we all do.
Febuary 1st will be upon us before I know it and then we’ll be off and running with everything in full swing within the group.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to network in a private environment with like minded individuals, we have limited spaces in the various Business Type categories and they are filling fast. Read all of the details here.
Losing A Child
Posted by: | CommentsMy baby boy is starting Prep this year and it only just hit me this past week that I’m not going to see him much during the week anymore; I am effectively losing a child; well sort of anyway! I mean I always realised what the school hours were, being 9 – 3, but you know it hit me like a ton of bricks that my first born baby is far from a baby.
I have some very mixed emotions about him starting school, he is definitely ready for all of the exiting new challenges that lay ahead of him, not too mention the fact that I will now only have one child at home with me during school hours. Although I’m not so sure if that is going to be any help in me getting more work done lol!!
So we have two weeks left of the school holidays and we are making the most of them. My computer just has to wait because spending some precious time with my son is coming first for a change.
I am sure I’m not the only one that has kidlets starting school this year? How are you all feeling about that big leap into the outside world?
Happy New Year To All
Posted by: | CommentsWell here we are, 2007 already, I tell you life is just passing me by. But I’m really looking forward to this year. I’ve spent quite some time learning and now this is the year where I put what I’ve learnt into practice. Fingers crossed it all pays off.
If you missed some recent posts we are starting a small network of like mineded people, take a read of this post for more details. We’d love to see you there, the more the merrier as the saying goes.
Also I am contributing now to the She-essence Blog, I am really excited about this but also am experiencing a fair amount of trepidation – man I need to come up with informative regular posts for someone else’s blog – eeeeekkkkk!!! Wish me luck and stop on over and check it. I’ll be easy to find, I’m the Oz-e-wahm
Is Your Business Run Online?
Posted by: | CommentsOr would you love to have a purely online business? Running an online business has many varying factors and things change so rapidly in the online world that it is often quite difficult to keep up with the rat race.
We here at Oz-e-wahm got to thinking that a few heads have to be better than one, when staying ahead of the game.
I am excited to introduce you to our Private e-Networking Community for Oz-e-wahm’s. A place to learn, network, gain support and new skills all in a totally private, non confronting environmnet, with very little competition.
We will be covering topics such as Websites, building them, content and critiques; blogging, audio, online advertising, business ideas, affiliate marketing, website traffic and email campaigns, plus more.
I’d like to thank She-essence for giving us this opportunity of partnering with them to allow this to come to frutition. All of our private e-networking will take place on the She-essence Message Boards. If you would like to find out more then please take a moment and read this thread which gives you all of the details.
Looking forward to talking business with you.
WAHM’s isn’t time you took a break?
Posted by: | CommentsOk so if you took advantage of the last post by now you should be feeling a whole lot better about yourself thanks to Alice Seba and the Hot Mamma Makeover.
But when was the last time you actually took a break from your work, took some time out just for yourself, made some new friends and had a chat over a cuppa. Well you need to stop by and check out She-essence a women friendly forum for us girls to just chill out, relax, unwind and make some new friends.
We chat about anything and everything and currently some of us are being treated to a wonderful Angel Reading by one of our very talented members. We are also joining forces to create menu plans and budgets to assist all of us in our homes.
There is always something fun happening over at the site and if you happen to have an area of expertise the site is always on the lookout for resident experts and forum moderators.
Hope to see you there soon – She-essence
Are You A Hot Mamma?
Posted by: | CommentsOk have you let yourself go since you’ve had the kids and started working from home? Do you struggle to get into the groove? When was the last time you had a haircut or your eyebrows waxed or did something nice just for you? Just because you might work from home doesn’t mean you don’t get to take care of yourself.
C’mon now when was it? Can you remember that last bit of pampering you had?
Ok so working from home does have it’s major benefits, one of which is that I don’t need to dress for the corporate world. But you know what on the days I do make a little effort I always feel so much better for it, don’t you?
If your anything like me you’ve probably let yourself go a little in recent years. Well don’t you think it’s time to get that groove back, time to bring that Hot Mamma out of the wardrobe. My friend Alice Seba wrote this FREE guide to help you find your Hot Mamma again. Just click on the link, download the pdf and it’s yours.
Free Craft Books and Projects
Posted by: | CommentsOk I just found this site offering Free Crafty stuff. So for those of you into crafts stop by and check it out.
Download Free Craft Books and Projects
Not all it’s cracked up to be!
Posted by: | CommentsPhew! Being a WAHM isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean by working from home I am supposed to still have time to keep the house, play with the kids and even get a little time to myself but I tell you these past few weeks are getting harder and harder. I keep getting more and more work and need to squeeze it all into the same hours I have always had available….plus get some sleep in there somewhere;)
At least one of my major jobs is pretty much sorted. I have been working on my new scrapbooking site, www.allthingsscrapbooking.com and it is now finally live. The site certainly has a long way to go and I need to get to it and add some much needed resources but it’s live and it’s out there and that’s a load off.
Anyway, I guess I should stop chatting here and get to the rest of my work before I run out of time again.
Save The Internet
Posted by: | CommentsDo you use the internet? For business or pleasure if you use the internet at all and you haven’t been keeping up with the save ‘the save the internet’ website then you really need to. Have a look at the links below and see for yourself what is trying to be passed through congress, it will shock you.
Take a moment to read this
Then go on over and sign the petition to save the internet
You can also read more about it on the
If you use the internet in any way I really hope you take a moment to read the details and sign the petition.
I’m A WAHM…..
Posted by: | CommentsAnd just in case you aren’t sure what that is….Work At Home Mum…and I love it! Hey it certainly isn’t a breeze like all of my family and friends seem to think it is. Like you I’m sure, I wear so many hats and just because I go into my ‘office’ doesn’t mean that I can just shut the door to what is going on in the rest of the household.
I have my ups and downs and many, many late nights sitting here in front of my computer but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have two adorable children and a fantastic husband what more could a girl want!
