Afford to Stay Home

I don't pretend to be an expert...

I work a full-time job.

For those of us who have a dream of working from home, whether you're a young mother, a single dad, a person nearing retirement (but wants to take an easier and more fun route to make money), or a person who finds it hard to fit in the 9 - 5 "mold", - whatever your circumstance - the common denominator and burning desire is to be your own boss.

Can we afford to quit our traditional "day job" to come home?

I come from a long background of family members who worked from home.

My grandfather started a dairy farm back in the 1920's. In addition to the farm during the Great Depression, he trucked produce from his farm in Orange County, New York to New York City - which was 75 miles away! In those days, trucks (and roads) were not what are today!

Sometime in the 1930's, he built a small roadside "stand" for my Grandmother to work during summer hours. She sold beer (on tap and in bottles), soda (pop) distributed from a local business ("Sweeney" beverages), Hershey's ice cream, and flipped hamburgers when the hard-working farmers and others came in to break for lunch.

I was a little girl in the late 1950's standing behind the curtain that separated the the room where patrons were served and the kitchen which was a private area where there was a stove, sink, table, chairs and a couch. My sister and I daily peeked through the curtain to a life of hard-working, hungry black-dirt and dairy farmers along with other locals that came to take a break to laugh with friends, share a bit of local gossip and relax from the toils of life.

This was business!

After my dad married my mother in 1944, he moved into the house that was part of my grandfather's dairy farm. Along with my grandfather, he also worked the hard business of a farmer - milking cows, planting and harvesting corn, "getting hay" and more. My dad was his own mechanic because he had to know how to fix things when they broke down.

In the 1960's after my grandfather suffered several health setbacks, my father took over the farm totally. My father had no boys - just us three girls... and guess what?

My sisters and I worked the farm side by side with my father. And yes, he was a stay-at-home dad.

At this point I want to say, this was not a glamorous life...being girls and also being kids, we wanted to play - ride our bikes, wade in the brook and catch frogs, climb trees and later (when we got older) paint our fingernails and socialize with our friends. No, at that time we did not appreciate that we had to be there to help work the farm - the animals had to be tended to every day.

But this life taught us how to be responsible and ... WORK! And looking back in retrospect, my sisters and I had my father at home every day when we got off the bus from school!