Author Archive

It’s fun to be in your 50s and to realize that you are doing something that is considered “cutting edge”!  The newest buzzword being bantered about is “Lifestyle Entrepreneur” and apparently - according to the media folks that have been calling and emailing us over the last few months - we are the epitomy of the new wave of “lifestyle entreprenurs”.

Cool, huh?Okay, so now you probably want to know what a lifestyle entrepreneur is right? It’s folks like us that have walked away from corporate America to pursue more than just the dream of building our own business empires - but a whole different way of life…..a whole new entrepreneurial lifestyle.

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Work At Home Couples - 5 Survival Tips!When I first tell people that I work from home - they are so envious! But when I tell them I work from home with my husband…….they are so horrified! The usual comments range from “we would kill each other in less than a week” to “why not just get the divorce now and save the time?”……but the truth is we have been working side by side now for almost 6 years, and we actually still enjoy it! Bob and I spent years on the road in outside sales before we met and married, so staying home and actually being able to enjoy our home is a new treat for us both. Bob is 62, and I am 52 (soon 53….) and we love living a life that lets us ignore the alarm clock, enjoy the morning routine of coffee and paper on the deck, and in general, just simply enjoy life! Still, we have learned a few tips to working with your spouse that might come in handy if you and your partner are considering a work from home venture:1) Schedule regular meetings during the week, or even daily over morning coffee to discuss projects, goals and tasks. Be specific in descriptions!2) Assign the tasks to a specific person - don’t just expect your partner to know what needs to be done - don’t assume that because you are living under the same roof that your partner can read your mind3) Don’t keep asking your partner for “updates” all day - trust your partner to get done whatever is on her/his agenda……at least until he or she proves that they need to be nagged ;-)4) Know your strengths, your skill sets, your individual knowledgebases and make use of them! If you are better at techie stuff - you handle the web site - don’t force your partner to take on tasks that are uncomfortable for them early in the game. Ease into the new things - as time goes on and you both become more adept at things - tackling new challenges (such as learning to install that new database!) becomes fun…..not daunting!5) Don’t critique unless asked and never criticize. Make gentle suggestions, re-write and re-work together - you both have great ideas and you both have the same goal - to run a successful business and to have the best possible life together - so remember that when you think you need to make a negative statement about your partner’s work. This is the person you want to go to bed with tonight - gentle persuasion goes a lot farther than harsh criticism!! Working at home with your partner or spouse is a wonderful way to live!!

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Working at home is fun and trust me - my hubby and I would not have it any other way - but you also have to be very disciplined to make it work. Working at home with your spouse? Then, some guidelines are even more important to make sure that you have some “divided” time between work and play.1) Date nights are important for all couples - but even more so when you work at home together. Find time to enjoy each other without discussing business!2) Make sure you schedule in exercise during the daily routine. This is especially important if you are running an online business - it’s easy for the hours to fly by while sitting in front of the computer - exercising brain cells IS important but you need to keep the rest of the body in motion as well!3) Share household duties. Working at home means that you are BOTH there and should both be able to dive in and do laundry or cook a meal. This might sound trivial but I am amazed at the number of couples that fight over who should vacuum…get over it! You are now working from home - it’s untraditional…..get over the rest of the “traditions” and share ALL of the responsibilities!4) It’s okay for you each to have your own home based business - some work at home ideas for women will not necessarily be especially appealing to the men in their lives, and that is okay! Work at home couples are not necessarily joined at the hip - you can still work at home in relative bliss - each on your own project!5) Keep each updated on the business. Either half of a couple should be at least knowledgeable enough about the what the other is doing that you can at least “cover” for a bit if needed, due to illness, other committments, etc. being able to “cover does not mean that you need to be able to perform your partner’s specific duties just as well as he/she does - but you should have at least enough knowledge that you can temporarily either take over these tasks or outsource them until the situation is back to normal.More tips coming from Bob and Melody, The Work At Home Couple!Post A Comment!

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Okay - fair enough question! First of all - that really isn’t us on the home page. I know, I know, shocking but we are tad bit older than those two (okay, they could be our kids…), but we just didn’t want this whole “expert” thingy to get too serious on us……But the truth is - we ARE pretty darned good at what we do, and what we do is make a very nice living, working from home, creating multiple streams of income. So, after giving out free advice to all of our friends and family for years about what we do and more importantly, WHY we do what we do….we thought that we would set up this blog to spread the word that making a living on line is not only possible…..but it’s fun and can be very financially rewarding (yup, you really can make mega bucks online without being a total tech head!)

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No - there isn’t much here just yet - but give us a couple of weeks!

The goal of this site is to help couples fnd a way to not only start a new business online - but to create multiple streams of income without killing each other in the process!

Yes, it can be done!

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