More and more peope are discovering the benefits of running their business from a home office. Some build out fancy and impressive home offices while others simply work at the kitchen table.  All sorts of businesses can be run from a home office, and even professionals like lawyers and accountants are starting to discover this.

But sometimes home business do hit some limits. A physical address in a commercial office building can help a business look more professional. Traditional office buildings can also provide meeting rooms for traning, team meetings or client consultations. There is a simple and affordable solution.

The virtual office provides a great way to meet business clients or hold team meetings, have a physical address for ads or verification, and keep rent low. You can often find deals for less than $100 a month. Many business people know that impressing important clients with a nice conference room or having a spacke for team meetings is worth a lot more than that!

An affordable virtual office can help you grow your business without ruining the advantages of doing most of your work from home!

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It is fairly easy to get cynical about work at home opportunities because we have heard about so many scams, or maybe even gotten involved in some fairly shady schemes that really did not work out very well. But there are many people who have either started, or continue to, run real legitimate and useful businesses from their homes. Sometimes they even hire other home workers, and so they provide work at home jobs.

Many of these opportunities can be started part-time with a very small investment. So they are the type of small businesses where a person can dip a toe in, as they say, to see how it works out. Then they could expand or contract as the individual owner requires.

Food Catering Business: The general term, food catering, actually covers a lot of niche businesses. They could range from specialized mobile catering or lunch trucks to preparing gourmet treats for business events and weddings to delivering healthy meals in the same way that a pizza man delivers, well, pizza!

This can be simple or complicated. Some areas may require a licensed kitchen in order to prepare food for sale. If you run a snack truck where you only sell pre-packaged food from wholesale distributors or if you prepare food at the customer’s house or location (personal chef), you will need much less paperwork than if you want to prepare the food on your own site and deliver it.

You may be able to cater from home, but in many locations you would need a seperate commercial kitchen. Legally, you probably cannot use your family kitchen. However, many flexible caterers have solved this problem by renting (or working out an agreement) with a local church or similar organization that does maintain a commercial kitchen.

Otherwise, the rest of the business like planning, meeting clients, or advertising for more clients, can be done from a home office.

Party Planner:Again, this could cover anything from planning a toddler’s first birthday part to a wedding with 300 guests. It all depends upon your own particular expertise, talents, and ambitions.

Virtual Assistant: This field is actually growing right now. As small businesses try to control costs, they are more willing to hire out certain tasks. Of course, the particular tasks you would be open for will depend upon your skills, abilities, and training.

You may work purely from home, over the Internet or a phone, setting appointments, filling out spreadsheets, handling social media (i.e. Facebook, etc.), or handling customer service. If you are mobile, small businesses may need somebody to run errands, hand out fliers, or man booths at local events.

Real Business Ideas?

If you have any other real business ideas, we invite your comments!

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Here is a booming business in the offline world that may surprise you. Thrift shops are moving from the dusty places we used to sneak into to brightly lit stores, that are even getting franchised, that are so popular that even teens like them! If you are not familiar with the new wave in second hand shops, you may want to read this: Thrift Shops Are In!

How Can Second Hand Shopping Be A Good Home Business?

Look, the simplest form of this is hardly new. I used to know a couple of people who woud snatch up great deals at garage sales, and then hold their own garage sales with markups to earn money! They had learned what sorts of things peope who shopped garage sales wanted to buy, and had learned how to find them fast at other sales. This was a simple form of on the street arbitrage!

But I am not suggesting you do this. I am suggesting that this is a great idea of an ecommerce website or even EBay store.

Lower Profit Margins Still Equal More Profit

In an upscale used clothing store, for example, they may sell gently used brand name clothes for about 1/3 of the retail price. In return, they will buy those items for 1/3 to 1/2 of that. Those stores have a lot of overhead like rent, utilities, and employees. You, on the other hand, have less overhead if you do this from home on the internet!

So where they may pay $8 for a $60 pair of Abercrombie jeans (that has been gently worn), and then retail it for $20. You may be able to profit by paying a bit more and selling for a bit less. Just remember you will have to recoup shipping charges most of the time. So you could pay $10, and sell for $15 with a $3 shipping charge. You are still coming in for less, and paying more. You can probably operate at a lower profit margin than a big brick and mortar store can!

Consider a Second Hand Online Business!

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I am always on the lookout for home business ideas that are fairly quick to train for, but which can be run as actual full or part time businesses. I just got a call from a friend who is a full time para-legal, but who runs a commercial notary public business in the evenings, one week-ends, and on alternate Fridays which his flex hours give him off. Now, I understand that is is common for para-legals, and other types of legal assistants, to act as notaries. But I was still interessted enough to do a little more research.

How Much Do Notaries Make?

You may have taken advantage of free notary services at your bank or place of business. Some companies keep a notary on their staff, and they provide free services to their customers or employees. This is because fees are regulated at a state level. Individual fees are fairly low. But commercial transaction fees are higher, like $100, so some notaries make a business as a signing notary. Some are mobile notaries, and they will travel to different offices, like title companies, to put their seal on contract.  Even though fees are strictly regulated, it may be possible to also charge for travel expenses.

Here is an example of a Houston Mobile Notary website.

Notary Public Training and Certification

Notary Training requirements may vary by state, but even in states where it is not requires, most associations recommend it. We found an online notary course which can be completed in about 3 hours for $25. We also found a reference to a 1 day course which was given in a college setting.

Notary Certification requires also vary by state. In some states you will need to pass a state test, but in other states you just have to apply, be over 18 years, have no felony record, and be a legal resident of your state. You will have to pay a fee for your state application, be bonded, and pay for some supplies.  Notary associations also recommend purchasing an E&O policy to protect yourself against any claims of eerrors.

This may seem like a lot of requirements, but I found information that one association sold a package for Texas residents which only cost $79 for everything. Even if you add in another $25 for an online class, your initial investment is only a little over $100. This can almost be recouped in your first commercial transaction.

More Information

This website has a lot of information on becoming a Texas notary. You can certainly find similar online information for your state.

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Home offices can be deducted for:

One – Exclusively and regularly as either: your principal place of business, or as a place to meet or deal with patients, clients or customers in the normal course of your business. Where there is a separate structure not attached to your home, the regular and exclusive use does not need to be your principal place of business as long as the use is in connection with your trade or business.

Two – On a regular basis for certain storage use — such as storing inventory or product samples — as rental property, or as a home daycare facility.

So if you have a room that you use for your business (i.e. a home office) or you have a storage space you use for your business, you should be able to satisfy one of the criteria.

In general, you can dedcuct the percentage of your home expenses that is the equal to the percentage of your home you use. For example, if your home is 2200 square feet, and your home office is 220 feed, you would be able to use 10% as the amount of certain home expenses you can use to deduct.

Advantages of Building a Home Office

This plan has worked out for a couple of types of home business owners I know. Rather than renting office space or using space inside their homes, they built an outside structure on their property. They could take advantage of the home office deductions (read the IRS guidelines for clarification), and use their money to increase the asset value of their home because of the home office building!

Do you have more home office tax tips or comments? Sign up for free to post.

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I was browsing some social bookmarking websites, like Digg, and noticed that articles about unemployed college grads are getting a lot of buzz (diggs). Actually this story is not new, but seems to appear during every economic downturn.

College graduates leave school, some with a lot of debt, and then they cannot seem to find anybody to hire them because they lack experience. And how can they get experience to make them more competitive in a tight market when they cannot find that first real job?

Should the Law School Graduate Mow Lawns?

I even saw a post where the man had his JD (law degree), and he could not find work so went back to take post-doctoral work, probably so he could stave off paybacks on loans. But with all of this guys education and honors, he still wailed about the state of the economy.

Heck, the guy who mowed my lawn was displaced from New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. He borrowed a lawn mower and a truck and started knockig on dooors, and now he has a business, employees, and also a shiny new truck and lawn tools.  He probably makes more money now than lots of lawyers do.

Am I suggesting that the JD should mow lawns? Well not really, though that is an honorable and legal way to make a living. What I am suggesting is that this guy does not need a six figure job at a fancy law office to be a lawyer. In fact, I know several lawyers who are very happy to run modest law firms from their kitchen tables.

I am sure that there must be some lawyer-type work this guy could do which does not take a lot of experience, like helping people with business forms, etc. I also read the demand for para-legals is very high right now, and that includes a lot of freelance paralegal work. Maybe this guy should try to take that on, get a good reputation, and then network himself into a real lawyer job.

How Does that Apply to Other Unemployed College Graduates?

OK, so you are reading this and you do not have a law degree. You just completed a 4 year college or university, and your degree is in English or Government, etc., and you need a job without any real skills to hang up a shingle, or so you think.

But you do have have skills or you could not have completed your education. Can you tutor middle school students, do freelance writing, or find work with a non-profit agency? If you are enterprising, maybe you could self-publish a book, start a blog, or become active in an online or offline community that interests you. All I am saying here is that activity generates results, and the lack of activity does not.

I have brought in some of my best clients and projects because I was involved in community service, busy promoting ideas, or chasing a wild goose. It sounds like a cliche, but you may need to think outside the box, decide that you will have to generate your own first job rather than be hired for it, and approach your problem sideways.

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Here are some ideas for some very simple home based businesses that require very little startup money, special skills, or time. They can be started out of a kitchen table, and can also be performed on a part-time or moonlighting basis. This list is not all-inclusive by any means but should give you some ideas for futher research.

• EBay Seller – If you read about many very successful online auction sellers, you will find that many started by selling the things they no longer wanted around their own home. Do you have obselete video games, outgrown clothes, or books you have already read around the house? If so, you already have some inventory to go ahead and test the waters as an EBay seller.
• Yard Care – Not all work-at-home jobs must be based upon the internet. The guy who mows my lawn started out because he was displaced during a hurricane. He borrowed an old truck and a lawn mower, and he started knocking on doors where he saw some unkept lawns. As luck would have it, one of my neighbors runs a property company, and she ended up hiring him for her business after using him on her own lawn. Now he is so busy it is hard to get him, and he ended up buying a new truck, new equipment, and hiring employees.
• Pet Sitting/Dog Walking – I met a lady on the beach who was relaxing because she could now hire employees to walk dogs and pet sit. She started out promoting herself in a neighborhood newspaper, and then expanded to regional ads.
• Mystery Shoppers – Again, I spoke with a woman who made $1,500 one summer, and also got some great goodies and free meals, by doing mystery shopping. I think it is hard to make a full time income, but it can be a fun and flexible way to earn some extra cash.
• Online Freelancers – The internet has generated a lot of demand for freelance work, which could be anything from article writing to programming. Visit some webmaster forums and find a buy/sell/trade section where you will see jobs for hire. You may need special technical skills for some of them, but you do not need much more than the ability to write or fill out forms for others.
• Professional Organizers – Are you organized? Well, it may not suprise you that many people and even businesses are not organized. And they will pay a person to help them get things in order. There is a growing demand for people who will come in and get things cleaned up, both at home and in an office.

No matter what you’re good at, you are sure to find a market for that skill. The only real thing that is holding you back from starting a home based business is your own fear.

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