Work At Home Mom 911

Breakfast Frittata

Prep and Cook Time:20 min. 

Ingredients:

½ medium onion, minced
4 medium cloves garlic, chopped
¼ lb ground lamb or turkey
2 + 1 TBS chicken broth
3 cups rinsed and finely chopped kale, (stems removed)
2 whole free range chicken eggs
3 egg whites
salt and black pepper to taste 

Directions:

Preheat broiler on low.  Heat 1 TBS broth in a 9-10 inch stainless steel skillet. Sauté onion over medium heat, for about 3 minutes, stirring often.  Add garlic, ground lamb or turkey, and cook for another 3 minutes on medium heat, breaking up clumps.  Add kale and 2 TBS broth. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook covered about 5 more minutes. Season with salt, pepper and mix.  Beat eggs, season with a pinch of salt and pepper, and pour on top of mixture evenly. Cook on low for another 2 minutes without stirring. 

Put under broiler in middle of oven, about 7 inches from the heat source, on low, so it has time to cook without the top burning. When it gets firm it is done, about 2-3 minutes. 

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars.  This is fast, healthy, filling, and really good.  The kids will even like this with the turkey, not sure about the lamb version.

Being a seller is a lot of responsibility, and sometimes you might feel like you’re not doing everything you should be. This simple checklist will help you keep on top of things.

Have you found out everything you possibly could about your items? Try typing their names into a search engine - you might find out something you didn’t know. If someone else is selling the same thing as you, then always try to provide more information about it than they do.
 
Do you monitor the competition? Always keep an eye on how much other items the same as or similar to yours are selling, and what prices they’re being offered at. There’s usually little point in starting a fixed price auction for $100 when someone else is selling the item for $90.

Have you got pictures of the items? It’s worth taking the time to photograph your items, especially if you have a digital camera. If you get serious about eBay but don’t have a camera, then you will probably want to invest in one at some point.

Are you emailing your sellers? It’s worth sending a brief email when transactions go through: something like a simple “Thank you for buying my item, please let me know when you have sent the payment”. Follow this up with “Thanks for your payment, I have posted your [item name] today”. You will be surprised how many problems you will avoid just by communicating this way.

Also, are you checking your emails? Remember that potential buyers can send you email about anything at any time, and not answering these emails will just make them go somewhere else instead of buying from you.

Do your item description pages have everything that buyers need to know? If you’re planning to offer international delivery, then it’s good to make a list of the charges to different counties and display it on each auction. If you have any special terms and conditions (for example, if you will give a refund on any item as long as it hasn’t been opened), then you should make sure these are displayed too.

Have you been wrapping your items correctly? Your wrapping should be professional for the best impression: use appropriately sized envelopes or parcels, wrap the item in bubble wrap to stop it from getting damaged, and print labels instead of hand-writing addresses. Oh, and always use first class post - don’t be cheap.

Do you follow up? It is worth sending out an email a few days after you post an item, saying “Is everything alright with your purchase? I hope you received it and it was as you expected.” This might sound like giving the customer an opportunity to complain, but you should be trying to help your customers, not take their money and run.

Being a really good eBay seller, more than anything else, is about providing genuinely good and honest customer service. That’s the only foolproof way to protect your reputation. Of course, you might be wondering by now whether it’s really worth all the hassle to get a good reputation on eBay. Won’t people buy from you anyway, and couldn’t you just open a new account if it really comes down to that? Our next email will set you straight.

I think keep a house clean is highly over rated, my favorite saying ever is by Erma Bombeck and I try to live by it:

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one cares. Why should you?   Erma Bombeck.

Making The Transition From Part Time at Home to Full Time at Home

Posted By Audrey Okaneko On September 20, 2008 @ 8:46 pm In Positive Thinking | No Comments

I often read articles, blog posts and message board posts from those hoping to make the transition from part time at home to full time at home.

Determining how much income you’ll need to make that transition can be a bit tricky.

If you currently earn $30,000 per year, then you know you’ll need to bring in at least $30,000 to make the change. However if your job offers any type of benefits this also needs to be figured into your calculations.

For example, does your job provide you medical insurance? If so, what will it cost you to replace that insurance once you leave your job?

Does your job provide sick time and vacation time? If you currently receive 21 days a year between the sick time and vacation time, then you need to consider you’ll be losing that income if you and your family take a trip or if you need to take a day off due to you or a child being sick.

Does your job provide any type of retirement benefits? Calculate in how much those benefits are.

There are also expenses you’ll save by working at home. Often, out of office lunches occur anywhere from once a week to five times per week. If you are paying for these lunches out of pocket, then you’ll see a savings when you begin eating lunches at home.

Do you pay to dry clean your work clothes? Again, you’ll see a savings when you are at home in sweats or blue jeans.

How far do you commute to work? Figure in the wear and tear on the car, along with gas prices. I know some folks who put 2 or 3 tanks of gas in their car each week. Where I live that can be over $100 per week just in gas.

Sometimes folks make the decision to go from full time work to part time work, then full time at home. It can be a much smoother transition. You might even find a balance of part time work and part time at home that you really feel comfortable with.

Most often, in a business your earnings will go up each year, so setting a long term goal of say 5 years to leave your full time job is a very realistic goal in my opinion.

Knowing exactly what you’ll need to bring in, can help you in determining when you’ll be able to make that transition from part time at home to full time at home.

Article by:

Audrey Okaneko has worked at home since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at [1] www.recipe-barn.com

So you’ve got the buyer in front of your auction, and they’ve read the description. They’re must be interested, or they wouldn’t be looking… but just how can you push them over that line and make them leave a bid? Read on for some tips.

Improve your picture: In all that description writing, you might have missed the vital importance of your item’s picture. A picture with bad lighting or an intrusive background looks amateurish and won’t make anyone want to buy from you.

Add an About Me page: You’ll be surprised how much you can reassure bidders just by creating an About Me page and putting a little bit about yourself on your business on there. You can also have a few special offers there for people who bother to look at the page, and let people subscribe to your mailing list so that you can email them updates.

Use SquareTrade: Signing up at SquareTrade and displaying their logo on your auctions shows that you are committed to have them resolve any disputes that arise. You always see this on PowerSellers auctions - it makes you look more professional.

Write terms and conditions: Have the ’small print’ clearly visible on all your auctions, giving details of things like shipping times and prices, your refund policy, and any other business practices you might have. This helps build confidence with buyers.

Show off your feedback: Copy and paste a selection of the feedback comments you’re most proud of to each item’s description page, instead of making bidders go and look for it. If you have 100% positive feedback, be sure to write that on every auction too.

Add NR to your titles: If you have extra space in a title, put ‘NR’ (no reserve) on the end. Bidders prefer auctions that don’t have a reserve price, and doing this lets them see that yours don’t.

Benefits not features: Make sure your description focuses on the benefits that your item can give to the customer, not just its features. This is a classic sales technique. If you have trouble with this, remember: ‘cheap’ is a feature, ’save money’ is a benefit.

List more items: If you want more people to respond to your items, then list more items! You might find you have better like listing items at the same time, instead of one-by-one. There’s no need to use a Dutch auction - you can just keep two or three auctions going at once for an item you have more than one of in stock.

Accept unusual payment methods: To reach those last few buyers, accept payment methods that many sellers don’t, like cheques.

Buy some upgrades: The best upgrade is the most expensive one, which makes your item appear first in search results. In crowded categories, you might find that this is worth the money.

Once you’ve got some buyers, you want to keep them coming back to you. The next email will show you how to turn one-time buyers into long-term customers.