for a Fortune 500 company technology has made it easier to

do so. However, before you decide to work from home, you

must evaluate yourself to see if you would survive as a

home-based worker. Working from home is not for everyone.

EVALUATE YOURSELF

Following are several questions you should ask yourself

before deciding to work from home. If you can’t answer

yes to following questions, then you are not completely

ready to work from home. The questions are:

*Am I knowledgeable about Internet and email?

*Do I manage my time well?

*Am I easily motivated or do I need people around me to motivate me?

*Am I disciplined?

*Can I balance family, work, and everything else at same time?

*Am I teachable or do I like to do my own thing?

*Am I reliable?

*Do I have a specialized skill?

*Do I have all equipment needed to work from home?

*Does my spouse have health insurance coverage for family? If not, can I afford health insurance on my own? (If you need affordable health insurance, you can receive instant quotes from 114 different companies at www.insureme.com. Just type in your information and they will match you with specific companies based on your needs.) For dental plans check out www.dentalplans.com.

*Can I actually reduce high cost of health insurance by joining a group health insurance plan, reduce level of coverage, increase my deductible, pay annual premiums rather than monthly or quarterly, etc? (For more information check out National Association for Self-Employed at www.mybizoffice.com or www.nase.org/nase_benefits/health_benefits.asp.

*Can I contribute to a self-employed 401(k) plan? (Visit www.investsafe.com to request a free information kit on self-employed 401(k) plan for self- employed and small business owner).

*Can I handle waking up earlier or staying up later while children are sleeping to meet my deadlines?

*Would I be able to make enough money to pay bills?

If you are focused, disciplined, have a positive attitude,

highly motivated with excellent communication skills, can

answer yes to above mentioned questions, then you are

ready to work from home as an independent contractor,

freelance or telecommuter. If not, then you can either

learn these lessons along way or work outside home

part time.

It is very important that before you start working from

home that you have an office set up with a good computer,

phone line (you will need a second phone line for some

assignments), and a fax machine. Some computers come with

faxing features. Most jobs are done remotely, and

Internet is a conduit for telecommuting jobs.

You can learn about Dreamweaver at: http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/ There is even a free trial option, so you can sample software. And no, I’m not earning any affiliate commissions by recommending this to you.

Dreamweaver will have far more features than you can possibly wrap your mind around at first. The trick is to use any tutorials included with software, plus any free online tutorials (do a google search) and teach yourself how to create simple, clean web pages at first. Then you can gradually learn about other features, such as using tables, more complex formatting, etc.

From now on, as you surf web, bookmark sites you like or designs you like, and keep them in a special folder as examples you’d like to model. There’s no faster or better way to learn than by modeling success.

Launch your freelance web design practice by building your own website with Dreamweaver. If you have Internet access, your Internet provider already gives you from 5-10 MB of web space as part of your subscription. So you can practice on your first website there, at no additional cost.

For an initial investment of $399, you can become an expert using a professional tool. Once you're confident enough, build your own business site, with your own domain name, and promote your services as a web designer. I recommend using www.godaddy.com to register your new company’s domain name and host your site. It can cost you less than $50 a year to do both.

You can get a professional-looking logo for your business for $25 from www.gotlogos.com What other business can you launch for under $500 that has potential to earn tens of thousands of dollars per year?

And finally, purists and experts still suggest that you eventually become somewhat familiar with HTML, even if you use a WYSIWYG editor that hides all that HMTL code. Many professionals go in and "tweak" their web pages by hand, using HTML, to get exactly look they want.

There are some free tutorials available to learn about HTML. Check out: A beginner's guide to HTML: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerP1.html And http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

The ability to create attractive, simple and functional web pages is a highly sought-after skill. Once you have created your own site showcasing a few examples of your work, your first prospects will probably be small businesses, consultants, and retail establishments in your area. Then, with experience, you can start doing work for larger companies. There’s another benefit, too. You can work for anyone, anywhere, anytime, around world, from your comfort of your home office.