Cost of childcare. This can be biggest obstacle for those seeking part time work. Many centers or individuals that provide childcare either do not care for children on a part-time basis, or they charge full-time fees for part-time care.

Okay, so you have weighed all options, and you are ready to go to work. Where do you begin?

Here are a few ideas and places to find part time work, along with benefits that some will provide for their part time employees:

Day Care Centers, Church Daycares, & Church Nurseries: Many will let you bring your own children free of charge!

Home Day Care: Even with one child (depending on where you live) you could earn $80, $90 up to $125 in many areas for caring for one infant in your home. That translates to utility bills, car payments, groceries, and many other monthly bills.

Mall Stores Are Ticket! Visit your local shopping mall, primarily clothing stores, craft stores, and other “women related” stores. These places hire of lot of part time help, especially during holidays

Discount Stores: Many discount stores such as Wal-Mart or K-mart hire TONS of part time workers in MANY areas; in their stores, offices, warehouses and more.

Home Reps for Avon, Home Interiors, Tupperware, etc.: Try your local yellow pages or a web search to find info about these business opportunities.

Put Your Creative Abilities to Work for You! Flower arranging, crafting, tole painting, quilting, and more! Sell your handicrafts or teach others! Many craft stores offer areas or rooms in their stores for this type of thing.

How Talented Are You? If you play an instrument, sing or are a whiz at geometry, start your own small business, by giving piano lessons, voice lessons, or tutoring.

House/Office Cleaning Advertise in your local paper for house or office cleaning, running errands or yard work. Small office cleaning is a great way to earn extra money for just a few hours per evening.

NOTE: For any type of job listed above(where you are not receiving a paycheck from an employer) make sure that you research laws and regulations in your city and state in regards to zoning, sales taxes, insurance etc. before you start.

Search your local newspaper classifieds. Many companies now advertise for employees on internet and you can search thru hundreds of job listing databases, most of them free of charge.

Working part-time might not be ideal option that many moms dream about, but it can be a practical and rewarding alternative for many of us. Keep your options open, stay flexible. Happy job hunting!

*reasonable income expectations touted by top management of company offering opportunity.

*support systems and training resources available to help participants succeed.

One thing that really struck home with me was a statement made by founder of company that I eventually selected for my home based business. It went something like following:

"Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear from an affiliate questioning why he or she is not seeing a big check yet. More times than not, person asking hasn’t even been involved for more than 90 days and is only barely beginning to even understand how whole system works. And frankly, even if number was six months, it’s still much too early to be expecting a significant income stream to have developed.

I always say that if you’re not willing to give a business at least a year, don’t even bother getting involved. You need to understand that it takes time to get to know all nuances of compensation plan. It takes time to determine which products you want to lead with. It takes time to develop a game plan. It takes time to figure out what marketing activities deliver biggest bang for buck. Anything worthwhile takes sustained effort. If you’re not thinking long term, you’ve set yourself up for failure."

To sum it up, selection process should focus on reality (there is no "magic" in home based businesses) and reject any so-called "opportunities" that seem too good to be true.