By Stephen Bucaro

Everyone dreams of working at home. No sitting in traffic breathing car exhaust. Wake up and start work when ever you choose. Work in your pajamas. Do only interesting tasks that you enjoy. Take a break whenever you feel like it. Sounds too good to be true.

The reality is that first thing many people who work at home want is to earn enough money to rent an office away from home.

Why? Because when you work at home, you are always at work. Your work hours may end at 5:00, but your computer, your desk, and all those uncompleted tasks are always there. Your home becomes focal point of problems and stress of work.

Your boss is not there to hover over you, but guess what? You now have an even more stern taskmaster lording over your every moment - yourself. To be successful working at home you have to have self discipline, make your own schedule, and stay focused.

Although you can dress loose and casual, you probably don't want to work in your pajamas. In fact, a morning ritual where you "get dressed for work" may be just what you need to motivate yourself to begin work.

Have your own business? Every business has some tasks that are challenging and interesting, and some that are boring and tedious. If you work at home alone in your own business, guess who has to do boring and tedious tasks.

With all scams in home based business industry, many stay-at-home moms have a very difficult time finding legitimate and well paying home employment. It can be a costly experience, when you think you have found a great job opportunity only to find that you have been scammed by an unscrupulous individual you can’t contact. Hundreds of these so-called work-at-home schemes exist, and it can be very frustrating trying to weed thru them and find legitimate opportunities.

Many legitimate companies do hire stay-at-home moms. However, these jobs do tend to be scarce and many of them require that you have a great deal of experience or education to perform them. No one will "get rich quick" working at home. It will not happen. And those ads that guarantee that you will are false. Remember old saying "If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is"? Well it does hold true! So be careful when considering one of these opportunities.

So how is a mother supposed to do what she feels is best for her family and still contribute financially?

Many of us stay at home moms, climb aboard guilt train when we even consider doing something for ourselves; taking a little down time, finding a hobby or anything that we feel takes away time and energy from our homes, children, & husbands. We tend to forget that we too are human beings and day in day out “same ole same ole” can get very old, very fast.

There is an alternative to working at home, that takes up a very small portion of your time, can make you a little extra income and can get you out of house for a few hours. A part time job may just be answer you are looking for. Most part-time jobs require less than 32 hours per week and some require less than that. Now if you need to actually earn a living, then part time work would probably not be a wise choice for you. Part time jobs may have other drawbacks that make them bad choices as well.

A few things to consider: Part-time jobs rarely pay more than $6-$8 per hour depending on skills required, and type of job you will be doing. Some jobs pay as much as $11-$12 per hour, but they are rare. Be prepared to earn just a little above minimum wage for most part time jobs.

Most part time jobs do not offer benefits. There are those that do, however. If you have time to do your homework, you may just be able to find one that does. You will be better off, and more apt to find a good part time job, if you do not make this a top priority.