Are you looking for legitimate work from home opportunities? If you want a flexible schedule (i.e. being able to pick up the kids from school/ sports), don’t want to pay for childcare, and want to be in charge of when you work and how often a work from home job might be perfect for you.

I’ve worked from home for the last 20 years and love the flexibility it’s given me to homeschool my kids, be available for their events, and add extra money to our family’s budget.

When times were financially tough for my family we realized we could do two things, save more money and make more money. After lowering our monthly bills, reducing our grocery budget, and getting rid of debt, making more money was the next step.

I started by selling used items on eBay, but that required shopping at yard sales every weekend and dealing with packaging and shipping multiple items every week. It was a great job when my kids were very little and I didn’t have commitments outside the home.

As my kids grew and were involved in extra curricular activities I couldn’t devote every weekend to shopping yard sales. I looked for work from home opportunities that were more flexible.

There are many legitimate options if you want to work from home. I have friends who are successful in network marketing companies such as Lula Roe, Young Living, Pampered Chef, Advocare, and Thirty-One Gifts.

If you don’t like selling (and I don’t!) but are interested in money making opportunities here’s a list of legitimate work from home jobs that don’t require you to host parties or sell anything.

Most of the work from home jobs listed below do require a computer and a strong internet connection. I’ve listed jobs that have flexible hours and pay above minimum wage. (most pay at least $20 an hour)

Part-time work from home jobs for moms 

VIPKID

If you have a college degree and a strong internet connection you can earn up to $22 an hour teaching children English online. This is a great opportunity for mom’s to work from home and earn great money without having to spend half your paycheck on childcare.

Click here to learn more and sign up. (It takes about 5 minutes to fill out the application.)

REV.com

Earn money as a transcriptionist, captioner, or translator working from home. Rev.com has openings in all three departments and you can work as much or as little as you want. You are paid by the minute or by the word depending on the job.

The pay ranges from $24-$40 per audio hour and you are paid weekly via Paypal. Learn more and sign up here. 

Chegg.com

Tutor middle school, high school, college students and professionals online from the convenience of your home. You set your hours and the subjects you are willing to teach. Earn bonuses for tutoring high-demand subjects.

Learn more about tutoring from home here.

UserTesting.com

Sign up to be a tester and you are asked to complete a series of tasks on a website or an app and provide feedback. While you are completing the tasks you record your commentary. Each set of tasks takes between 15-20 minutes and you are paid $10.

You can make up to $30-$45 an hour providing feedback in the comfort of your own home. Sign up here.

Worldwide 101  

Work as a virtual assistant in your own home and make as much as $20 an hour. They have available positions for executive assistants, social media managers, project managers and paralegals. Learn more and apply here.

Virtual Stylist with Stitch Fix

Stitch Fix is a subscription clothing company that sends customers new outfits every month or two depending on the subscription. As a stylist you would help put together “fixes” for customers.

You can apply for a stylist position if you live in the following cities:

• Austin
• Cleveland
• Dallas
• Minneapolis
• Los Angeles
• Pittsburgh
• Sacramento
• San Diego
• San Francisco Bay Area

You can apply to be a stylist for Stitch Fix, and work from home and get an employee discount on Stitch Fix clothing. Click here to find out more and apply.

Freelance Writing

Do you love to save money and love to write? Freelance writing offers flexibility and extra spending money. My friends at Wise Bread are looking for freelance writers to contribute articles on frugal living, savvy shopping tips, and financial advice.

Learn more and apply here.

Freelance Anything with Fiverr

Fiverr is a website where customers can hire freelancers to do just about any online job. From managing social media accounts, to creating graphics, to proofreading and much more, Fiverr has people willing to do the work.

The downside of offering services on Fiverr is that most of the jobs start with an initial price of $5. However, the key to making good money is to offer an easy to complete job for $5,  then offer more complicated packages at an increased price.

Learn more about Fiverr and sign up for an account here.

There are many benefits to working from home. It’s possible to make more working part-time from home than full-time in an office. Once you deduct transportation, child-care, and other costs, you might find working from home to be a more profitable option.

If you are looking to make some extra money I highly recommend researching one or more of the work from home options listed above. They are all legitimate opportunities that offer good pay and flexible hours. Whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a college student looking for some extra spending money, one of these part-time opportunities could be perfect for you.

Are you ready to cancel your Amazon prime membership? Perhaps you don’t shop on Amazon as much as you thought and aren’t taking advantage of the benefits of Amazon Prime membership.

Maybe you signed up for the free trial and now have buyer’s remorse. It’s simple to cancel your Amazon Prime membership and if you are still in your free trial you will pay nothing.

How to Cancel Your Amazon Prime Membership

Cancel your free trial membership

If you still in your free trial period, click here to manage your trial membership. You can cancel your Amazon Prime free trial membership by clicking on the link that says “Do not continue.” As long as you cancel your Prime membership within 30 days you will not be charged anything, no matter what benefits you use.

Cancel an active Prime Membership

If you have already paid for the Amazon Prime membership (maybe you forgot to cancel during your free trial period) you can still cancel and get a full refund, IF you have not used any of the Amazon Prime benefits. 

According to Amazon, if you are eligible for a refund you will receive it within 3-5 business days. I recommend setting up a calendar reminder to make sure you get your refund in a timely manner.

You can cancel your membership at any time, however you will not be refunded any money if you or anyone in your household has used your Prime benefits.

If you currently have an Amazon Prime membership but aren’t using all the Amazon Prime benefits each year, set up a renewal reminder with Amazon.

Amazon will email you three days before your Prime membership renews date but you have to request it. You can request the email reminder on the Prime membership page,  just click on the blue text on the left hand side.

When Amazon sends you the renewal email you can cancel your membership and not be charged for the next year.

Cancel a Prime Membership set up by a third party

If you received an Amazon Prime Membership via a third party, you need to contact the third party to manage your membership. You cannot cancel it directly through Amazon.

Before you cancel your Amazon Prime Free Trial Membership

While I never recommend spending money on something you don’t use, I’m always surprised by home many people don’t know all the benefits of Amazon Prime.

Not only do you get free two-day shipping on millions of items on the website, you also get free photo storage, free Kindle books to read, and streaming music, television, and movies. If you want to learn more about how you can take advantage of your Amazon Prime membership check out my article on why I love it.

Amazon Prime isn’t for everyone

While I love Amazon Prime and all its benefits I realize it isn’t for everyone. If you only purchase sparingly on Amazon (like during the holidays) and don’t take advantage off all the other Prime benefits, it’s probably not worth the $10.99 a month ($99 a year).

It’s also important to note, that since I’ve been shopping on Amazon, they’ve offered some level of free shipping every December, but you have to make a minimum purchase. So, if you only do your holiday shopping on Amazon, it might make more financial sense to take advantage of their free shipping offers open to everyone and cancel your Prime membership after the free trial period.

If you signed up for a free trial of Amazon Prime, I highly recommend creating a calendar reminder for 25 days after your sign up date. This will help you remember to cancel your Prime membership and you won’t be charged any fee.

Remember when you cancel your membership to follow all the directions on the website. Amazon makes it easy to cancel, but you do go through two webpages to complete the process.  Once you have cancelled you will get a confirmation of your cancellation on the screen.

If you have already paid for Prime, but have not used any benefits, you will see a refund on your credit card statement in a few days.

If you’ve never taken the plunge and tried Amazon Prime the holidays are the BEST time to sign up for a free trial. When you sign up for Amazon Prime  you get a free 30 day trial. After the 30 day trial you can cancel your membership and you won’t be charged. 

However, being a frugal shopper, I like to save money and it rubs me the wrong way to spend money on things we don’t really need.

When Amazon Prime was first introduced I was skeptical.

I’m going to pay how much per year for what? 

My brother, who is always first to find out about these kinds of things, signed up for Prime right away. After a year of watching him order off Amazon and always get free shipping, while I waited for free shipping deals, trying to get my order value up to get free shipping, or missing out on great deals (for things I needed) while he was able to order them and have it delivered to his house in two days I decided to try it.

I signed up for a Prime free trial and I was hooked. After all a prime membership is only $10.99 a month or $99 for the year if you pay in full. I realized that the $99 yearly fee was only $8.25 a month, less than two trips to Starbucks. Would the savings really add up?

It did, and here’s how.

Amazon Prime is FREE for 30 days

Yes, this is a marketing tactic from Amazon, however you can use Amazon Prime for 30 days then cancel and be charged nothing at all, ever. So for the next 30 days you can enjoy all the Amazon Prime Day deals, free shipping, holiday playlists, free books on Kindle and movies for free. When I signed up for the free trial I had every intention of cancelling my Amazon Prime membership after the 30 days, but I got so much value out of it, I decided to keep it.

Important: You must cancel your Amazon Prime membership at the 30 day mark if you try it and decide it isn’t for you.

You can sign up for your trial membership here. 

After your free trial expires you have two payment options. A year membership costs $99 if you pay in full. Amazon Prime monthly payments are $10.99 a month, so you do save about $30 a year when you pay in full.

Amazon Prime gives you Free Shipping on thousands of items every day.

When I first signed up for Amazon Prime I had six kids at home. It was not easy to load them up and take them on errands. In fact I often avoided errands for as long as possible, because it was so much work getting them dressed to go outside in the cold, load them in the car, then unload them at a variety of stores.

What I realized was many of the items I purchase regularly (toilet paper, paper towels, diapers, etc) are available on Amazon for a competitive price.

If I can shop on Amazon instead of loading up the kids and taking two hours out of our day to shop it is worth it!

Also, if something is only available online, I usually purchase it from Amazon because I know I get free shipping and the price is better (which it usually is).

I do most my Christmas shopping on Amazon.

For most of my adult life I’ve lived away from family and have not spent Christmas with them. This means mailing gifts every single year. With Amazon Prime I ALWAYS have free shipping, never have to wait in line at the post office (seriously that’s a nightmare at Christmas) and the gifts always arrived in two days!

Amazon carries so many products it is almost impossible not to find a gift for a loved one on the site.

Amazon Prime gives you FREE Kindle books through the lending library.

I love to read, and we love to go to the library. Sometimes the books I want to read are not available at my library and I’ve waited weeks or even months for books to come in. When you have Prime you are able to “borrow” books for 30 days to read on your Kindle.

This is an awesome way to read without spending money, worrying about library fines, or lost library books. They have over 500,000 titles available in the lending library so there’s probably a few books available you have on your list.

Amazon Prime gives you unlimited photo storage.

This is a new feature for Amazon Prime and probably the one I’m most excited about after free shipping. Since I pay $30 a year to a photo storage company and another $10 a month to Dropbox to store photos this feature pays for itself every year.

Cloud Drive offers secure online storage, automatic photo backup, and lets you access your photos anywhere: on your phone, computer, tablet, or any Fire device.

After losing 40,000 and three years with of photos this summer when my son dropped my computer (some where backed up, some weren’t). I’ve been uploading photos to the cloud. I don’t want to lose any more photos and when you take as many as I do you need unlimited photo storage!

Amazon Prime gives you thousands of free videos and television shows.

I don’t use this one often because I’m not much of a tv/ movie watcher, but it’s definitely a great savings.

You can instantly stream Prime Instant Video titles from your computer’s web browser, Fire phone, Fire TV, Fire Tablets, iOS devices, and hundreds of other Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top-boxes, and gaming consoles.

They have lots of kid’s shows available for free including Thomas, Veggie Tales, Angelina Ballerina, as well as lots of holiday movies.

Amazon Prime gives you free streaming music.

We’ve been paying $9 a month for Spotify for the past year. Now Amazon Prime gives you free streaming music. They have over a million titles including holiday music and playlists (yay! Love me some Christmas music!)

This is a new benefit for Prime members that I’m excited to try out. I’d love to cancel my Spotify account and save!

Amazon Prime gives you early access to Lightening Deals.

I love Lightning Deals around Christmas time and on Prime Day because the prices are really amazing. A Prime membership gives you access to these deals 30 minutes early, so if it is something you really want to buy it will be available early and you’ll be able to get it before it sells out.

Six Month Free Trial for Students!

If you have a child with a .edu email address they are eligible for a free six month Amazon Prime Student membership. The benefits are the same for a student membership but if you decide to continue with the program it is only $50 for the year instead of $99.

Sign up for the student membership here. 

For my family Amazon Prime adds up!

Amazon Prime yearly membership $99 or $8.25 a month.

Things I don’t need because I have an Amazon Prime membership:

• Dropbox $10 a month
• Spotify $10 a month
• Netflix $8 a month
• Photo hosting $30 a year

Total savings each year: $366 

If you don’t have an Amazon Prime membership this is the BEST time of year to start your free trial! If you don’t love it, cancel before your 30 days are up and you pay nothing.

I think it is worth the $9 a month that a membership costs because I use Prime almost weekly. I’ve purchased fixtures, fans, lightbulb, paint, even wallpaper scrapers from Amazon in the past year and I’ve never had to worry about waiting for an item to arrive or paying for shipping!

Do you have Amazon Prime? Do you think it is worth $99 a year? 

When you see your bank statement and realize how much money you spent, it can be earth shattering. Learning how to reduce spending and tighten that budget is possible, if you have the right tips. Slowing down your spending is a matter of determination and finding a formula that works for you.

Get everyone on the same page

The first step to reduce family spending is to get everyone on the same page. Also known as having that awkward money conversation with your spouse (and with older kids in the house, if they are aware of what’s going on). By getting the whole family on board, you are going to see success sooner.

Cut out extracurricular activities

This one is going to be painful, but it is worth it. If you can’t afford to pay your bills at the moment, then something has got to go. Usually the first thing to go are extracurricular activities. If your kids are old enough to pitch in and help pay, great. If not, it might hurt a little bit, but you have to get that budget under control. You can’t get it under control if spending is over the top.

Know what you are spending

Most people don’t keep track of their spending because they don’t want to know. The only way you will ever reduce spending in your family and tighten the budget is if you know what is going out. You can easily reduce spending by keeping track of your bad spending habits. Buying coffee, going out to eat, trips to Target – it all needs to be documented. It is going to hurt knowing the truth, but it will be worth it.

Work on getting rid of debt

I have noticed in our family that debt really hurts our overall budget. When I take time to look at our debt and figure out a way to reduce it, things look better. Credit card debt, medical debt, and vehicle debt can weigh your family down financially. Working on getting rid of debt can help you reduce spending and tighten the budget.

Stay organized in your finances

Last, but not least, you need to stay organized when it comes to your finances. Organization is the key to reducing family spending. Keeping track of finances, keeping track of the budget, and executing your financial plan are all parts of staying organized in the finance department.

How do you plan on reducing family spending this year? How do you plan on tightening your budget? Share your tips below!

More budgeting tips

• Tips for Staying Under Budget
• 5 Ways to Pamper Yourself on a Budget
• Kicking Off the New Year On Budget