Starting A Home Based Business ? How to Get It Right

So you've thought about Starting A Home Based Business? In truth , who hasn't ? The more people I talk to the more I’ve realized this is a common dream. The chance to be around those you care about more, set your own schedule, and not answer to a boss is quite appealing to most- but most people never really get started - get started on the right foot anyway, and their venture often falls flat.

So what if I told you it was costing you more money to NOT have  a home  business than to be operating one? Well it is- and I'm going to show you how, why, and what you can do to do start a home based business and earning money from home immediately.

Normally I don't go into what I did before working from home but in this case it's relevant-I'd actually had my own business since I was 24  prior to working from home ,and this experience lent me a  decent understanding of different corporate structures and how the benefits of owning a business are one of the primary reasons people desire to go into business for themselves in the first place: to shield more hard-earned income from taxes and keep more in their pockets.

Take a minute and read that sentence again before continuing.

Because that’s the first thing you’ll want to know about starting a homebased business.

After doing my research  I was positively shocked at how many home business owners don’t take full advantage of the assets that a home business opportunity  presents. In fact, the minute you open a home business opportunity, you become privy to a number of benefits you didn’t have available before.

Currently most people ACTUALLY pay about 40%  of their income back to the government instead of getting to keep it . It's actually your biggest expense- more than rent, power , transportation and food combined in  most cases. This is why business owners often get ahead of people that work for themselves- even if they don't make more money , they hold onto more of it .

"Come And Take It."

But guess what ?  A home business can offer you many of the identical perks of traditional business ownership at a fraction of the costs. In fact , you can even take home an extra  $200-$600 /month from your CURRENT JOB by starting a home business and beginning to earn money from home. ( You can find out more about this in a  section from my book  "How To Get A Raise This Week" at  How To Get A Raise or clicking here . )

Even if you’re not making any money in your business, if you apply proper techniques available to a business owner, you will be saving money you otherwise would have given back to the government.

How To Earn Money From Home Even When You Don't Know What You're Doing

One head’s up first: everything here is merely a suggestion and I highly recommend you stay within your limits and do not exaggerate anything. The IRS is just looking for people these days to mess with their taxes and then audit them .

Now we're going to look at the essentials everyone skips when they decide they want to earn money from home or start a home business. What do I mean by this ? You need to start thinking like  a business owner.

Forget those paid survey sites and data work entry jobs - almost every one of them ( if not all ) are just  programs

where you pay someone else for the chance to make money- but it's not really a business . Plus they make money off of you ! Don't believe me ? Just go to clickbank and check out "survey sites" or something similar - you' ll find numerous choices of these types of "opportunities" to sell to others !

So why would I reveal that? Because I'm tired of earnest people believing they have  a shot at earning money from home and not really getting a fair chance at it .

So What Should You Do If You Want To

Earn Money From Home ?

First commit to it. Having a home business is the way 99% of people earn money from home -and below I'll give  a few more reasons why… but first decide you're either going to do it or not. Too many people give something half a chance and then decide it's too difficult. Then they also assume making some extra money from home is just too hard when it is actually a different situation for everyone . For some it is too hard.

If you sign up for some program that has no follow-up and no real training - what kind of results would you expect?

This is the difference. Everyone - and I mean everyone, even if they tell you differently, who has made money

from home got some sort of coaching and training to help them earn money from home; and most often it was personal coaching as well.

So where to start ? Make up your mind to do this all the way and then get to work . Set your goals firmly in place and then begin to view your business as a business, not a hobby.

Pictured : Hobby

What would a serious business owner do for scheduling, budget, work space? Marketing ? How do you plan to scale your business ? Most people don't even consider these things then are surprised when they lose money.

If you want to know about other subjects mentioned above you can simply search this blog for more tips on

how to earn money from home  or follow the link at the bottom of the page to find out about  personal coaching ; this article is going to focus on the subject of work space and how it saves you money.

Home office- If you're going to work form home and you're serious you need a home office. This doesn't have to be anything fancy however, only a personal space that can be as simple as a desk and a computer - but you WANT it to be bigger. Let me show you why: say you’re using a spare bedroom, you can take your office space and measure it -typically you can deduct somewhere around  $1.75 per square foot, so if you have an office that is only 120 square feet, you can deduct around  $210. But that’s every month. Ok, off to a good start.

Or you can  say if you have 5 rooms which are all approximately equal size , ( discount bathrooms ) you can then take the percentage of the 1 room you use as an office - 20% and deduct that from both your rent or mortgage interest AND power.

While these are two huge deductions that should get you some leeway when trying to earn money from home- here are some more:

Computer-You are allowed to write off around   $25,000 annually for equipment and business assets, so a new computer, printer , fax , modem , etc. all fit into this category.

This makes much more sense than paying for stuff with after tax dollars.

Start-Up Expenses and Marketing-covers both our initial costs for whatever venture you  pursue and also continuing costs of running your home business.

Meals-you have to eat right?

And sometimes have business lunches. A word of caution with this one: don’t overuse it  by claiming an inordinate amount of meals eaten were business related. When traveling one can only write off 50 % of meal costs as well.

Telephone- this is only related to a separate business line, not your regular home phone; but you can write that second line off, along with internet too.

Auto –It is important to keep good records with this one, but your home business can pay an monthly  auto allowance according to how many miles each month the car is driven. Right now I believe it is allowable to around 50 cents/mile; this means anything you can turn into a "business trip"  (i.e. Have a purpose every time you go somewhere that is business related- supplies, etc. ) ,you  are then entitled to chalk up as business miles and thus deduct in the end.

The great thing about this is you really only need to keep notes on this deduction for 3 months in a row and then you just multiply it by 4 to get your deductions for the year- though  you'll definitely want to add business trips as well.

There are even ways to actually turn your daily commute to a traditional job into a BUSINESS TRIP but you'll have to check out my book for that.

Other things like business trips, meals , subscriptions , etc. are also covered and can be written off if you know what you're doing. This is one case where a little bit of research can pay off in in a big pay and (warning : shameless promotion ahead ) my book is among the resources out there that will certainly help one, but  a simple visit to a tax specialist should suffice as well, or simply find a resource online that focuses on this area.

What's the best way to start a home business ? Follow the link to find out what is making more millionaires than both the sports and entertainment industries combined or check out our personal training site here.