Calling all stay-at-home parents! Are you wondering how to stay financially responsible while working from home? If so, you’re not alone.
People all over the globe are now giving remote working a try, due in large part to COVID-19. Even conglomerates like Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google are making their employees work from the safety of their homes.
You can borrow funds or get hardship loans for bad credit if you need emergency funds. But this is a significant change for both employees and employers, and so there’s no surprise that many people are searching the web for answers to questions like how to overcome unique financial challenges.
Here, we offer some great tips for keeping track of your finances in this trans formative time. Let’s get started!
Track Your Hours
When you clock in or clock out, or work for salary pay, you likely don’t think about your hours much—your employer does that for you.
When you transition to working from home, you have to keep track of your own hours. Doing so gives you something to measure. Perhaps you had a very productive week, or maybe your work was fairly lackluster in terms of hours; but without tracking them, you won’t have metrics to go by.
Several apps allow you to track your time. Track it every week for a month and then draft up a timeline for next month that will make it even more productive.
Stay-At-Home Parents Need to Block out Time
Ooh, Mom and Dad are working from home! That means I can sit on their laps while they work or play with them all day long!
Wrong! This line of thinking sets your household up for failure. You need to treat working from home the same as working from the office.
While at the office, you didn’t have extra time for dishes, errands, laundry, dog-walking, lunch-making—you name it. Just as you make time for that stuff before or after work, you’ll have to do the same while working remotely. Be strict about your time and treat it as critical.
By treating your work time as essential, you’ll ensure ‘remote work’ doesn’t turn into ‘remote play.’
Know Where Your Money Goes
Platforms like Quickbooks allow you to track your money and see where it’s going, which in turn helps you run your business more efficiently. Plans like this are especially crucial for freelancers.
Quickbooks categorizes your expenses, confronts common financial hurdles like taxes, and can log your receipts in an accessible way.
Regardless of what platform you choose, find something that works for you—something that helps you log your payments (both incoming and outgoing), prepare for tax season, and improve your budgeting.
Financial Freedom Is in Your Future
Stay-at-home parents have a unique challenge. They must stay productive and focused, while also not letting themselves get distracted by all the tasks a home beckons. This can make finances more complicated—but it doesn’t have to be!
Use the above tips to help you have financial freedom. Who knows; after the pandemic, you may realize you work better from home. Maybe you can convince your employer to keep you as a remote worker.
Check out the organization tab on our blog for advice on how to stay organized at home. A clean space is a happy and productive work environment!