It really wasn't my idea to work at home. I actually had no choice in the matter. If you've read my page, About, you'll discover that I'm disabled. Contrary to popular beliefs and rumors, employers still are not thrilled with hiring people who have a disability of any kind. In the larger cities, employers are a little more flexible about hiring, mostly because if they weren't, the chances of them going out of business are greater. Unfortunately, my husband and I currently live in a small town just 2 hours away from the Canadian border in Michigan.

We moved to the upper peninsula of Michigan in 2002 thinking that getting out of the hustle and bustle of the metropolitan area of Denver was the right thing to do. We still think that the general idea was a good one but moving to an area so far away from any large city was a mistake. The closest big city is six hours away from us. This was just a little too extreme for two people who were raised big cities.

Yes, my husband has a full-time job outside the home but his boss, like most employers in this region, does not provide health benefits nor pay enough so that the all monthly bills are paid. Luckily, my husband is retired from the military so there is a small second income we can count on. This doesn't mean we have it easy. We pinch pennies until they squeak.

We tried our best for 5 years to make this move work. Finally, we have had to swallow some pride and admit that rural living just doesn't work for us. It's just too different from what we are use to. After living here for five years, we still feel like we are outsiders. We have put our house up for sale and whatever money I can make with these online programs will be used to help pay our expenses to move south to Tennessee where my in-laws live which is only two hours from Knoxville.

I originally thought I could find a work-at-home job that wouldn't require me to be online for so much of the work - something like data processing or transcribing. After doing some research, I found that most of those jobs, if not local, were scams. That's when I found Nichele's blog, A Dairy of My Earnings. I read her articles on how she was using online programs to earn extra money and knew that this was something I could do and do it without the fear of being scammed. Nichele's journal led me to the one that Amy Bass keeps, My Debt Free Goal where I learned even more about pay-per-click, pay-per-read, and other earning programs like writing for Associated Content and Helium.

I have been working with online programs for about 9 weeks now. So far, I have earned just shy of $100. I know, it isn't very much, but every little bit helps. As I feel more comfortable writing articles, I am confident that my earning will grow considerably.

Learn more about this author, Glynis Jolly.
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