Turning the Holidays into
Making Money From Home
By: Stacy Perez

Holidays are a fun and creative way of finding ways to make money from home. If you think about all the money that is being spent during the holiday season, you can actually think of creative ways to make some money to help you get through the holidays or even enough to get you started in working for yourself from home.

Here are a list of ideas that will help you make money from home during the holiday season.

1. Start a Personalized Santa Letter Service -

Very simple! Download: http://www.dotcommommies.com/myxmas.html Click on the letter link on the left side. Create personalized letters with a click of a button.

Another way you can create a personalized letters business is by going to a craft or an office supply store and purchase Christmas border paper. Go to www.google.com and do a search for personalized Santa letters to get ideas for how you want your letters to read.

You may want to include in the envelope Christmas stickers, little Christmas erasers, pencils, etc.

It would probably be a good idea to keep the price reasonable where it is covering expenses plus making you some profit.

2. Start a Gift Jar Business -

Have you ever seen recipes in a jar? They are a jar that is layered with dry ingredients, a nice bow, and directions on it. These would make a cute item to sell for the holidays. These would make great gifts for women, moms, employers, co-workers, sisters, etc.

When I have seen gift jar recipes in the store, it would get my attention where I would actually pick them up and read them.

These would make unique gifts, plus it would save people time cooking since you have all the ingredients in the jar for them.

http://www.nikibone.com/recipe/gifts_in_a_jar.html
http://culinary.chef2chef.net/Cooking/Gifts_in_a_Jar/
http://dmoz.org/Home/Cooking/Gifts_in_a_Jar/

3. Make a home made Christmas gift service -

Making your own Christmas gifts to sell. Not only will selling your own gifts be reasonable, they also will be unique to possible customers.

Personally, I am attracted to giving gifts that are home made because they mean more because someone made them. Plus, they are more likely to be unique.

Here is a link to some ideas of gifts to make.

http://craftsforkids.about.com/library/weekly/aa120400a.htm
http://www.ananzi.co.za/today/gifts.html

Another option is going to a craft store and buying kits to make your own gifts, such as, making your own bath salts, making your own candles, etc.

4. Starting your own home made Christmas card business -

You can purchase greeting card software from Best Buy or an office supply store. You can place 8-12 cards/ envelopes in an attractive box and sell them.

Everyone buys Christmas cards. Most of the time when I am looking for cards, I have a hard time finding the perfect one for me. Here you can take orders and personalize them for each family. Maybe you can have the family give you a picture and you go to Walmart and make copies or if your printer is good quality you can actually make it into the card.

You may even want to try creating your own greeting cards if you have paint or some sort of editor on your computer.

If you have a writing talent, you could take mini Christmas poems you create and make a nice Christmas card.

5. Starting your own Christmas gift basket or box business.

Now, here is a great gift selling idea. Making gift baskets or boxes with some items in them. If you are part of a home based business opportunity you can actually make baskets with the products and sell the completed basket. Not only are you making your money back from purchasing the products, but also a profit. If you are including products that you maybe already selling, this is your opportunity to possibly get a new customer into your business.

6. Starting your own Christmas shopping or gift wrapping business.

Here is a great idea, especially for new moms that can not find the time to get out to do their own Christmas shopping. You can sell your services as a personal Christmas shopper. You could charge for gas mileage plus charge per hour for the shopping.

What about getting paid as a Christmas wrapper? What an idea. Personally, I wish I had paid someone to wrap my gifts. I would have loved to pay someone a 3 hour charge to come to my house and wrap my stuff.

7. What about offering a menu planning service for the holidays?

You could offer a service providing menu planning and a shopping list for people. Based on how many people they tell you are attending their home for the holidays, you could give them recipes and a shopping list that will accommodate all their guests. Quite honestly, planning for the holidays is a chore for me. If someone were to give me some different recipes and a shopping list to buy everything, then I know I personally would have less stress if I were entertaining at my home.

You can ask your customer what types of food items they want in their menu and if are recipes they want you to focus on that may have less sugar, sodium, etc.

This is something you can operate online for sure. There are plenty of recipe sites online to help give you ideas.

8. What about giving gifts from a work at home opportunity you are part of? Wouldn't it be awesome to give an exceptional gift to anyone in your life, earn a 10% rebate back just for doing so, and have the items delivered right to your door. Plus, you will have the opportunity to possibly gain more customers if they want to know where to buy the products.

If you would like more info about it, please email stacy@inspiringparents.com with "Xmas gifts" on the subject line. In the body of the email put your full name and phone number. I know we could help you give great gifts, plus start working from home and start the new year off great!

These ideas will help you make some money during the holiday season whether you use mine or create your own.

Happy Holidays!

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Copyright 2000-2008, Stacy Perez, successful work from home mother who has inspired and helped many parents work from home. Visit: www.DotComMommies.com

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