How to Leave the Rat Race and Live a Life you Love

You'll first need to spend some time researching trends in work at home jobs. I've provided a helpful resource below for this. This site provides a good list of work at home job leads daily, as well as a weekly newsletter with more jobs, types of work at home careers, and how to search online for a work at home job. Be aware that not all work at home jobs provide a daily, steady stream of income, and you may need to update your credentials to apply for an area you are interested in (more on that below). In addition, you may need to pair a few jobs to provide you with your needed income, but the goal altogether is to probably be able to live on less than you do now, and I'll discuss that more as well.

For now, start on your research. Check out this resource:

www.ratracerebellion.com

Here are some of the major goals and plans you can aim to achieve to help you spend less and live on less, and be happy of course!

1. Cook your meals at home and stay on a food budget. Standardize what you buy each week, so that you can keep your list regular and predictable. You'll realize how lousy food is outside. Plus, it's good to know exactly what goes into your food, and not have umpteen people touching your food every day for you to get sick. Sometimes ignorance is not bliss. Find great recipes and store them online at sites such as www.allrecipes.com

2. Stock up on free samples. They add up over time and are also great for traveling. See:
StartSampling.com (see forums)
ratracerebellion.com (see the daily job leads)

3. Replace many items you buy at top price with Dollar Store merchandise. Instead of paying $3 or more for toiletries each, you can save and pay a $1. There are also several other categories of items, such as kitchen ware, gifts, and toys.

4. Grow your own food. If you don't have a lot of space, you can at least grow tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. If you have some land, or even a yard, you have many more options for things like melons, green beans, strawberries, and more easy items to grow. You'll appreciate the taste and care that goes into growing your own food, and you'll eat more healthily as a result. You can buy baby plants, but seeds are much cheaper, and it's not difficult to raise a plant strong enough to put outside. You just need to start a little earlier--around early March sprouting seeds, and you'll need window space, styrofoam cups, baggies, paper towels, and potting soil.

5. Buy clothes on sale or off season, so that you don't pay full price. This means shopping a season or two ahead of time. You can also try used clothing stores (don't worry, they wash the clothes!)

6. Pay cash as much as possible, aiming towards one or no credit cards. This will prevent you from not spending what you don't have. You can also use a debit card if you don't like to write out checks or carry cash.

7. Aim for no car payments. This means you'll need to buy a thrifty used car, and it probably won't be a luxury one, but remember the purpose of it getting you where you need to. Of course, you'll also want to avoid buying a mechanic's paradise, so it's wise to have a mechanic look at the car before you purchase it. A car having over 100K miles is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather the other parts that may need replacing, such as tires, brakes, tune-ups, oil changes (if these were regularly done that is good), air conditioning, heater.

8. Buy a home where you can pay off the mortgage in less than 15 years. This will mean a smaller house or a townhome. When financing your mortgage, you'll opt to make more payments towards principal than interest in order to pay it off sooner (your payments will be larger than a 30-year mortgage, but in the long run you'll also be paying a lot less interest. See www.realtor.com

You may already have the credentials you need to succeed in your desired work at home position, but if you need to continue your education or start a new career, then you'll need to seek out a degree or program. With the program I have outlined below, this can be very doable and inexpensive, and can be done from home.

As an Education professional, it's important for me to find properly accredited degree programs for my own credentialing, and I also value online programs as an asset. However, these can be expensive if you don't know where to look, and may not even be properly accredited. The following college is a highly recommended online university that you can complete at home at your convenience.

Fort Hays State University
http://www.fhsu.edu/virtualcollege/

This is a regionally accredited online university (they are also a traditional university). They are very reasonably priced compared to commuting and paying tuition to your local college.

Fort Hays University offers Bachelors, Masters, Associates, and Certificate programs, among others, and there are many different options to choose from.