Free Resources for Working From Home: Experts Share their Favorites
At one time, finding a way to work from home could get expensive. Today, there are tons of great free and low cost tools and resources to help you work at home on a budget. These tip and suggestions will help you keep costs under control and make your home-based career life much much easier! If you have found any other resources that are free (or super cheap) please add them in the comments!
Mandy Menaker, Head of Brand Development & PR
My favorite free app for independent contracts is Shapr, a completely free networking app that helps contractors to meet potential clients as part of an everyday routine.
Jennifer Martin, Zest Business Consulting
In addition to doing a Google search for whatever you are looking for (ex. Free downloadable week at a glance calendar), you can find free office supplies at Freaky Freddies. Plus these sites have great downloadable resources for small businesses:
Free Business planning templates-Entrepreneur
Great Free Templates- Score
Free Info-graphic Graphics & Photos –FreePik
Here are some other great free apps for business:
Book Meetings-Assistant.To
Scheduling-Doodle
CRM and Project Management-Insightly
File Transfers-WeTransfer
Free Ad Blocker-TheWebBlocker
Accounting Software-Wave
These are all wonderful resources that will help you run your business the smart (and easy) way!
From WAHS Leslie:
I’m the queen of cheap when it comes to running my business. Okay, maybe not the queen, as I am willing to spend money if I think it will give me a better payoff than free. Still, here are a few of my favorite free resources:
Finding Work-At-Home Jobs:
Email Management
MailChimp (free for first 2000 subscribers)
Calendar
Google actually has many great resources for free including Google Docs, Google Analytics, Gmail, YouTube, and more. Check out Google’s list of products to see which might be a help in your home office.
Social Media Management
HootSuite – Manage up to five social media accounts, including organize your feed (by list, topic, hashtag etc), schedule posts and more. Includes all major platforms including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +, Pinterest and Instegram.
Graphic Creation (i.e. for blog posts, social media, book covers etc).
Note that sometimes free isn’t the best option. For example, if you’re goal is to make a living online, I believe you should pay for a domain and web hosting of your website. However, many of the resources are free without compromises professionalism. You might want to check out my article at The Balance on how to keep costs down and profits up when working at home.
Leslie Truex is an ideaphoric writer, speaker, entrepreneur, social worker and mom trying to do it all from the comfort of her home. Since 1998, she's been helping others create careers they love by providing work-at-home information and resources through Work-At-Home Success.
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Note: Work-At-Home Success contains advertising as well as screened work-at-home jobs and resources. Some posts may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive compensation if you register or buy using the link. Occasionally, WAHS publishes "Supporting Contributor" posts or paid reviews for which compensation is paid. These posts are marked as such. All opinions are my own. Click here for full details and disclosures.
