What’s so great about having to work at home? After all, wouldn’t you want to get out of the house and have a life away from the family once in a while? It’s a wonderful thing, after all, to have a social network at work and to get face time with colleagues and superiors as you nurture your career. That may be the case, but there are some really great advantages to conducting your business in your own residence and many compelling reasons for staying home to work.
Let’s consider a few of them:
The Financial Costs Of Working Outside The Home
In today’s economic climate, our budgets have just gotten much tighter and it’s clear that working somewhere else can get expensive. Consider all the expenses and the daily costs of working in another location if you do any type of general office work:
Apparel for the job.
When you work at home, nobody knows you are taking a conference call in your pajamas. Let me just state the obvious that when you work in the office, you’ll need to look the part and be ready for business; professional attire such as suits and career outfits can get quite expensive. Add the matching accessories, shoes, hosiery or even cosmetics, and it may cost you at least $70 weekly to remain properly dressed for business outside the home versus the $15 weekly for stay-at-home comfortable clothing. Money saved working at home: $55 a week. Your mileage here may vary depending on your shopping habits and where you live, but the cost comparisons between office and work spending would still be relevant.
Getting lunch at work.
Let’s face it, we all have good intentions of brown bagging our lunch. We may even take our lunch to work three or four days every week. If you do, it costs money to package your lunch, buy thermal lunch bags and get beverage to-go cups. Inevitably you will go out to lunch at least once a week because everyone else does. It’s been my experience to consider the low-end of taking and buying lunch at work to be around $40 weekly. When I stay home, I can make a quick sandwich or bowl of cereal, totaling about $10 weekly. Money saved working at home: $30 a week.
Transportation costs.
If you work in the city and need to take trains, subways and cabs to get to work, transportation costs can get unpredictable and pricey. If you have your own car, you have to deal with the rising cost of gas as well as the cost of insurance, registration and car maintenance. Whether you drive or take public transportation, a conservative estimate of such weekly costs is $75. When you work at home, there are no transportation costs. Money saved working at home: $75 a week.
Child care.
Even though you work at home, you may still need child care to get your job done. Depending on your responsibilities, child care costs can be eliminated or minimized. Consider that the weekly cost of full-time child care for one child is about $180. If you only require part-time child care, the cost may be trimmed to $100, or even half of the full-time costs. Money saved working at home: $80 a week.
