Just joined and am wondering if there are any "work-at-home" mom's or dad's out there? Anyone in Minnesota? I am a small business owner and stay/work at home mom. AKA insane :happy:! Me and my husband have a 2 and 3 year old (girl and boy)...

Well, time to get some reading in...

I don't have a business at home, but I wanted to welcome you to RetouchPRO. I took a look at your website, and found it to be very nice looking. If you don't mind a question, how can you do restoration/retouching beginning at $10.00 per image?

Ed

Hey there. I am a stay at home mom trying to do some work at home - lol. Welcome! I live in Mississippi, but I have alot of family up in MN and ND. What part are you from?

I have a 2 year old boy and a 5 year old girl. Glad you are here!

Dawn

$10.00 is my "minimum" fee for retail. Minimum fee jobs are usually portrait retouching and I get few of these from retail customers. The fee is based on the amount of time the job takes to complete. After doing retouching for so many years, I am fast :), so my customers get a better price. My prices are also based on the pricing of local photofinishing labs. I charge $60.00 per hour for retail or $45.00 per hour for wholesale (charged in 5 minute increments). I guess I find that to be better than the $9.00 per hour I was making doing retouching for someone else...

I live in Mississippi, but I have alot of family up in MN and ND. What part are you from?

We are in Little Falls (Central) Minnesota and are looking to move as soon as possible to the Minneapolis area.

My family around there is mostly on my dad's side. Several folks around Red Lake and that area, Mentor (close to Crookston) and East Grand Forks. I do have a few cousins on my mom's side in Minneapolis. And if I am not mistaken one of them does something with photography for a living, though I am really not sure what - lol. It is hard being this far away and to still be able to keep track of everyone.

On the business end, sure sounds like you have your stuff together. Maybe some day I can reach your level. I am just beginning to start advertising. All my work at this point has been through word of mouth. Man, I bet once you move your business will really boom, huh? Here's hoping, anyways. :wink:

Dawn

Hello :)

I'm running behind, mainly because I just found this site tonight!

I am a stay at home/work at home mum in Australia. I can't say Oz online, people keep thinking I come from Kansas, lol.

I have two kiddies, a 4yo girl and 6yo boy. School goes back on Tuesday after 6 weeks off (oh thank goodness) and both will be in school for the first time!

I don't do this at home though - I run a retail/wholesale/design fashion business with another stay at home mum/best friend of mine.

My husband is a chef, which means split shifts, 7 day rosters and so on, so for me to work outside the home would be really difficult for us to handle at the moment. Luckily in Australia there is some support for mothers who are at home with their kids, financially, so that helps prop things up and allows me to have the business (still new, <12months) and apply time and effort to get it up and running without worrying about the financial aspect of having little-no income.

Welcome to Retouch Pro... I have always wanted to go to Australia! I bet it is nice and warm. I am in the Northern US and it is a "warm" 37 degrees here. I opened some windows for some fresh air!

Thank you!

Well, it has been 37 degrees a lot here this summer too - although I'm talking in celcius, which is more like 100 to you!

It's not been fun, it has been a very humid summer (partly being coastal, but it seems everywhere has copped the humidity badly this year).

Our summers are humid as well with average highs in the 80's. My husband would love to move somewhere with a more mild and consistant temperature.

Aylaah - You mentioned that Austrailia supports stay at home moms, can I ask how? And what type of services does your business offer? Do you have a website?

No worries!

Ok, support wise - its not ideal but in comparison to many other countries, we're lucky. We have a system called family tax benefit which you're eligible for depending on ages of children, I believe until you earn around $90,000pa, as a household. It varies, from about $450 a fortnight down to $20, means tested. For those of us like myself, my husband is still an apprentice (started training late) and with my income being nil some weeks, there is another payment on top of that, parenting payment, plus rent assistance and so on. If I don't earn any income in a fortnight, based on my husbands wage alone it means I am paid about $650 for 'raising children'.

I guess then you add in the now $3000 you receive on the birth of a child too, the $200 or so you receive if immunisations are up to date by 2yrs of age and then the yearly 'bonus' of $600-ish per child (changes with inflation).

All in all, it is easy to 'afford' to have kids here because this system is in place.

As for my business, I do have a website, yes, in its mid-stages, lol. I had it fully up and running and then the server had problems and the saved version was lost - so I couldn't change it or I'd lose the lot on the next publish! So I scrapped it and started again :) our website is www.diosas.biz where you can see exactly what we're doing - and its way easier than trying to explain it, lol!!

You have beautiful items! What a unique Idea. I hope that it works out for you!

aylaah,

You sure can say Oz here, every body knows thats where Toto took Dorothy when they left Kansas. Although I don't think the wind blows there every day like that day.