How Homeschool Moms Can Make Money Online: Flexible & Sustainable Options

Share on your socials!

Being a homeschool mom is a full-time job in itself, and adding another responsibility can feel overwhelming. If you’re looking for ways to earn money while homeschooling, it’s important to choose something that aligns with your strengths and lifestyle. The last thing you want is to add unnecessary stress to your day. Some income options take time to build but can provide long-term sustainability, while others are great for quick supplemental income. Your choice depends on your goals and how much time you can realistically commit.

THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS, WHICH MEANS I MAKE A SMALL COMMISSION AT NO EXTRA COST TO YOU. SEE MY FULL AFFILIATE LINK DISCLOSURE HERE.

Supplemental Income vs. Building a Business

Before diving into income ideas, it’s important to understand the difference between making extra money on the side and building a business. If you’re looking for something quick and flexible to bring in extra cash, there are plenty of part-time and freelance options. However, if you want to build a sustainable business, expect to invest time and effort before seeing substantial income. There’s no overnight success, but if you can afford to take the time, it may be worth it in the long run.

There are tons of ways homeschool moms can make money online while still focusing on their kids’ education and home life. Here are some flexible, homeschool-friendly options:

Teaching & Tutoring

1. Online Tutoring – Teach subjects like math, reading, or science on platforms like Outschool, Wyzant, VIPKid, or Cambly.
   •  Pros: Flexible schedule, no need to create products, high earning potential ($20–$50+/hour)
   • Cons: May require teaching credentials or experience, unpredictable student bookings
2. Create & Sell Lesson Plans – Sell your homeschool resources, unit studies, and worksheets on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), Etsy, or Gumroad. You can even create your own website to sell them on, or if you have a social media following you can sell to your audience and make money that way too!
   • Pros: Passive income (earn while you sleep!), great for homeschool moms who already make worksheets, no shipping or inventory
   • Cons: Takes time to build a customer base, can be competitive
3. Start a YouTube Channel – Share homeschool tips, curriculum reviews, or educational content for kids. You can monetize with ads, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing. Or start a channel to fit a niche you’re interested in.
   •  Pros: Passive income through ad revenue and sponsorships, builds authority in the homeschool niche, low start-up costs
   • Cons: Takes time to grow an audience, requires consistent content creation
4. Teach on Outschool – If you have a skill or passion (art, music, history, writing, etc.), you can teach small group classes to kids around the world.
   • Pros & Cons are same as number 1 shown above.

Content Creation & Blogging

5. Start a Blog – Share homeschool tips, non-toxic homemaking, or from-scratch recipes and monetize with ads, sponsored posts, and affiliate marketing.
   • Pros: Passive income potential, flexible schedule, creative outlet, low start up cost, potential for multiple streams of income – you can monetize with ads, sponsorships, digital products, affiliate marketing, and even online courses.
   • Cons: Takes some time to see income, requires consistency, no guaranteed income, lots of learning curves, competitive.
     • I put together a page of blogging resources to help those who want to learn how to blog, this page includes everything I have used thus far in my blogging journey. Personally, I feel like if you want to be successful at blogging, in a shorter amount of time, it is best to take a course and learn from those who are professionals at it. There is so much that goes into blogging that I never would have dreamed of, but investing in courses (and consistency) is what has made me successful early on in my blogging journey, I truly believe I wouldn’t be this far without the help and guidance!
6. Affiliate Marketing – Recommend homeschool books, curriculum, or supplies through Amazon Associates, ShareASale, or RewardStyle and earn commissions.
   • Pros: Passive income, no product creation or customer service, can promote things you already use
   • Cons: Requires traffic (blog, YouTube, or social media), payouts can be small unless you have high sales volume
7. Write an eBook – Publish homeschool guides, lesson plans, or even a cookbook for homeschool moms on Amazon KDP, Gumroad, or Etsy.
   • Pros: Passive income, no need for inventory or shipping, great for sharing your knowledge
   • Cons: Requires upfront work to write and format, may take time to get sales
8. Create a Paid Membership or Course – Use Podia, Teachable, or Kajabi to create a homeschool course or membership for moms who need guidance.
   • Pros:
   • Passive income potential ,establishes authority – a well-made course positions you as an expert in your niche, helping you build trust with your audience, scalability – unlike one-on-one services, a course can be sold to an unlimited number of people without requiring more of your time.
   • Cons: Time-consuming to create, requires marketing effort, potential tech challenges.

Selling Handmade or Digital Products

9. Etsy Shop – Sell homeschool printables, stickers, planners, or handmade crafts.
   • Pros: Can be digital (no shipping hassles), easy to start with low upfront cost, great for creative homeschool moms
   • Cons: Etsy fees cut into profits, must stand out in a competitive market, can take time to make sales
10. Print-on-Demand – Create homeschool-themed T-shirts, mugs, or tote bags using Printify or Printful.
    • Pros: You don’t have to hold inventory or worry about shipping, easy and creative outlet, flexible and not time consuming, low start up costs.
    • Cons: Quality can vary depending on distributor, depending in how you’re selling it may take marketing efforts.
11. Stock Photography – If you take aesthetic homeschool or homemaking photos, sell them on Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, or Alamy.
    • Pros: Passive income potential, flexible & low maintenance, scalable
    • Cons: Highly competitive, low earnings per image, strict submission guidelines 

Freelancing & Virtual Work

12. Freelance Writing – Write for homeschool blogs, parenting websites, or education companies. Sites like ProBlogger or Upwork are good starting points.
    • Pros: Flexible and work-from-home friendly, get paid per article (good for fast writers), no start-up costs
    • Cons: Can take time to find consistent clients, some platforms take a commission on earnings
13. Virtual Assistant (VA) – Help small business owners or influencers with email management, social media, or customer service. Look for work on Fiverr, Upwork, or Facebook VA groups.
    • Pros: High demand for VAs, good income potential ($15–$40/hour), can scale to full-time if desired
    • Cons: Requires organization and multitasking, clients may have tight deadlines
14. Social Media Manager – Manage Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook for homeschool brands or influencers.
    • Pros: High demand, flexible work schedule, scalability
    • Cons: Time-consuming, client expectations & pressure, constant algorithm changes
15. Proofreading & Editing – Offer editing services for homeschool bloggers, authors, or curriculum creators.
    • Pros: Flexible Schedule, high demand, variety of work (ebooks, blogs, curriculum, etc)
    • Cons: Inconsistent work, may be deadlines

Other Flexible Options

16. Amazon FBA or Reselling – Sell secondhand books, homeschool materials, or thrift store finds on Amazon, eBay, Poshmark, or Facebook Marketplace.
    •  Pros: Can flip items for a profit, good for homeschool moms who love thrifting, no need to create products
    • Cons: Requires storage space for inventory, some upfront investment in products
17. Subscription Box Business – Create a homeschool-themed subscription box with hands-on activities, books, or eco-friendly school supplies.
    • Pros: Recurring income, can be homeschool-specific (STEM kits, books, crafts), lots of creative potential
    • Cons: Requires sourcing products, shipping can be costly and time-consuming
18. Test Websites & Apps – Sign up for sites like UserTesting and give feedback on websites for cash.
    • Pros: Flexibility, Low barrier to entry, variety of tasks
    • Cons: Inconsistent availability of tests, low pay for some tasks, time-consuming for little reward
19. Transcription or Captioning – Work for sites like Rev, TranscribeMe, or Scribie for flexible typing work.
    • Pros: Work on your own schedule, no customer interaction required, good for fast typists
    • Cons: Pay can be low until you gain experience, tedious work for long recordings
20. E-Commerce – Using websites like Shopify, Wix, GoDaddy are all great ways to get an e-commerce store up and running with little tech experience.
    • Pros: Create your own schedule, high income potential, creative outlet
    • Cons: Potential inventory, start up costs could be significant depending on the type of store you have

MLM Opportunities for Homeschool Moms

There are a plethora of MLM’s out there, the key is to finding one that aligns with your values, and has products that you actually find helpful and use yourself! I’m not going to list any MLM’s here because for me that can be tricky and would require me to do a whole lot of research. However, I highly suggest that if you seek out the MLM route that you do your own research and look into the products before joining!

• Pros: Can work from home, some products align with a homeschool lifestyle, potential for bonuses and commissions, potential to earn fun trips and have a community
• Cons: Many reps struggle to make a profit, heavy recruitment focus in some MLMs, potential start-up costs and monthly sales quotas

My Experiences with Online Income

I have tried out a handful of the options above and I just want to share my personal experiences with you as I think it could be helpful for your decision making process! Below I will share the things I have pursued and explain why I liked then, why they didn’t work, and/or why I am still doing them:

YouTube: In 2020, my husband and I started a family YouTube channel, for whatever reason it took off very quickly. We were very close to being monetized in just 3 months of starting the channel. However, we also quickly realized that it was out of alignment with how we wanted to live our lives. We started getting people making odd comments about how cute our kids were, and wanting to know more and more information about us.

It just felt really weird and off to us, so we decided that it was time to take it down and no longer pursue. I’m just sharing this because I think it is an important aspect to think about when thinking about YouTube. It’s human nature for people to want to know more about your life, no matter how much or how little you share, if they like you, they will want to know more.

Blogging: Well, you are on my blog now, so clearly I am still here! Blogging for me has personally been the biggest success I’ve had with anything I’ve done. I believe it’s because it has been the thing for me that has given me the biggest challenges, inspiration, and creative outlet. Those are all things that I personally need to keep me going with something, and that is important when trying to build something sustainable. For me, I wanted to build something of my own that I could potentially pass down to my kids.

It gives me the privacy for me and my family, but also lets me share the things I want to share with the world. It allows me to create something beautiful and lets me be creative in more than one way. I get to write about a variety of topics that are important to me, while also getting creative with food and photography. It truly is the perfect job for me. There are a ton of things that come with blogging that I am not good at, but taking courses and finding resources to help me with the things I’m not the best at has been the biggest blessing along this journey. I have a blogging resources page that has everything I have used so far to get me to where I am now!

Etsy Shop: I started an Etsy shop selling invitations, posters for kids rooms/homeschool rooms, and other printable items. I will say that I actually really enjoyed this, however, I wanted something of my own, and I didn’t want to depend on Etsy for an income. For me, I did start making money pretty quickly, not a lot, but it was something.

The decision for me to shut down my Etsy store was purely because I felt like it was already over saturated and it wasn’t truly fulfilling what I wanted to be doing with my life. I soon started my blog after shutting my Etsy store because the blog is what I felt would be the most fulfilling for me. I think for those who just want a creative outlet, but don’t necessarily want the stress that comes with running a business, Etsy is a great place to be!

Print-on-demand: At one point I had an E-commerce store selling print-on-demand shirts, I wanted to make it a real business, but with being overseas for my husband’s career, I felt like I had no control of the quality of the shirts. I was selling shirts that I wasn’t sure how great the quality was. I had bought some and each one came back slightly different depending on who distributed it. It just felt really out of my control and I wanted to make sure I was selling something of high quality. Eventually the brand itself fell out of alignment with who I was becoming and I decided to shut it down. I think that it can be a very good way to make money, but it just was not for me!

MLM: Okay, so we all know that either you love them or hate them! I find myself a little somewhere in between. And for the most part I really don’t like them, if I’m being honest. Somehow I have been involved with a couple of them so I will explain my experiences here. The first MLM I was ever apart of was for a forex trading company (yes, I know, what even) but my husband joined because he was really interested in learning about forex trading.

Well they ended up not teaching him anything but recruiting, so he got me involved. I will say I ended up learning a lot of skills when it came to marketing yourself and learning the ins and outs of the business model. However, it truly felt like the biggest scam on earth when they were selling and education (for forex), but all they did was teach you how to recruit people into the business. It didn’t take long for my husband and I to leave the company (and yes, my husband is still trading).

After that experience I told myself I would never be involved with something like that again. But then I ran into the companies called Monat and Melaleuca simultaneously – it was the being of my “crunchy” era, you know the one that you just believe it’s non-toxic without looking at the ingredients? Yeah that one. I actually liked the products because they worked for me, but then I started looking into the ingredients and decided I would no longer purchase or promote these companies.

Now, the only MLM I am involved with is Olive Tree People for me personally I only use it as an affiliate link, I have no interest in building a team at all. I love the products and they have completely transformed my skin. Even though I don’t love every single ingredient, but it is the best I’ve found and I feel comfortable with sharing their products. I chose to pay the $50 consultant fee mainly for the 25% discount on my own products, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that the money I make off of referrals is a positive and (mostly) passive income as well.

Choosing the Best Option for You

The key to success as a homeschool mom earning money online is choosing something that fits your strengths and lifestyle. If you’re passionate about teaching, tutoring or selling printables may be ideal. If you need something flexible and simple, reselling or freelancing might be better. And if you’re looking to build a long-term business, blogging or selling digital products could be worth the investment.

There’s no quick way to make a substantial income online, but with patience and the right choice, you can find a way to bring in money while still being present for your family. Whether you need a small side hustle or a sustainable income, there’s an option out there for you!

If you have any other ideas for online income for homeschool moms, let us know in the comments!

Pin for later & share with friends!