You may be thinking of starting your career as a remote worker and you don’t have anything. The essentials to get online are a laptop and internet connection but you don’t have any of it and you might be looking forward to setup an affordable home office.

In this article you’ll find your resources to setup a tiny affordable office at the corner of your room in less than 600 dollars.

Computer

The first item that you’ll need is a computer. You can either have a desktop or go for a laptop. Since laptop has so many benefits over a desktop, we prefer you consider having it.

There are a lot of brands in the market and HP is one of the best. The new HP Notebook 15 is a laptop with configurations good enough to perform general tasks that you might have.

It comes with a 8GB DDR4 RAM and 128 GM SSD and you can upgrade these anytime. Windows Home is pre-installed and you’ll have a year of Microsoft Office 365 subscription free with the purchase of the laptop. The price as of September 2021 is $439.

Mouse

You may say, what’s the use of mouse when you’re using a laptop? When you’re working for a long time on big projects, the touchpad of the laptops aren’t really so helpful.

Mouse allows you to work and navigate more quickly and efficiently and it’s highly recommended to use a mouse.

You may choose between a wired and a wireless mouse but our recommendation would be use a USB wired one. The wireless mouse needs battery changing every now and then and sometimes may act weird for connectivity issues.

You’ll find B100 mouse from Logitech to be satisfactory. It’s known for its excellent service and very cost effective. The price of the wired mouse as of September 2021 is $8.75.

Router

The next important item in the list is to have a router. Without internet connection you can’t work online and to have a sound internet connection, you need to have a good router.

Routers of different price ranges are available in the market. However, since we’re talking about a minimal budget, we need to have a good router within a lower price range.

AC 1200 dual band router from TP Link is a good choice for the beginners. It has a good reputation and you’ll get nice internet connectivity to continue your online activities.

As of writing of this article, the price of the router is $29.99.

Desk

The essentials are done. You can keep your laptop anywhere and start working. However, to have a nice working environment and for long time work, a desk is essential.

The desk needs to be small enough to fit right at the corner of your room and big enough to comfortably work on it.

The Furinno laptop desk might be the perfect option for you as it sets at any corner of your house and provides the correct space to continue your work. The price for this should be around $35.44.

Another space saving option is to look for Hbaid Computer Desk. This is a great space saving C shaped desk, can also be placed over bed.

Chair

Selecting a good chair for work is very important. You may think of working right from your bed or just from the couch keeping the laptop on the lap but in the long run, you may develop health issues for sitting for extended period of time.

If you not want to pay much for big ergonomic chair, may be you can select something that might come within your budget.

We recommend to have a home office ergonomic mesh chair with lumbar support to work comfortably. You can have it for $48.99.

These five items will help you set up the very first home office and you can start your remote career from the comfort of your home.

There are many more items available in the market for a different range of price but for beginners, to home office setup for less than $600 is nice.

After you start making a good amount of money, you can obviously update all the stuff according to your need.

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You may be wondering, where to look for remote works.

There are a lot of sites to start working as a freelancer. Some are for specific skills and some are for almost anything.

Before you start freelancing, may be it’s worth taking a look at the pros and cons of remote work. You may also want to have a bit of idea on some non technical remote jobs, that you may start right away.

Freelancing Sites

Since we’re talking about online works, certainly there has to be an access point.

To start freelancing, you’ll find a number of websites dedicated to serve the remote workers with different jobs on almost all categories.

Big tech giants like microsoft, google, facebook etc. sometimes hire independent contributors aka freelancers like you to work on different projects.

The online work platforms take care of your earnings as well to avoid any sort of payment disputes. Hence, it’s always best to work with any of the freelancing websites to avoid harassment, especially if you’re starting out fresh.

Below is a list of some good sites that are worth trying.

1. Upwork

Two online platforms of remote work oDesk and Elance merged together to form Upwork. This is an excellent platform to look for clients and to start your remote career.

On Upwork, you sign up as a freelancer, create your portfolio showing your great skills and apply to jobs, that suits you the best.

This site has a number of different categories for jobs to pick from. According to your expertise, you apply to a job and if the client feels you’re fit for the job, s/he gets back to you.

If your portfolio is really good, then at times clients reach out to you to work on different projects. Such projects may turn out to be long term as well, running for years.

2. Freelancer

Similar to Upwork, Freelancer has a great number of categories. You can choose from a verity of works to get started.

You need to create a profile and basing on your expertise, you’ll start bidding to different projects published by clients.

This too can be a very good platform if you’re looking to start remote work.

3. Fiverr

Fiverr is an outstanding place to showcase your expertise and get hired. Being a starter, you can start selling your work from 5 dollars.

As you grow with your project deliveries, your clients keep on giving you feedbacks. As the feedbacks increase, your project cost may grow simultaneously.

There’re a lot of categories like website development, social media marketing, designing etc. and you can provide service of any of it.

As a beginner you may give Fiverr a try to gain experience on freelance works and then can start working on other platforms as well.

4. 99 Designs

If you’re a designer, then 99designs is the place for you.

On this site, you’ll find a lot of opportunities to attain to your favorite designing job.

If you’re willing, with other colleagues or partners you can register as an agency as well. Agencies work like online companies and you may get bigger projects from bigger clients.

Please note that, unlike other platforms, 99designs only constitutes jobs that are design specific.

5. One Hour Translation

Here’s another workplace that’s dedicated to the translators, One Hour Translation. To get working on it, you need to be skilled in at least two different languages, English being one of them.

With the availability of internet, demand of translators are rising to reach out to every corner of the world.

There’re a lot of translation and localization jobs on different categories. You can pick up the category according to your interest.

6. Test IO

Test IO is a website for crowd-testing. Anyone from any background can sign up to become a tester. The testing generally involves website testing.

Once signed up, you have to go through the documents provided in the website to appear a test.

This test is to familiarize yourself with different testing requirements, rules, terms and conditions.

Once you pass the test, you’ll be requested to appear a real testing. This generally is a website testing.

After you pass, you’ll be onboard to test real websites and apps with many other contributors from across the globe.

Summing Up

You might see there are many other websites that are offering online works. However, the websites listed above are among the best and there are a lot of happy freelancers, who have been working for a long time on these.

These websites have been there for a long time with a very good reputation.

If you’re thinking to start freelancing, you can give any of these a try, depending on your area of expertise.

The post Start Freelancing – Websites Worth Giving a Try appeared first on A Techy Living.

Remote Work and Freelancing

In remote work, you don’t need to travel/commute to the working place. It’s also called Telecommuting. This work is accomplished using a computer from anywhere in the world.

Online freelance works are also stated to be remote work but not all remote works are freelancing and vice versa.

Freelancer is a person who is Self-Employed. That means such work is considered to be a business of the freelancer and it can be done online or offline.

As a freelancer you’ll sell your works and expertise to others. If this procedure is completed online, it’s a remote work.

On the other hand, many companies hire location independent contributors to work for the company.

These works are also completed online and so these are also remote works.

Freelancer vs Remote Employee

Being a freelancer, you’re not committed to long term employment at the company. You’ll generally work on contract basis and will be paid once the job or a particular project is completed.

As self-employed, you’ll not be entitled to company benefits like insurances, paid vacations, sick leaves, 401K policy etc.

On the other hand, remote employees are hired by the company following all the rules and regulations imposed by it. If you’re hired as a remote employee, you’re committed to full time work.

Generally, you’ll need to work at the times prescribed by the employer. At times, you’ll be called together with other remote associates for a meetup. You’ll be entitled to all the benefits a general employee gets.

What to Choose

A freelancer gets to pick as many clients as s/he wants to boost up the income and an employee of course doesn’t have this liberty.

As self-employed, you’ll run your own business and that means you’ve to pay your own taxes and you may be deprived of having many benefits a company can provide.

On the other hand, taxes are being taken care of by the companies for you, if you’re a remote associate. You’ll be entitled to all benefits the company provides.

While you’re an employee, you’ll get your salary in the bank account at the beginning of each month but being a freelancer, if you don’t work for a month, there won’t be any payment.

To be a freelancer you need to take care of various expenses, e.g. maintaining the work space, buying required equipments etc., which aren’t relevant for the employees.

When it comes to picking one, it totally depends on you. There are many freelancers who are making a living only being self-employed and this gives enormous freedom and opportunities.

As long as it is “work from home”, there are certain flexibilities but like all other activities, remote work also has got some disadvantages as well, which are being stated in more detail in Pros and Cons of Remote Work.

Be it employment or freelancing, in my personal opinion, I think most of the jobs, where possible, will turn online. Remote work is eventually becoming more convenient.

The post A Look into Work from Home appeared first on A Techy Living.

Work from home can be very fascinating as it provides you the flexibility to literally work from the comfort of your bed. There are many who work full time online and such works give a great deal of benefits but like all other things it has got some drawbacks as well.

Advantages

1. Work-Life Balance

Online jobs can possibly provide the best work-life balance than any other traditional works. You can work at your convenient time, take a break in between the working hours, attend to any important appointment or even can go out with old parents or grand-parents for a meal, without hampering your job.

There are companies that require their remote associates to commit 40 hours per week (i.e. full time job) but they don’t impose the hours, that are required to be completed on a daily basis. In such cases, you can work at your own flexibility, night or day to meet the hours. As long as the deliverables are met, the companies are happy.

2. Commuting in Remote Work

If not the most, a very important factor is commuting to work. According to a report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, average American commuter wastes 54 extra hours a year.

Online workers can convert these extra hours to a valuable investment of making money. In most remote works, an hour worked is an hour paid.

3. Flexibility at Work

Flexibility of online work equals to none. The works are both time and location independent, i.e. you can work from anywhere in the world at any time.

In present days, our personal lives have become complicated and we always need to take care our family members and give time to the kids.

Committing to a full time office job sometimes make it difficult to attend to various family and social affairs, which can easily and nicely be handled if we work online.

4. Relaxed Nature of Remote Work

Freelancing is very relaxed and stress free and isn’t any bossing around. You are your own boss and there’s no disturbance related to official surroundings.

In such jobs, people mostly work on what they love, making the work enjoyable, yet profitable.

Disadvantages

1. Networking in Remote Work

Independent contributors don’t get to meet with associates and hence you may feel isolated. This makes the remote life boring and not everyone can actually cope with it as we, humans are social.

2. Maintaining Relevant Accessories

You need to manage some equipments required to ensure the minimum working requirement.

Some of the essentials are a computer with a good configuration, reliable internet connection, working webcam and a microphone for meetings and interviews.

All of these needs to be managed by you and it needs to be considered an investment.

3. Time Zone Difference

While working online, you need to bear in mind that time zone difference could be a major issue to collaborate with your associates.

People are expected to work from around the world and they’ll be working in different time zones. Thus, you may sometimes need to manage your time to collaborate with others.

4. Environment for Remote Work

Some of the jobs, like programming or writing may require a sound working environment. Besides, for people of any profession working from home can be distracting with personal phone calls, household chores, visitors etc.

Therefore, securing a nice working room at a corner, with all essential equipments is highly recommended.

5. Lack of Support

As an independent contractor, you are generally not provided with general supports by the company, e.g. vacation pay, 401K, insurance etc.

There can be any unforeseen circumstance and you being self-employed, need to develop some contingency plans for sick leaves, personal emergencies, vacations or retirement.

6. Job Security

One of the very important factors is job security and it’s non-existent in self-employment.

Your client can stop working with you at any time and so, it becomes necessary to keep clients happy all the time, by providing perfect deliverables as they need.

Furthermore, it’s also important to constantly promote yourself to gain new clients.

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