Are you stuck in a boring, frustrating job? Want to have more control over your financial future by working for yourself? Want to tell your boss to “take this job and shove it”? I did, too. I became so tired of the politics of my job and the feeling that I was completely un-empowered to do anything. Then one day we (employees) were told that there was probably going to be cuts made within the next couple of years. I decided then that if I was going to leave my job, I wanted it to be on MY terms, and not someone else’s. I decided to create an online business for myself.My name is Monica and I have been a foreign language teacher for eight years. Not unlike many other teachers, I was naïve and idealistic when I first became a teacher. I believed I could change the world with good intentions, hard work, and a textbook. When I first started, teaching was more of a calling than a job. I loved being a teacher and enjoyed going to work.This all started to change when in my 4th or 5th year I got a couple of parent complaints about the rigorous standards and expectations in the course. I felt that since foreign language courses have always been college prep courses, the administration should have been supportive of the high standards and expectations in my classes. This was not the case. Instead of supporting me, the administration basically made me feel like I was doing something wrong and they tried to pressure me to change things. Although I was never given any details about who the complaining parents were or what their specific complaints were, my guess is that a couple students conspired against me either because I admonished them for talking when they weren’t supposed to or because I did not give them credit for a partially completed assignment, or for some other reason. Whatever the case was, the administration was not supportive of me.

Anyway, that incident was an educational experience for me because it taught me that school administrators could be fickle, especially when pressured by parents. I learned that administrators were not necessarily your friend, and that they could not always be trusted to support the teachers. I learned that working in a public school system could be very political – you had to learn how to “play the game”.

In my 7th year of teaching I and the other two foreign language teachers in my school were informed that one of us teachers might be getting the axe – purportedly due to the recessive economy and the district having to make budget cuts. Suddenly I realized that there was no such thing as job security – it did not matter that I was certified to teach two languages, nor that I had a Masters degree in Education. It did not matter that I was a decent teacher with no negative observation reports who had a good rapport with her students. In all likelihood, I knew that if any cuts were made, the person to go would probably be me because I had the least seniority and did not yet have tenure in that district.

I knew that at this point the situation was potentially serious – it was now no longer about my pride and why I was let go when I was a decent teacher; it was about my family having a roof over their head. It was about coming to the realization that I had no means to help my two young daughters get through college. It was about coming to the realization that I had little to fall back on for retirement. I knew that with the current (and probably future) economic situation and the precarious job situation, I had to do something to take control of my future (and that of my family). That’s when I decided to start my own home-based business. I knew that no company, business, or school district had my best interest in mind, and that no matter how qualified I was, I could still lose my job at someone else’s whim. I decided that to prevent this, I needed to work for myself. I was tired of dealing with the politics of education and the mind games that the administration had been playing with us teachers. I wanted more control over my time and my future. And I wanted to make more money.

After researching the many different home-based business opportunities available on the internet, I found a wonderful home-based internet business that I was able to set up with a little start-up capital and a couple weeks of online training. It is largely automated and does not require a huge amount of time on my part – which is wonderful for me, because after I get home from teaching I have to take care of my two young daughters while my husband is at work. With perseverance and an hour or two of work each day in the evening, I have seen my business leads grow, and I know that with this trend I will be able to leave my teaching job within the next two years. I don’t have to call people trying to sell them something, and I don’t have boxes of lotion, make-up, or sports drinks sitting around my house waiting to be sold. I look forward to being able to retire early, and to permanently bringing my husband home from his job as well.

You don’t have to be a disillusioned teacher looking to get out of education to start your own business – you can be retired from your job, looking for something to do from home to help you supplement your retirement income. Or you can still be working full-time and also work your internet business to earn supplemental income. You can work your business during whatever hours you want, since it is internet-based. A home-based internet business affords you a flexibility that you simply cannot find in a typical 9 to 5 dog-run job.

If you’re interested in looking into other job options instead of or in addition to your current job (or, if you are retired, to supplement your retirement income), go to www.buildurcastle.com. I am so glad I decided to do this, because now I know I have hope for my retirement, hope for paying off my mortgage and other debt quickly, and hope for putting my children through college.