If you’ve been online for half a second, you have probably found thousands of websites out there trying to help you start your own stay at home mom businesses. Most tell you how easy it is to make money online, or how you can be making money in your sleep. All you need to do is sign on the dotted line...and pay a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to get started.

It can be frustrating for moms looking to start stay at home mom businesses to find the opportunities that are legitimate! Can you make money in your sleep? Perhaps, after several years of hard work. But none of it is as easy as it sounds. So how do you find the right opportunities for you?

First and foremost, you need to examine the following. How much time do you have to commit to your stay at home mom businesses? How much money do you have to contribute (sorry, but starting a business does take money, though you can do it on a shoestring)? And what are your passions in life?

Let’s take each of these three topics and break them down. First, there is time. As a stay at home mom, time might be something you have plenty of, especially if you have just one baby at home, or your children are off to school. Stay at home mom businesses take time. They take a commitment of time on a daily basis to work at your business, as well as a length of time of several months to a couple years to get your business off the ground. If you are looking to earn money at home, this needs to be a consideration.

Next is the matter of money. All businesses take some money to start, but you can realistically start an online business for $50-200 a month. In the beginning, you will work hard and see very little results from that investment, but as time goes on, your income will exceed your expenses and you will start to turn a profit.

And finally, there is the issue of passion. In order to be successful with stay at home mom businesses, you really need to choose to do something you are passionate about. If you don’t get up each morning in love with your business, then you will burn out, and all your hard work will be for nothing. Find something you love, and the money will follow.

The truth of the matter is, if you are willing to work hard, you can achieve a good level of income without spending a ton of money. But you do have to work at it, consistently, for quite some time. Some ideas for stay at home mom businesses that are legitimate: direct sales, network marketing, become a virtual assistant, start a home daycare, do mystery shopping, start your own content based website, sell online, or start your own business based on a passion of yours.