Music lessons ~Money making Monday

Crystal @ MoneySavingMom has started Money Making Monday in which she shares ideas for making money from home and has a place for others to leave links to their posts about the subject. I really have enjoyed her posts and I enjoy the subject in general as that is something I have enjoyed doing for a long time.

I am so happy to be able to be a Stay at home Mom and though that is what I would be even if I didn't work from home (as my husband provides for us well.), I enjoy being able to make a little more money to help out. I have done many different things to make money at home but this week I thought I would talk about Music lessons and other ways to make money with music.

I have enjoyed music since I was very small. We went to church regularly where there was a lot of music and also we had a lot of music in our home and enjoyed making music with friends. My parents made sure to get us music lessons so that we could learn the instruments we were interested in. I took lessons up through college (and then I have taken them afterwards as well.) I started teaching lessons about 7 years ago.

Music lessons are a nice way to make money as it provides a steady income as the students come every week. It is also something that can be done with children in the home, just have your children trained to not interrupt during lesson time. My children are not always perfect during lessons but that is something we have worked on. Somethings that I have done to help them is: 1. talking about what they would do and how they would act before the lesson. 2. Have a snack set out for them to eat during the lesson (especially good for little ones) . 3. Explain to them where they need to be (example- quietly playing in their room) and also sometimes 4. Try to schedule it during the child's nap.

Here are some things that I have done for advertising: 1. Put up posters at businesses all around town. 2. Put an Ad in the newspaper (very honestly, this did not work very well). 3. Develop a relationship with the local music store and get referrals from them. and 4. Word of mouth.

Some tips from what I have learned: 1. I have found that it works much better to have them pay in advance and then tell them that they would need to cancel a week in advance or their payment would be lost. (I did also offer a rescheduling in the case of sickness). Before I started doing this I had quite a bit of problems with students calling an hour before their lesson to cancel or just not showing up. 2. Have recitals. My students and their families have really enjoyed them even though it makes me incredibly nervous!! 3. Always be on the lookout for new ideas or materials to make lessons interesting. 4. Keep practising yourself so that you can be a good example and keep improving.

This has been a fun thing for our family, we have become friends with my students and it has definitely been a way to make money without putting out much money.

Next week I will share some of my other ideas for making money at home. As I love to try new things I would love to hear what you might do to make money at home!