{This is a promoted post with some useful tips for managing your money when you work for yourself}

New mums often face the difficult decision on whether to return to work or stay at home and sacrifice earning an income - do you risk missing out on important moments in your child’s early years? Does it make sense financially to return to work, or would you just be paying for childcare? Well, instead of choosing between the two, many women choose to become a mumpreneur!

This option can provide flexible working hours, self-directed work and more family time, plus the opportunity to earn some good money. However, it’s not to be taken lightly and requires time, consideration and preparation to work, as well as some initial expenses to get set up. Shane Clifford, CEO of WonderBill, has some ideas for how you can make your new found entrepreneurialism work best for you and your family, and save some money along the way.

CREATE AN EFFICIENT WORKSPACE

From utilising the spare room to a desk in your garage - or even the shed! - make sure you’ve got a space that’s exclusively for work. Now that you’ll be working from home you’ll be spending more on electricity and broadband, so it’s time to invest in energy efficient light bulbs and decent insulation. You don’t want your new income being depleted by easily avoidable office expenses!

KEEP UP TO DATE

Some things naturally tend to get left behind when you’ve got the kids at home. Anything that isn’t happening then and there might get pushed until its past due, which will actually just create more work in the long run. Instead of leaving your life admin till the last minute and it causing a rise in stress levels, try using WonderBill to get your bills under control. It can take you less than hour. Wrangle those bills and look for better deals without any hassle, then relax and have a cuppa. You earned it.

PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE

You’re going to take a dip in income while you get up and running so make sure you’ve got a savings account that can support you before you take the plunge. Finance whizzes usually recommend having a pot of three months’ worth of your salary to keep you safe. Either by saving on your bills or cutting down on little luxuries, see what you can scrape together for that safety fund. It is likely you’ll be grateful for it someday.

STICK TOGETHER

The old adage that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ could help you out. Instead of paying for a childminder to get some alone time, those in your community who are either full time stay-at-home parents or parents who work from home could create a schedule for taking care of a group of children. This frees up time for parents on a rotating basis, giving you time to get your work done. Even if it’s one day a week it’ll make a huge difference if you don’t have to cough up the cash for a childminder.

FIND A FLEXIBLE JOB

If you’re looking to earn some extra money to support your budding business or just looking for some additional life funds, you can find flexible jobs at www.2to3days.com. There’s a wide variety of work so you can play to your strengths. From digital PA work to development to project management, there’s a lot more out there for stay at home mums than you might think, helping you earn extra cash on a schedule that suits you

Now that you’re ready to tackle the world from your house, get to it! There are a lot of opportunities for mums who are proactive to find ways of supporting their families without compromising on precious family time. Best of luck!

WonderBill is a new household bill management app, available to download from the AppStore and Google Play. The app allows users to manage energy, water, multimedia (TV/Netflix etc), broadband and mobile bills, all in one place. A user provides their household bill information once, and then WonderBill does the hard work for them - users see a snapshot of household bill outgoings in an easy-to-use dashboard, plus the best deals tailored to their needs (based on household bill usage and offers available) helping them to save money.