Guest Post by Lynn, brilliant creator of The Diary of a Nomad Mom. She is wet-your-knickers funny and I am totally honored that she wanted to swap guest posts with me. You can also find brilliant ‘shorts’ like the one below on her Facebook page. Lynn and I decided to write about how we mothers try to make a buck without having to succumb to turning tricks…yet. You can check out mine on her blog here!

Once upon a time I was flying up the career ladder. I worked 60 hours a week and made six figures. Shopping sprees galore, groceries from Whole Foods and dinner out whenever I wanted. Then my husband got offered a job in a foreign country. And we had a baby. And everything went to hell in a hand basket.

Four years ago we made our move with a 8 week old baby in tow. I lasted for two months as a stay at home mom before I started climbing the walls. I was sick of window-shopping with a baby carriage, I wanted the freedom to go back into the stores and use any dressing room I wanted. (Side note, how seriously freaking annoying are the hordes of teen girls who all pile into together into the one big dressing room? I know I am a lackadaisical parent at best, but even I hesitate to park the stroller in the common area of the dressing room. Move your skinny butts out of there already!)

My husband came home one evening to find me crying over the baby. It is amazing how quickly a nervous breakdown can make your husband find money in the budget for daycare. We signed up for one day a week and my adventures in money-hunting began.

What kind of start-up does a woman with zero creativity and no experience working for herself make? Apparently, a lot more than she ever envisioned. It took me six months to get the ball rolling, but I soon found myself overwhelmed with new business ideas. I buddied up with a creative friend and started a website. I wrote and wrote and wrote and earned nothing but pats on the back for my efforts. Nice, but those don’t buy the latest Prada sandals that I HAD to have.

Next we opened a photography studio, but without the studio. We bought collapsible backdrops and lights and marketed ourselves as traveling family photographers. We booked in all of my friends and soon had a nice little (emphasis on the word little) income stream. We paid off the equipment and eventually earned enough for the shoes.

Emboldened by our success, I began dreaming up more and more ideas and that were further and further from reality. Like my idea for a waterproof kid’s clothing line that would keep the dribbles from soaking through. Purchased: one sewing machine and vast amounts of cloth samples. End result: new curtains for my business partner’s baby room and a bag of cloth shoved in the back of my attic .

Somehow I eventually managed to bring in a few thousand euros by whoring out my marketing talents and writing skills for fractions of what I used to make. I ended up older and more bitter and even further from the shopping sprees I had envisioned. What good is it if you can afford the Prada shoes when you realize that you have to work 200 hours to pay for them?

So now I write this blog in the hopes that someday, someone will stumble across it and think “this woman is a genius” and will shower me with money, book and movie deals. Until then I have finally come up with a guaranteed way to earn more money. I am going to sell my eggs. I figure as long as no one looks closely at my kids and I run a strict no refunds policy, I’ll be doing just fine.