Advice for career or about working at home? (warning! long read)

[Evo_Spec]

Hey guys,

I'm not exactly sure how to word this out but basically i was wondering if anyone knew about how or where i could start looking into working at home? or what i should do?
I'm not looking to make huge amounts of money from this, basically a part time salary or something like $50 a day since I'm in a position where i don't need that much money from this job but it would help get off the ramen diet and maybe to start on a nice savings.

My reasoning isn't all that great but a lot of tough situations come from me working somewhere because we live in the country side which has horrible/non-existent public transportation and we have no friends or family to help pick up my kid/wife and such after moving to Japan.
Of course this would be a lot easier if i worked and saved up enough to purchase another vehicle but another problem that arises is that I'm looking to put my kid into a Japanese only kindergarten which only run till 2pm at which both me and my wife would be working since there are very little night time shifts in my area but i would also like to stay away from that since i used to do that in Canada and barely spent any time with my family.
I'm actually working right now as an English teacher which isn't bad but I'm currently in a position where it'd be okay for me to leave because they only really called me in/hired me as an emergency backup because someone randomly up and left them hanging without anyone to cover and they called me even though i have literally zero experience teaching anything.

My marketable skills are pretty limited unfortunately but here's what i can think of.
- I can read/write English and can speak Japanese but cannot read Kanji for the most part, i can also understand Cantonese to about a 60-80% degree but only for simple conversation and cannot read/write.
- I have a general knowledge of computers and such but i wouldn't think it would be good enough to get work with, my software side is very weak and pretty much a monkey could build a computer.
- I have a Canon 60D w/ Canon EF 35mm f/2 and Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM but they're just stuff i got from my brother so my photography skills are still very amateur.
- Something probably useless working at home is my self-taught automotive skills, i've done engine swaps, brakes, suspension, i dunno pretty much everything a time or two so i have general knowledge of everything.
- I can type at 70-80wpm on 10fastfingers but that's without much punctuation and such so i imagine it'd be significantly slower with capitals and more punctuation.
- I have light soldering skills but am confident i could do more if i was given the opportunity/tools since i've only ever owned/used cheap single heat irons.
- I have fiber optic internet?

...The more i write the more i remember how useless my skills are and that i'm really only good for grunt work but i've written this much and would love to see if you guys have any idea if there's something that i could do?
Thanks for reading this useless post this far.

[Lastpilot]

Sorry to hear that you're in a pinch.

Not exactly staying at home, but you can try selling stock photography. However, even with unique photos from Japan you would have to pull off photo miracles to get $50 a day. Also stock video is an up and coming thing, you might be able to get the jump on that with your 60D (1080p 30/24fps). As far as which websites to sell to, I'm wayyyyy out of date to be giving any advice on that sorry.

I think people also pay for online translation so maybe try that out. Although there are scams out there so just be cautious.

I really hope things work out for you.

[Evo_Spec]

Sorry to hear that you're in a pinch.

Not exactly staying at home, but you can try selling stock photography. However, even with unique photos from Japan you would have to pull off photo miracles to get $50 a day. Also stock video is an up and coming thing, you might be able to get the jump on that with your 60D (1080p 30/24fps). As far as which websites to sell to, I'm wayyyyy out of date to be giving any advice on that sorry.

I think people also pay for online translation so maybe try that out. Although there are scams out there so just be cautious.

I really hope things work out for you.

Thanks for the advice, my brother mentioned stock photography in the past as well but i don't think my skills are good enough for that but maybe i'll just try it and see if they sell to use that as a gauge for my skills.

I wasn't aware of the scams so i'll keep an eye out for that but as i mentioned i can't write in any other language so this would require significant concentration and time to attempt.

[katushkin]

Yeah, I think I would advise you go along the translating route, seeing as you have a decent grip of the two most widely used languages in the world, as well as the language for the country you live in. It's a good start.

You seem to have a similar problem to me, where you have a very wide range of very useful skill that aren't quite developed into a speciality. Very useful skills, but yeah. You need to find a skill and really push yourself to be awesome in it.

[Evo_Spec]

Yeah, I think I would advise you go along the translating route, seeing as you have a decent grip of the two most widely used languages in the world, as well as the language for the country you live in. It's a good start.

You seem to have a similar problem to me, where you have a very wide range of very useful skill that aren't quite developed into a speciality. Very useful skills, but yeah. You need to find a skill and really push yourself to be awesome in it.

Yeah i think i just really need to sit down and spend some real time studying Kanji to both make living in Japan easier and to advance my skills.
Yeah that's another problem for me is that i lose interest once i reach a point where the skill s good enough for my needs and i never really look into perfecting them.

Also i've seen your posts that you need a new job but just wasn't sure what to say so i hope that goes/is going well for you.

[katushkin]

Yeah i think i just really need to sit down and spend some real time studying Kanji to both make living in Japan easier and to advance my skills.
Yeah that's another problem for me is that i lose interest once i reach a point where the skill s good enough for my needs and i never really look into perfecting them.

Also i've seen your posts that you need a new job but just wasn't sure what to say so i hope that goes/is going well for you.

I suffer from it with a lot of things. My attention span is really not great a lot of the times.

Thanks. I'm not actively looking right now, but I just don't really fancy doing this for a long period of time.

[tp4tissue]

web cam girl..... that's where all the money is......

hahahaha.. jk

um...  basically,  IF you have TIME..  use it to LEARN something that would make you more marketable..

Something straight up would be programming..

OR start an American BBQ Burger Joint..