The morning the email arrived, I honestly thought someone was playing a cruel joke.

I remember staring at the screen thinking this had to be some kind of late April Fool’s prank. As it was just a few days into April, but my brain simply refused to accept what I was reading.

So blinked and I blinked again as I read the message again.

Then I read it a third time, slower this time, hoping I had misunderstood something.

I hadn’t.

The company I had built my make money from home income with for almost eight years had shut down, and in one email I was reminded how risky it can be to rely on one business model when you're trying to figure out how to make extra money from home.

No warning. No long explanation. Just a short corporate email sent out letting us know the business was finished and the company had closed it's doors.
Just like that.

For a few minutes I sat there in complete disbelief waiting for another message to follow. Something that said the first email had been sent in error.
Nothing came.

Instead the truth washed over me all at once, the way a wave hits before you have time to brace yourself.

At a corporate meeting behind closed doors, with a swipe of a pen and a few raised hands of "Aye" .. Someone had just yanked the rug out from under our feet.

Not just mine.

There were thousands of women across the country opening that same message that morning. Women (and men) who had built business teams, loyal customers, friendships and entire routines around that online social media business, around ways to make money from home they believed would last.

Women who had worked their tails off month after month believing they were building something lasting.

And overnight it was gone. The anger came fast.

Not the quiet kind. It was rage, the kind that popped my butt out of the kitchen chair and began pacing the kitchen.. the injustice of it all.. The kind that makes your stomach queasy while your mind starts racing through questions you can’t answer.

How does something like this happen?

How do years of work (and extra income online) disappear in one email?

I was angry, upset for myself, yes. But more than that, I was angry for my friends, my network marketing team.

Many of those women didn’t have diversified income, additional income streams, extra money coming in.

For them, that email didn’t just close a company.
It closed their income.

And once the anger settled, something else showed up behind it.
Sadness.

Because the truth is that multi level marketing business had been part of my life for nearly eight years. It had carried me through some difficult tough times. Extra income of the years when my father lost his vision and my mother was slowly losing her memory.

Years of being that parent caregiver, the responsibilities filled my days and life rarely followed the neat plans we imagine for it.

During those years that extra online income business gave me something I desperately needed.

Flexibility.

The ability to work in the small spaces of time between everything else life was asking of me, because a 9-5 job just wouldn't give time off for their seemingly endless Doctor appointments and errands.

For a long time it fit my life well.

Which is why sitting there reading that email, I wasn’t just angry.

I was grieving the end of something that had helped carry me through some of the hardest years of my life.

What I didn’t know yet was that the moment that felt like someone had kicked the legs out from under my business would eventually turn into something very different... Perhaps a weird blessing in disguise..

At the time it just felt like the ground had disappeared that left me scrambling of how I was going to pay this months bills.

How Women Have Always Found Ways to Make Extra Money

Reflecting..

For as long as families have had bills to pay, women have found ways to bring extra money into the household, ways to make money from home when the budget needed boosting.

Sometimes it was selling something. Sometimes it was making something. Sometimes it was simply spotting an opportunity other people overlooked.

I grew up watching that happen.

My mom’s sister Aunty Jeanette was that ding dong door knocking Avon Lady for years, and as a little girl I loved when she came to visit because she always had those tiny sample lipsticks in her kit. Every once in a while she would hand one to me like it was the greatest treasure in the world.

Back then it wasn’t unusual to know someone selling something.
Avon.
Tupperware.
Watkins.

Later.. Creating extra money from home became home parties where women gathered in living rooms looking at candles, kitchen tools, skincare or whatever product was making the rounds that year.

🔗 Related Read ... if you’ve reached the stage where you’re done pretending hustle culture pays off, I wrote more about that here in How to Make Money from Home When We’re Done Pretending Hustle Culture Pays Off because that shift in thinking matters more than most women realize.

Even if we couldn’t afford to buy anything, we still went.

We went for the snacks, sisterhood, we went for the laughter. We went because it was an excuse to get out of the house for an evening, to shave our legs and put some make up on. 😂

Then there were the weekend markets. Tables covered in homemade baking, hand-knit socks, crafts and little Christmas gifts people picked up as stocking stuffers that helped a friends saving account grow or stash cash for a rainy day fund.

It wasn’t glamorous.

But it filled the gap of having more month than money.

In my own family that kind of resourcefulness was just normal life. My dad was a logger and there were times when money didn’t stretch as far as we would have liked. I remembered a lot of goulash as a kid. Thank goodness I liked goulash.

So like a lot of families we figured things out.

Everything is figuroutable.

I remember selling worms so I could buy my first show halter for my pony in 4-H. My brother saved money from odd jobs to buy his first 3 speed pedal bike.

Weekends sometimes meant cutting firewood to sell or clearing dangerous trees from someone’s cottage lake lot cabin for extra cash, one more make extra money from home kind of resourcefulness before anyone called it that.

Nobody called it entrepreneurship back then.

It was simply what we did when we needed to make things work. Looking back now, I can see that women were always finding ways to make extra money from home, even if nobody used that language back then.

My First Exposure to Network Marketing

My first real exposure to network marketing (MLM) came when I was around ten or twelve.

My grandparents had a big old station wagon and I remember sitting in the back seat while cassette tapes played through the speakers. They weren’t music tapes. I remember the names of Bill and Peggy, speaking, talking about business, motivation and building extra income something through a company I think began with an A. 😏

At that age I didn’t understand much of what they were talking about. To me it was just something adults listened to while kids stared out the window watching trees go by.

But there was another part of that memory that stayed with me.

The boxes and boxes of stuff. I remember seeing them stacked in garages. Product ordered with the hope it would sell, creating profits and extra money from home. Sometimes Grandpa's stuff sold quickly. Sometimes it didn’t.

Years later that image came back to me in a way I never expected.

Standing in my daughter’s house decades later, after returning from a winter trip, looking at months of product deliveries stacked along the wall, I suddenly remembered Grandpa's garage.

And that’s when a thought crossed my mind that I couldn’t ignore. This make money from home business model, this network marketing model, was starting to feel like a snake eating its own tail as I now had more product than one household could consume..

🔗 Related Read: And what I experienced in my make extra money from home business .. this isn’t just one company making a random change. Over the last few years, several network marketing companies have shifted away from traditional team-building payout structures and toward affiliate-style models (or closed their doors forever) that focus more on customer sales than recruiting, which says a lot about where the industry itself is heading.

Why Income Diversification Matters More Than Ever

The one interesting thing about caretaking our parents is .. is the preaching we get almost every day. No matter how old we get "we parent", I might be 45+ and they are 68 and I was still a kid in their eyes..

That was when my dad’s voice popped back into my head again on the long drives to the city for a medical check up..

"Don't do as I do, do as I say".. and especially when he lost his vision so suddenly after he had retired, would say almost every day; "Roxanne, don't wait, do it now."

When their care needs grew beyond my skills and they lived in senior assisted living.. he still repeated, "All those things on your bucket list, accelerate it. The travel dreams. The beaches, the mountains, New York art centers.. Plan it.. don't wait."

So instead of waiting for some distant retirement date, my husband Bob & I started building a life that allowed us to enjoy it sooner than later or worse.. not at all.

Winters somewhere beachy and warm. Summer in Canada.

Mexico (and other warm sunny countries) eventually became part of that rhythm. A few months each year where we stepped away from the cold, blowing snow, icy roads and lived life a little differently before returning home again in the spring.

At first it simply felt like we had figured out how to enjoy life a little sooner than planned.

What I didn’t realize yet was that this lifestyle was about to reveal something important about making extra money from home online business I had been running.

Some side hustle business models travel well. Others don’t.

The second Dad quote we've known since being teenyboppers was "Don’t ever put all your eggs in one basket."

Standing there looking at those all those boxes of product at my Daughters after landing ✈️ back into Canada, remembering Grandpa's garage I had seen growing up, and thinking about how quickly a company had disappeared overnight, I finally understood what he meant.

Relying on one income stream is risky.

Especially for women trying to earn money from home while life keeps changing around them.

And especially when that side hustle extra income depends on products, inventory or one company staying in business.

That realization pushed me to start paying attention to something I had mostly ignored before.

Other ways to make money from home. Other ways to earn money from home (or anywhere) that were not tied to one fragile system or one company making all the rules.

Ways that didn’t depend on physical products, buying products to stay commission qualified or hoping a company would still exist next year. Ways to earn extra money from home, ways to build extra income from home, that weren’t tied to one fragile system.

When one door closes, they say God opens a window ..

That search eventually led me to something I hadn’t explored deeply before.
Digital marketing.

It opened my eyes to a beginner-friendly way to make money online with 100% profits without being tied to one company, one country, or one commission structure.

And once I started understanding how it worked, I realized there were entirely different ways to build income online, create online income, and make money online that didn’t rely on inventory, shipments, samples or endless recruiting or team building...

🔗 And if you want to go down a rabbit hole, keep reading, this related make extra money from home post goes a little deeper: Make Money from Home with Digital Marketing for Beginners in 2026.

Comparing Two Ways Women Make Money from Home

When I started looking more closely at different ways to make money from home (especially when my MLM quit on me), I realized something interesting.

Network marketing and digital marketing are not enemies.

They’re simply two completely different business models.

Both have helped thousands of women create income. Community. Friendship. Both can work. But they work very differently depending on where a women is in life, what she might desire in a side gig and what kind of flexibility they need.

Being candid.. there are soo many ways to create extra income from home, the choices out there are endless, like a buffet table. But with age comes a knowing of what we like in a online business, and what we don't like about a certain side hustle idea.

And that is a good thing! Choices ..

Once I understood that, the whole picture became clearer.

Instead of asking which one was “better,” the more useful question became:
Which one fits the season of life we’re in right now?

Here’s the simplest way I can explain the difference.

Why Digital Marketing Started Making Sense

Neither model is wrong. They simply operate differently.

(And yes, that little MLM vs Digital Marketing could have included A LOT more, but I felt this is a blog not a book 😂 so please give a bit of grace there.)

For many women, network marketing is where they first learn how business works.

We build confidence, communication skills, relationship skills, sales ability, and often create genuine friendships along the way.

But there does come a point when priorities change.

Sometimes we’re caring for parents. Sometimes we want more time freedom.

Sometimes we want to travel more. And sometimes we simply reach the stage where we no longer want a business model that asks for so much constant attention just to keep the income moving.

Sometimes we just want to make money and get paid for the skills and effort we bring to the table.

And sometimes we want another stream of income. Income diversification. The same way we would never be advised to keep our entire retirement portfolio in one place, it makes sense not to build all of our hopes around one company or one income model either.

That is where digital marketing for beginners with 100% profits started making sense to me, especially for women who wanted a simpler way to make money online without inventory, parties, or constant recruiting.

Because instead of relying on one company structure, digital marketing opened the door to a model that was more flexible income creation, more portable (I can take it with me on a plane), and easier to fit around the life we were actually living.

For someone looking for flexible ways to make money from home, that difference matters a lot more than I realized at the time..

AND especially when that MLM didn't do business in the country my husband wintered in and coming home to six months of boxes of product to stay commission qualified..

What started making more and more sense to me was this. If a woman wants to build extra income from home today, why not choose a model that can move with her life instead of fighting against it every step of the way?

That is exactly why digital marketing caught my attention.

It can be learned by beginners. It is location independent. It can be worked from a beach🌴, a mountain lake cabin, a kitchen table, a motorcoach, or a quiet corner of the house.

And when the profits are 100% yours, that gets our attention too.

If you’ve been reading this and quietly thinking, yes, when it comes to make extra money from home .. that sounds more like what I want now, then the next step is simply taking a closer look at how it works.

I’ve got a beginner-friendly place for you to do exactly that.

It is a exploratory look at digital marketing for beginners, especially for women who want more flexibility, more choice, and a "money maker" that can travel with life.

We do not need to have it all figured out in one day.

We just need enough curiosity to take a look and see whether this kind of make money from home solution, this kind of make money online idea, fits the life we want to build next and what might be around the corner ..

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is it risky to rely on one source of income when you’re trying to make money from home?

Yes, it can be.

That is one of the hardest lessons many women learn, especially after they’ve already poured years into building something. When all of your extra income depends on one company, one compensation plan, or one business structure staying the same, you are more vulnerable than you may realize.

Life changes. Companies change. Payouts change. Sometimes doors close without much warning at all. That is why having more than one stream of income, or at least learning another way to earn money from home, can create a lot more breathing room and peace of mind.

2. Why do so many women start looking for ways to make extra money from home in midlife?

Because by midlife, most of us have lived enough life to know where the pressure points are.

We’ve watched the grocery bills rise. We’ve helped kids. We’ve cared for parents. We’ve seen how quickly life can change, and how important it is to have a little extra money coming in without turning our entire world upside down.

At this stage, women are often not looking for hype. We are looking for practical. We want something that helps the budget, gives us more choice, and fits around real life. That is why so many women begin searching for ways to make extra money from home when they reach this chapter of life.

3. What is the biggest difference between network marketing and digital marketing?

The biggest difference is how the income is built and what it depends on.

Network marketing often depends on physical products, company rules, and in many cases ongoing team building or sales volume to keep the income moving. Digital marketing, on the other hand, can be built around digital products and online systems that do not require inventory, shipping, or a spare room full of boxes.

That does not make one good and one bad. It simply means they work differently. For some women, network marketing fits beautifully for a season. For others, digital marketing starts making more sense when they want something more flexible, more portable, and less tied to one company.

4. Is digital marketing a realistic option for beginners who want to make money online?

Yes, it can be, especially for women who are willing to learn something new and want a simpler way to build income.

One of the reasons digital marketing caught my attention is because it can be learned by ordinary women who are not trying to become internet celebrities or tech wizards. It offers a way to make money online that is more flexible, more location independent, and often easier to fit around everyday life.

That is why it has become so appealing to women who want to earn money from home without inventory, constant recruiting, or feeling tied down by one company’s decisions.

🌻 Cheers and chat soon,
Roxanne

PS.. don't forget to grab your Free eBook of Digital Marketing for Beginners with 100% Profits in your Pocket

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