If you're like everyone else trying to start a new business, you have no money. In fact, you probably have less than no money. You're probably in debt up to your tonsils. Still, there are birthday presents to be bought and lawns to be mowed and how do you keep up with these things when you feel like you don't have a nickel to your name?

Bartering is a great way to move your business forward when you don't have the experience to command cold cash. The basic idea is that you exchange your product or service for someone else's — no money changes hands.

When I'm not writing for First Wives World, I run a marketing company for very small businesses and my blog, ittybiz. In the last year or so, I've been getting a lot of my business through this method and it works wonderfully. In exchange for my services, I get free coffee at the local café for life. I'm six months into a year of free badly needed manicures and pedicures. I even organized the marketing for a tattoo parlor and transferred the gift certificates to my neighbor who has agreed to paint my apartment.

Here are a few things to know about the whole process:

1. You can barter either independently or through a bartering network. Independent bartering is simple — you clean my house and I watch your kids, for example. Network bartering is when a large group of businesses get together to streamline the process. In this case, you would clean my house, I watch the neighbor's kids, and he shovels your driveway. Everybody gets a service, but they're not limited to the offerings of one person.

2. In most states, services or products received through barter are treated as taxable income. Since laws vary from place to place, check with your accountant.

Remember when your mother told you that nothing good is ever easy? I hate to be the one to tell you this, but she was right.

I read a lot of blogs. Many of them are written by my competition and many by my potential clients. I read about people with craft businesses and web design businesses and freelance writing businesses and accounting businesses, and everything in between. If you can imagine it, someone's turned it into a business. I work with a pretty broad spectrum of humanity. One of the things I read and hear most often is the hugely pervasive myth that making money from home is easy.

This myth has always been prevalent. The internet did not create this idea, but it's certainly expanded it. Avon, Amway, Mary Kay, stuffing envelopes — the list started long before there was a computer in every home. Some of these businesses are legitimate and some of them are far from it, but one thing you can say for all of them is they ain't easy.

Most of the people I know with home businesses work at least 12 hours a day. I'm writing this at 11:38 p.m. on a Sunday night. I'll be at the computer for at least another couple of hours. There hasn't been a day on which I have not worked since August. I worked on Christmas. So did most of the people I know.

Don't get me wrong. It's fun and it's rewarding and it's a whole lot better than pulling on the pantyhose and heading out to the office, but easy it is not.

I don't ever want to try and dissuade someone from running their own business. I am the one who cuddles my baby when he's sick and there's nothing that will ever compare to that. But the idea that you can just spend a few hours a week and you'll make enough money to feed your family is just not true. I'm starting to resent the implication that it is.

When I first decided I was ready to seriously think about working from home, my first concern was money. Was I going to be able to feed my family?

My father and I were talking about it, and he asked me what I needed to feel comfortable. I told him I needed to replace my current salary. This is when he told me one of the most important things about running my own home business.

"You don't need to replace your salary. You need to replace your lifestyle."

While I freely admit that at the time, I thought he was crazy, I've since learned that this is incredibly true. It's easy to think that your lifestyle just incorporates what's coming in, that's not all there is to it. You also have to think about what's going out.

I'd read all the articles that said when you work from home, you save money on things like lunches out and work clothes. The very idea that I had money for either of those things was laughable at the time, so I didn't think they applied to me. Thinking about it more deeply, though, I realized that there was a lot of money I could be saving by working from my home.

1. Transportation. At the time, I was living in the suburbs of Toronto and paying over $350 per month on work-related transportation and I didn't even own a car! Working from home meant that expense was completely eliminated.

There are many benefits that come with working from home. You can work in your pajamas. You can pick your own hours. Nobody minds if you eat cottage cheese in your underwear and call it lunch.

There are more than a few downsides, however. One of the biggest is that when you work from home, your boundaries tend to vanish into thin air. Every person I know who works from home shares the same complaint — the rest of the world seems to think you're not working. Whether the school wants you to volunteer you for an extra shift working the crosswalk, your neighbor needs someone to sign for her package, or your sister just wants to chat — somebody thinks their needs are more important then yours.

Over the years, I've felt my share of fear. I got pregnant at 17, married at 18, separated at 19. I have been fired four days before Christmas. I have realized on the 14th of the month that my welfare check is completely spent. Being a single mom is scary.

Nothing, though, compares to the fear that comes with working from home. Yes, it's my dream. Yes, I adore it. But my God, it's scary.

Through my time, I've learned a few ways to handle being scared out of my mind. Whether my fears are business or personal, their impact on my psyche is still the same. Here are some things you can do to keep the fear from wrecking your life:

Figure out what you're really afraid of. When I work with entrepreneurs and freelancers, the biggest fear they mention is not being able to make it. That means different things for different people. For some, they're really afraid of being broke. For others, they're afraid of being embarrassed.

There's nothing wrong with being afraid of being broke, but you need to figure out what that really means. Are you afraid that you'll end up homeless? That you'll end up going back to your ex because you have nowhere else to go? If it's an embarrassment fear, are you really afraid that failure means you won't be good enough? That people won't love you or respect you? Figure out where your fear is really rooted.

Try to be rational. Once you've figured out what you're really afraid of — let's say you're afraid you'll be homeless — start thinking about that in a logical way. Do you know anyone who's been homeless? Are you close to being homeless? How likely is it that you'll have absolutely no other options than the street?

Being a single mom can be tough. Working from home can be tough, too. Being a single work-at-home mom? Don't even get me started.

Everyone says they need more time... but you? You really need more time. Here are some tips for getting a few extra hours in your day:

1. Do a time audit

Each one of us has a bunch of really useless things we do that take our time without giving us anything in return. Figure out what your time suckers are. Do you watch Friends reruns? Hang out on Instant Messenger? Read gossip magazines when you should be catching up on sleep? Like buying unnecessary lattes or inappropriate shoes, engaging in these kind of activities is a drain of resources already in short supply.

2. Slash the offending activities

Once you know what you're wasting your time on, you can start thinking about what to cut. This isn't a scheme to get you to cut everything fun out of your life — on the contrary. You need to slash the things that are not fun, but are not critical either. If you don't actively need to do it and you don't actively want to do it, stop doing it.

While you're slashing, really think about the things you're doing because you think they're necessary. It's time to redefine "necessary." Look at your hobbies and leisure activities — do you even enjoy them, or do you do them because you've always done them? If you have breakfast with your mother once a week, are either of you still benefiting from that? The eight committees you're on — is anyone being helped by your presence there?

3. Create a time budget

If you're anything like every other working single mother on the planet, you have too much on your plate.

You also have a really, really hard time saying no.

For a while, when we have nothing better to do or we're trying to make friends or build our career, being asked to do things for other people makes us feel needed and wanted. It's wonderful to feel like you're an important part of other people's lives. Eventually, though, it gets tiring. Eventually, you've said yes too many times. Eventually, you need to stop.