The first thing you will need to start your home business is a home office and a product or service to which you have a great passion! This is not as difficult as one would think. Every home office needs are different but there are some fundamental staples that all require. You will want to have a clean, noise free environment that has good lighting and is free from distractions. This will help keep you more focused and productive. You will need a desk and chair. The size of your desk will depend on what its function is. You will want a place to store all your information about your customers such as a computer and/or a filing cabinet. You will also want a phone, fax/scanner/copier, Internet connection (preferably high speed), and any other communication tools you might need at hand. Since most home-based businesses focus on services or affiliate products there will be no need for storage. If you are planning to sell your own products and ship them yourself, then make sure you have room to store them. If you plan on doing meetings outside of your home, there will be no need for a conference room either. If you are going to be seeing clients in your home and don't have a conference room, then be sure to keep your place clean and neat at all times. First impressions say a lot.

If don't have any equipment at all, then you are probably wondering at what this will cost you. Well, it is much lower than it used to be. Computers, printers, and software are a lot more inexpensive these days. You can also find great plans for telephone and Internet service today that are very reasonable. These services will allow you to make long distance phone calls for free. If you shop around wisely you can find some really good deals on computers, office supplies and furniture.

* Computer: you can expect to pay anywhere from $500 to $1000 for a computer that has all the latest features. You will want to make sure that it has at least a Pentium 4 processor speed and 60 GB hard drive. You will also want a 17" monitor to make your life easier especially if you need to be on the computer often. Make sure that you have at least 256 MB of memory and a CD-ROM read and write drive. This is pretty standard for most computers today, but you will always want to double check.
* Multifunctional Machine: you will want to invest in a fax, printer, copier, and scanning machine. Many places sell them for great prices. You are looking at about $100 an up. Make sure that if you do a lot of printing you check out the price of the ink cartridge refills. If they are very expensive you might want to consider paying a bit more for the machine itself to be able to get the more inexpensive refills.
Office Furniture: This can vary tremendously. If you want nice but affordable try office supply stores. They have the packages that are relatively inexpensive and easy to assemble. Get a good chair though. Never skimp on something you will be sitting in for hours.


Jay Johnson is a former U. S. Treasury Agent and Financial Couselor. He is a graduate of The University of Louisville Business School.
Currently he is an International and Internet Entrepreneur and resides in Cary, North Carolina which is located near the research Triangle area of Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.