When running a business from your home, you need to take a few extra precautions to keep everything as safe as possible.  Keeping your business and home safe does not always mean going out and purchasing an alarm system, guard dogs, and putting up a fence.  Deception of appearance is a much better path to take when protecting your home based business. There are many safety plans that do not cost a lot of money, but the will increase your safety margins considerably.

The first suggestion is to go to your local Post Office and purchase a P.O. Box.  The average cost is about $5.00 a month. Next, change your mailing address for all of your bills, invoices and checks for your business  to the P.O. box.  This keeps thieves from going through the mailbox in front of your home and stealing important checks and business documents. This mailbox crime happens more often than you know. Criminals conceal their activities by pretending to distribute coupons or flyers for a lawn service.  If they locate a home business, by going through your mail, then they start watching you home and mail for an opportune moment to steal something.

The second suggestion pertains to the storage of inventory at your home.  Do not do it if at all possible. Store your inventory at a self storage facility where it can reside behind locked gates, doors and normally a good camera system.  Storage lockers start at about $30.00 a month and for a little more you can insure all of your inventory.  Again this moves signs of business out of your house and reduces the possibility of theft.

The third suggestion pertains to your wireless Internet connection.  If you do not know how to secure your wireless Internet connection to allow only your computers to use the system, then pay a professional to come out and secure it for you. An open wireless router allows anyone driving down the street to stop in front of your house and use your Internet connection for free.  Not only that, but it allows them access to your computers and the information that is stored on them.  Several years ago a man in Chicago  was arrested for downloading child pornography.   His computers were confiscated by the police and he went to jail until they found that he did not have any porn on his computers. After deep investigations by the police, they found out that he had an open wireless router that let anyone use it.  Someone had parked on the street in front of his home and used his router and Internet connection to download the porn.   Protect what is yours by securing your wireless router.

That is all we have for this week, but we will have more in the coming weeks.