If you're tired of the rat race or have reached your breaking point commuting to work daily braving the raging traffic, you may probably have been tempted to start a home-based business. After all, isn't running a business your ticket out of the confines of your cubicle and finally become your own boss? If you haven't got a clue what to do, here is a short list of home-based businesses to give you an idea of where to put your money, time and effort:

Consultancy

So you've got experience and industry contacts. If you've gained considerable respect and acknowledgement as an expert or leader in your field, this is an excellent choice for a home-based business for you. You're basically the team captain of the ball game you know the trends, have a background about the industry and can teach a thing or two in order to change existing practices and norms for the better.

What you'll be doing:

As a consultant, you will be selling your experience through advice and recommendations to your clients. If you used to work in the advertising field, for example, you could help new and struggling businesses by offering to help them design their marketing campaigns and materials. You will be giving customized advice, however, since the design and procedures of the steps you will recommend will depend upon your clients' unique needs and concerns.

You can offer advice in fields such as education, health, fitness, human resources, arts, marketing and sports, among others. Know feng shui? You could become a home-based consultant for that, too.

How you'll earn: you can charge a flat fee for basic services and then charge additional for more specialized services. You can also charge per hour or session.

Technical support

This is a good home-based business to go into if you have the training and background as a computer technician, system administrator or programmer. If your client has a system that can be remotely accessed, you can do your work from home. However, expect to do client calls and on-site installation, maintenance and repair work for this job.

What you'll do

You can offer your services to small businesses and organizations. Part of your job will be to install software, troubleshoot computers, programs and networks, repair hardware and ensure the upkeep and maintenance of computer systems.

How you'll earn: people in this business will often charge by the hour. However, for more regular clients, you can charge a monthly retainer's fee.

Retail and distribution

If you like selling, then this is the business for you. All you need is a good product to sell, steady clients and an efficient way to maintain and manage inventory. You could sell to both offline and online clients.

As for which product you might want to sell take your pick. There are thousands of merchandise you can use. You can either focus on one classification, such as health products and supplements or mix and match by adding skin and beauty products, for example.

What you'll do

Sell products through direct sales or market them through a distribution channel. You could produce the products yourself or distribute them for another individual or company.

How you'll earn: direct sales means you'll be pocketing the profits all by yourself, minus the expenses and cost of production and distribution. As a distributor, you can either earn from the mark-up or get commission on bulk sales. If you want, you can even build an affiliate or network marketing company and increase your earnings exponentially.