There are no free meals in life and we do know that. But when we say that you can start a free home based business we mean that you do not need to invest anything at all initially into the business. This does not mean that you wont have to spend anything at all to get the business up and running.You will have to bear the advertising costs and also the cost of creating a website, hosting it and also maintaining it. You also need to advertise your site in order to get targeted traffic and you might have to spend a bit more on that. You will also need to submit your website to a few search engines. You can spend a few more dollars more and get it submitted to many different search engines.When you are starting a new internet based home business, it is important for you to look at all the different possibilities while calculating the cost and try to keep it as low as possible. With all the many different options available, it might just happen that you might over run your advertising budget if you are not too careful. There are may different ways to advertise for free, like including your website address in your mail signature, building a website with free hosting services and using a web hosting service that will allow you to upgrade later.Later, when the business is generating revenues, you can invest some of the money you have earned in to improving your advertising techniques. You can then join some pay per click services and also affiliate programs that will help you earn even more. Then you can also submit your website to many different search engines. But you must ensure that you invest only when your business is up and running and generating profits.Another good thing about running a home based internet business is that you are in control of all the costs. In a bricks and mortar business there are many different overhead costs that are beyond your control. For example you will have to spend on the rent, the electricity, the internet etc. All these costs can be avoided while working for a home business. The best part about home business is that it will allow you to keep your initial costs low and hence help save more money and utilize that saved money in expanding the business.