Basically I have tried a few home businesses and the bottom line is this, if you have to come up with money to make money working from home, chances are it is a huge scam. The only business I would not recommend is the greatest vitamin in the world. I didn't make money off this program but I have made my money back.
I will never ever recommend envelope stuffing. These are usually huge scams. They ask for a payment of $40 most of the time and than they send you a one page instruction on how to put fliers out in your town and have people basically mail you money to your address! Than when I asked for a refund they still have not gotten back to me and it's been awhile now. Good thing this scam was only $40 and not over $100. The only way you'll make money is by doing real work or part time or just start a business at home like painting or cleaning or something of that nature.
I never fell for any of that stuff, but I DO know of one way to make money from home: writing.
I use to sell a lot of short stories and some articles when I was younger and healthy enough to write daily. It took me about 3 weeks to make my first sale, then that first week I had 3 money paying offers for 2 short stories and 1 article. I wrote until I got too sick to do every day, and some markets paid in triple figures for short stories. I always sold more fiction than non-fiction; it's just easier to write and sell fiction, in my experience. Also, I wrote in age categories and many genres: women, men, teens, middle-graders, romance, confessions, religious, soft-core "porn", mysteries, mainstream, etc.
If you're good with words, ideas, structure, and self motiviated, give writing fiction a try. Study the markets before submitting, though, and remember that they change quickly.