Extra Money From Home After Retiring
Many of us baby boomers have found that we need to make extra money from home after retiring. The reasons are several. First, we don’t have the financial resources for what we need and want to do. Second, even so, we don’t wan to be tied down to a clock and a boss. We’ve been there and done that. We had a vision for what retirement would be like but it isn’t working out that way. So, let’s take a look at some things to consider on finding that extra money and enjoying the process.Time ManagementWe need to look at how we’ll manage our days so that we have enough time to devote to getting that extra money. We want to do this first, before deciding if we’re going to commit to someone else’s schedule, that is, work for someone else from our home. If we decide that we can’t, or don’t want, to work for someone else, then we can have quite a bit more flexibility in managing our time. So, let’s say we’ve decided on the latter option. Now the best thing would be to arrange our daily schedule so that we get to enjoy life while setting aside 2 or 3 blocks of 1-1/2 to 2 hours. That gives us between 3 and 6 hours each day to devote toward your new enterprise while also allowing us the things we want out of retirement. Furthermore, if we’re consistent on the amount of time we dedicate each day, we know we’ll succeed.Expense ManagementWe need to constantly keep in mind that we’re looking for extra money, not particularly interested in spending a lot to either get our enterprise going or keep it going. Even so, we know we’ll need to spend some money when necessary to provide our product or service. Let’s decide then that we don’t need to spend rent for space outside of our home. That actually allows us not only saving that expense but also the potential to write off some of the money we’re now spending anyway because we’ll use part of our home for business. So, what businesses will let us work from home and avoid both up-front costs and continuing expenses? Can we find something that minimizes our car expenses, as well? Can we keep my postage and office expenses down? How about telephone and utility expenses? Well, we already have some of these. Perhaps they can also be dedicated to our business at no further out-of-pocket cost and then have them also written off. (We’ll be sure to check with our accountant for all of these issues.)Revenue Generation – the Extra Money from HomeNo matter what we decide to do we’ve been around long enough to know that it will have to be something we enjoy in order to keep a long-term focus. It’s not just that we feel good about the product or service, but that we really enjoy doing the daily work to deliver our product or service. If we’re doing something like that and making money in the process, we’ll even be able to talk to our family and friends about it. However, we aren’t going to trap ourselves into trying to sell our service to family and friends. We know we won’t enjoy that for very long.In looking for that fit, we’re going to consider our own history and what we really enjoyed doing most in the past. We’ll also ask the people closest to us what they think we like doing the most. Then we’re going to do some research in the local library, or more efficiently, on the internet to see what others who have the same interests are doing in business. We’ll remember to look closely at what the necessary daily activities need to be to we know that will fit us. Finally, we’ll determine how we’ll best get customers for our new enterprise.The InternetWhether our new business will need to be very local in scope, or can be international, we also know that the best way to find our customers is using an extremely inexpensive technique, the internet. Whoa! What if we don’t know how to do that? Furthermore, what if we don’t want to do that? Remember that we’re trying to minimize expenses. We have to minimize our advertizing and sales costs. I guess we better figure out the best way to use the internet because it can be so inexpensive. So, we better decide to do that now, maybe even before we know exactly all the other ins and outs of our new enterprise.
