has gone up 28 years, from 49 to 77 years of age, so it’s more difficult than ever to accumulate enough money in a traditional IRA to make sure you don’t outlive your retirement savings. But if you own your own business and set your own working hours and retirement age, you may also be able to count on more working years to accumulate those savings.
According to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, you need at least a million dollars to retire these days. Most Americans don’t have anywhere near that: The average retirement account balance in the United States for men and women ages 55 to 69 is a mere $42,500.
But even if you do have a million dollars, stock market crashes, cyclical bear markets, and inflation can quickly eat into your retirement nest egg. Some experts now say you need two or three million to retire comfortably.
No wonder 95 percent of Americans rely on Social Security or other government programs to help them keep a roof over their heads during retirement! But when you have your own profitable business, you don’t have to rely on family members or Uncle Sam for support. You remain financially independent, able to support yourself in the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed.
WHAT BRINGS YOU TO THIS DECISION?
Let’s talk a bit about how you have made the decision to start a home-based business. If you’ve just retired and are now living on a pension, Social Security, or investments, that gives you some income on a continual basis, which is a big plus. That steady income gives you breathing time to put your business together without the pressure of finding money fast.
Others of you may have come to this decision because you were laid off or fired, or you have some other reason for needing to start an income-producing business quickly. In this case, you will probably need to move more quickly in setting up your business and won’t have the luxury of easing your way into the transition.
WORD TO THE WISE: CLAIM UNEMPLOYMENT
For those of you who just got fired or laid off, possibly because of your age, things will be a little rough if you do not have enough money put aside to live on for a few months until you get your business rolling. If that is the case, go online to file for unemployment immediately. If you get laid off today, file tomorrow. Every day you delay in filing your claim, you will lose that day’s money if you do get approved.
If you don’t get approved, then fight the decision. You will be notified about participating in a phone interview concerning what happened to you, and you will need to stand up for yourself and define the good job you were doing, particularly if you can show documentation to your interviewer. Your interviewer has the authority to override the employer and charge their account for money due to you. How you present yourself and your case makes the difference in their decision. Be firm, accurate, and do not insult your former employer to the interviewer. Just be sure to get your point across.
Once approved, it takes a full month before you see your first unemployment paycheck, but then you will receive several back paychecks, which will help enormously. But, until then, you will have a month to suffer until that payment comes in. Every state handles the unemployment process differently, so it is up to you to find out what to do and how to do it. Do not feel guilty about accepting unemployment insurance: It’s your tax money.
No matter which route you’ve taken to the decision to start your own home-based business, most likely you are feeling that there has to be more to life; that you want to live a richer, fuller life, and that you want to be in control of what happens to you. You’re tired of bosses who run you around and tell you to do things that really don’t make sense and are not efficient in accomplishing your work. Not only that, but the threat of being fired or laid off without any input is humiliating and degrading.
After age 50, the threat of being fired looms especially large, since employers often are prejudiced against older workers and prefer to hire younger people. Therefore, if you lose your 9-to-5 job, it is difficult to find another. Setting up your own business may be a more viable option than looking for another job, since age doesn’t matter and you won’t have to answer to anyone else.
Being a business owner changes your whole mindset. While there is fear of the unknown, it is still a liberating feeling to think you can be in control of making your own money while doing work that you enjoy—and you can do so for the rest of your life, if you so choose. It is not an easy path, especially in the beginning when you are trying to put it all together. There does come the day, however, when you can finally take that vacation you’ve always wanted, or buy that car or house you’ve dreamed about.
HOW THIS BOOK CAN HELP
In the chapters ahead, you will find some ideas for home-based businesses that could bring you the kind of schedule and financial freedom you have only dreamed of. You will learn about businesses such as freelancing, coaching, Internet marketing, and selling imports and exports, among others.
These are not get-rich-quick schemes but real businesses that will require hard work, planning, and organization to make them succeed. To help you, this book provides ideas about how to set up your business, organize your home office, market your services, and operate as a virtual company.
You’ve spent decades working for someone else; let the information in this book help you strike out on a new path. It’s not too late.
STRAIGHT TALK FROM BOB
What’s scarier than starting your own business?
In my opinion, it’s having a 9-to-5 job!
What makes me say so?
Well, there has been a huge “paradigm shift” (forgive the jargon) in employment that has turned the work world upside down. When I was a young lad fresh out of college in the late ’70s, getting a corporate job—like I did—was the safe, secure thing to do.
Entrepreneurs, by comparison, were seen as crazy risk-takers—gambling their futures on uncertain ventures.
Today, it’s quite the opposite.
By starting their own companies, entrepreneurs take control of their work life. They protect themselves from pink slips by being business owners, because they are their own bosses. Meanwhile, the 9-to-5 world has become a shaky and uncertain place. The old “guaranteed” job security of the 1970s is gone.
So, what can you do about it now? If you are in your 50s or 60s, you are easing toward retirement or perhaps you’re already retired. Or, maybe you’ve been downsized—or even pushed out by a company after you’ve given it decades of your best work. Starting a home-based business can provide the extra income you need to live on now and fill your coffers so that you can achieve your retirement investing goal.
If you are in your 70s, 80s, and beyond, you are almost certainly retired from full-time work, which usually means you no longer have much income outside of Social Security or pensions. You may be living more frugally than you’d like. Operating your own small business can put thousands of dollars of extra cash into your pocket to supplement your pension and Social Security.
Regardless of age, there are very few of us in today’s economy who couldn’t use more money. Launching your own small business is one of the surest ways to earn the extra income you need.
