Work At Home Boomer – Is This You?

There are a growing number of work opportunities for Baby Boomers as Corporate America is waking up to the fact that a significant percentage of the work force is getting ready to retire.  And there is a lot of talent in that retiring group.

This even includes telecommuting as a possibility so that companies can keep some of that talent pool working but still provide more flexibility for aging Boomers.

But actually, any self respecting Baby Boomer wants to do other things after they retire – like travel – not work.

And why not?

You’ve been pounding the pavement for a long time. Even if it means you want to write books and teach or do research, you still need to cover the monthly expenses and ‘enjoyment’ money. Right?

But Will Continuing to Work After Retirement Age Address the Needs and Solve the Problem For Boomers?

In spite of all the television ads (for years) about investing for the future and years of articles about saving for retirement, according to an article in Reader’s Digest ,

• 4 out of 10 people over 60 will fall below the poverty line in their later years.
• And Merrill Lynch says that many people are only saving about 1/3 of what they will need after retirement.
• Only about 50% of us are saving enough to maintain a pre-retirement lifestyle when we retire.

From a variety of estimates, most Boomers are not saving enough.  It’s actually worse for Gen X, but they’re further down the road.

Since Boomers aren’t saving before they retire, how is working deep into retirement age going to solve the problem unless you have a lot of money stashed before you retire? These issues are compounded by the fact that we are living longer so the savings have to go a further distance. 

And we all know that no matter how much we hope it, the social security debacle is getting worse – not better.

Since so many things have shifted for us in the last 30 years, it’s time we take a new track.

The answer is making more money.

Create A Business So You Can Work From Home

The most intelligent solution – in my opinion – is to create businesses where we can work from home.  It’s not only my idea, according to the Small Business Administration 52 % of all small businesses are home-based.

From a practical standpoint, business start up is hard work if you found a traditional small business from scratch. It is labor intensive and capital intensive. How do I know? Been there done that – several times. The biggest problems with a small business are:

• employees
• inventory
• long hours

Another thing that is typical is many people who start a business have no business experience and often are undercapitalized. You can take a lot of accounting and business classes in school,  but it is whole different matter to really get a handle on the term "working capital" and "cash flow" at the same time you’re learning how to run the day to day aspects of your new business.

The Best Choices For a Home Based Business

From my experience, the best choices are:

1. Multi level marketing
2. Creating an online business
3. or both

They offer ease of entry into the market with very little capital and the potential for creating wealth is significant. But the best part of the equation is that you can build net positive passive income streams and build residual income that continues to grow after you get them fully tuned up and running right.

But the best part is that both of these two types of business offer significant advantages in two ways:

• leverage of your time and
• the power of networks

To my way of thinking, there are two requirements to the second half of my life – after 50 – and these are:

• abundant health
• financial independence

Here’s why: I want to fly airplanes and travel the world and teach and be incredibly active for the next 50 or 75 years of my life. Being sick and being broke will not accommodate that lifestyle.

From my research into internet marketing and my small business background, starting an online business is mandatory and the greatest opportunity to grow a home based business. This is because the growth potential and the size of the markets that are emerging are staggering in dimension.

Start a Blog and Learn about Web 2.0 and Social Bookmarking

In the meantime, no matter what you want to create as a home based business, you should all start a blog and investigate Web 2.0 and social bookmarking as a vehicle to create internet traffic to:

• whatever online business you choose to start
• or to a brick and mortar business

and it’s something you can do easily. There a number of methods to accomplish this, but if you have the time and you can start for no money out of pocket. If you have a budget and no time, you can also outsource this project and get very effective results.

Regardless which path you choose, I highly recommend a great free resource book about effective blogging techniques: Authority Black Book

Passive income and residual income solve the problem of money. We’ll discuss this topics of starting an online business and  network marketing further in a continuing series of posts. We’ll also do a series about the other part of the equation – not just being a wealthy boomer, but also a healthy boomer.