Income in retirement

Is an additional source of income in retirement likely if you are a Baby Boomer?

All the evidence suggests that the answer will be ‘yes’ for the majority of boomers as they leave their careers or jobs (or are removed from them).

There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence also that the majority of baby boomers will not have near enough money put aside to maintain their current lifestyle.

And with the excellent health care available today the majority of Baby Boomers will be expecting to live well into their 80s or perhaps 90s.

This means their retirement savings will need to last 20 to 30 years beyond retirement.

That leads to the question “How much do you need in retirement savings?”

There are many self help websites for impending retirees which suggest you need somewhere between $1 million to $1.5 million in savings, or….savings which amount to 10 to 12 times your current income.

So, let’s do some quick arithmetic. Assume you had a $1 million in savings and you lived for another 20 years.

This would mean you would need to limit your annual spending to around $50 thousand year to make your savings last. (Note: I’m not factoring in that you might also be entitled to a government pension or social security available to supplement that level of income).

How much income in retirement will YOU need?

I won’t go into the many variables which would indicate what is the right amount to have put away for your retirement years, because it will be different for everyone.

But here are a few things you might want to consider in trying to estimate how much money you’ll need to have socked away:

• How long do you think you might live?
• What type of lifestyle do you want?
• What future costs can you anticipate? e.g.
  • do you need to pay rent or pay off an existing mortgage?
  • potential health related expenses?

Again, a lot of this is going to be guesswork so at the very least you ought to have been contributing throughout your career to some sort of superannuation or 401k plan.

Let’s consider then what the implications are if you haven’t been doing this, and/or if you know you don’t have enough money put away to fund your lifestyle in retirement

Little, or not enough savings?

That translates into an annual income of $32,700 for couples and $21,684 for a single person.

Thinks for a moment what your current annual income is, and how this compares to what you’ll get with just a pension.

How would your present lifestyle be impacted if you had to live on a pension?

Superannuation specialists in Australia estimate that a couple could live comfortably on an annual retirement income of around $60 thousand. (This assumes though that you own your own home and therefore don’t have to pay rent.)

So, I’ll repeat the question. How would your current lifestyle be impacted if you had to live on an annual income, as a couple on $60 thousand a year.

Where to from there?

If you know you couldn’t make do with levels of income I’ve described above, then what are your options?

Should you decide to do nothing then one unpleasant fact is you’re going to have to make some big changes to your lifestyle, and be restricted in what you can do with your disposable income (if you have any!)

One option therefore would be to find ways to supplement your income in retirement.

Being a Baby Boomer myself, one of the important aims I have in this blog is to assist other Boomers to find ways to do that, and especially by starting their own online business.

Working with John Thornhill in his Partnerships To Success program is just one way I’ve decided to supplement my retirement income.

Why start a business?

Going into business for yourself in your retirement years isn’t necessarily all about earning some extra money.

Having spoken with hundreds of Baby Boomers as a career coach I know for a fact that many Boomers still want to lead productive lives.

Many Boomers will have, over their lifetime, developed incredibly useful knowledge and skills which are wanted and needed by upcoming generations. And, many Boomers love the idea of being able to share and teach others what they know and can do.

The idea of being active mentally, being open to learning new things, having the opportunity to generate additional income, and helping other people along the way are all strong motivators for Boomers to get involved in their own business.

Also, most Baby Boomers I know are into having a quality lifestyle, including the ability to travel, dine out, go to the theatre, help their children financially, spoil their grandchildren and so on.

By creating an extra source of income in retirement through an online business there’s no reason why these things can be restricted due to lack of disposable income.

Why an online business?

The way I see it, this is such a ‘no brainer’.

Given the availability of the internet and digital technologies it has never been easier for ordinary every day people like you and me to use this technology to set up and operate a profitable and sustainable business online.

Beyond the ease of setting your business up (easy yes, but there IS work involved) there are plenty of other advantages in considering an online business:

• You can work from anywhere as long as you have a laptop and an internet connection. This means you can take your office with you, so travel is clearly an option!
• When you’ve been shown how to do it, much of your online business can be automated.
• Similarly, you can also set up your business so that you have recurring or passive income. This means you do the work once, but get paid for what you do long after you’ve set it up

Income in retirement – Is there a catch?

Not really. The two biggest catches are:

• Not being prepared to try.
• Not being prepared to do the work in order to reap the rewards that are out there in the online world.

I also know that what holds a lot of people back from getting involved in an online business is they think they need a whole lot of technical knowledge.

Let me provide some reassurance on a couple of fronts:

• If you know how to cut and paste text from a Word document, and you know how to download and upload stuff to and from the internet then you’ve already got a couple of the essential skills
• The quality, the breadth and depth and easy availability of coaching to help people to learn how to set up and operate an online business is simply staggering. If you can watch a video, and read and apply instructions then it’s quite possible you can do this.

The opportunities are definitely there, so, what’s stopping you? Is it:

• You couldn’t use the extra income?
• You’re afraid of hard work?
• You don’t think you can learn?

Income in retirement – Summary

Chances are if you are a Baby Boomer either approaching, or currently in retirement then you could be in the majority of people who will more than likely either have insufficient or no retirement savings.

Using today’s readily available technology there are wonderful opportunities to set up and operate your own online business thereby reaping the kinds of benefits I’ve described in this post.

Let’s Talk!

If the idea of doing this appeals to you then simply click on “Contact Us” at the top of the page. I’d be delighted to share with you my experiences, and answer questions you may have.