Work Choices For Retirees

Isabel Moras, senior and co-author of “Income Ideas for
Seniors”, announced today the release of the second edition of
this book. According to the co-author: “We help and guide
seniors with this publication, making retirees feel better about
their future”. The book is a guide for seniors and baby-boomers
thinking about retirement; this resource supplies the reader
with listings and details of a wide variety of paid activities
plus inspiring anecdotes from ordinary citizens so those seniors
can take advantage of opportunities right away. “Income Ideas
for Seniors” is intended to help retirees take steps to feel
useful and be rewarded for what they want and can do. “Income
Ideas for Seniors” has millions of retired men and women in mind
and baby boomers that want to age actively, specially as medical
advances allow them to live longer and healthier lives. A senior
looking to retire soon said:” I may be looking for a quiet time
after I leave my job at 65, but other folks, like my wife, do
not want to do so, she is looking to continue with her present
employer or explore other possibilities.” To this end, “Income
Ideas for Seniors” has a self assessment section to focus
seniors on their interests and capabilities. As medical advances
have effectively extended life expectance letting seniors live
healthier and more active lives, a significant number of
retirees become restless months, even years after leaving their
adult life jobs. A large number of seniors are looking for
activities that permit interaction, use of their skills and
expertise, with the added bonus of some extra cash. A portion of
the book proceeds will be donated to the Arthritis Foundation,
an agency increasing the awareness of what sometimes can be a
very debilitating disease for seniors. For more information
contact: SeniorsCanWork P.O. Box 690 Upton, MA 01568
www.seniorscanwork.co

Retire From Work, Not From Life

One of your biggest fears of retirement may not be giving up the hustle and bustle of the working world but remaining socially connected. After all, with your coworkers, you have likely made some close personal friendships. You likely treasure them and consider them as closer (if not closer) than your family members and other friends outside the work force.

Well, we’re here to tell you that you don’t need to feel this way. You can still maintain these friendships and develop new friendships as well. You can stay socially connected during retirement and don’t have to alienate yourself. To do so, you simply have to be willing to put forth the effort. In this article, we’ll discuss 10 proven ways to stay connected during retirement.

• Stay in touch with ex-colleagues – There’s no getting around it, your coworkers are important to you and therefore you should stay connected to them. Make sure that you contact them by phone or meet your friends for lunch dates. Not only will this keep your connection strong but it will also ensure that you remain up to date on past work happenings and keep your friends from work.

• Create meaningful relationships – Besides ex colleagues, now is the time to create new meaningful relationships. To do this, you should connect with family, friends and neighbors too. Perhaps you can engage in after-retirement activities that will enable you to improve these relationships.

• Foster relationship with your spouse – Now that you’re retired, you should have more time to spend with your spouse. Take some time to get romantic with them. See if the two of you can re-spark a flame or perhaps develop mutual interests.

• Build a strong social network – This can be accomplished by volunteering at your favorite non profit organization, enrolling in a class, or joining a group.

• Join clubs – You can connect with like-minded people by joining a club or a social group. Just make sure that it is an actitivy that you would enjoy and will get excited about.

• Participate in community service – You can remain connected to people of various dimensions by assisting with some community service projects. For instance, perhaps you can arrange to clean up the parks on Earth Day or participate in the Why Me Cancer Walk.

• Participate in volunteer work – Join a worthy cause to be in touch with people. Try to help the deprived and lesser privileged. Alternatively, you can spread awareness about the burning issues that concern people around you. It will be an enriching experience for you too.

• Explore a hobby – In exploring this hobby, join a group of people who also have this interest such as a knitting club or ski club. This will increase your interaction with people with similar interests.

• Re-educate yourself – Participate in classes that you can learn something new with other people. Make sure that you keep a positive and friendly attitude and you’ll meet new people all the time.

• Connect with family- This is a wonderful way to remain connected with your children, and your grand children, with whom you may not have fostered a close relationship during your working life. You can’t start any sooner, so cease the moment right now and you’ll be happy that you took the time.

In conclusion, you can remain connected during retirement. You simply have to be willing to connect with family, re-educate yourself, join a hobby, participate in community service activities, volunteer, join clubs, build a new network, stay in touch with ex-colleagues, foster relationships with your spouse, connect with family, and create meaningful relationships.

How To Choose Retirement Or ‘independence’ Work For Your Salvation

Many who reach retirement need to work for more income. Those who are younger want out of the drudgery of their ‘employee’ jobs. Both can find something to ‘work at’ that makes life enjoyable. This article helps get them started.

Retirees, about to be and younger workers Many retirees also want something to ‘work at’ that keeps them going in a purposeful and satisfying way. But they don’t want the stress and drudgery of jobs they left. Fortunately, they’ve got time to develop what they like. Reaching 60 means you statiscally have another 30 years to live.

With the help of Social Security, pensions or savings, retirees can choose and develop an ‘avocation’ that’s enjoyable and meaningful. They can work part-time since they already have some base income while reaping the benefit of satisfaction and something to do.

If you’re not in retirement, you can find the type of work that’s enjoyable to you, but you’ll have to put time aside each week to prepare for it.

Benefits of working at what you want Work is good for you emotionally, physically, and socially no matter what your age. Of course, what you work at should be enjoyable – not the stress-filled drudgery that can put you in an early grave. To reap the benefits of working enjoyably, you’ve got to find something you love.

Confucius said that if you find a ‘calling’ you love to do, you’ll never work a day in your life. I thing we’d all like to find such a ‘calling’. In fact, to be successful at whatever you ‘work at’, you must fall in love with doing it.

If it’s independence you crave, then it’s all the more important to develop a career that you’ll love. Self-employed work often demands many more hours more than ‘employee’ job. But when you work at what you like, you can be both at work and not at work simultaneously.

To find out what you’ll love to do, you must find out what really makes you tick – what drives you and gives you satisfaction. That’s accomplished in 2 parts.

Part 1: Recognizing the work attributes of what you like to do:

Perhaps for many years, you’ve been working at things that just don’t turn you on. You did it as a job for money to handle the bills. You may have chosen your career based on suggestions of your parents or others because you lacked the experience to form your own idea of what to do.

Some things you worked at were ‘OK’, some were fun, and some were drudgery. You not only ignored what you really wanted to do, you – more than likely – never developed what it is that you might really like to do.

Now you’ve worked and lived through many years. You’ve acquired the experience from which you can develop your ideas.

Here’s how you can extract from your experiences those attributes of working you’ll enjoy:

1. Reflect on your skills and interests you’ve developed or touched on during your life. Jot them down, their context, and how you felt about them.

2. Compile your ‘enjoyable’ skills and interests from which to fashion possible ideas to work at. Seek more education only about what interests you.

3. Then you can seek an ‘endeavor’ based on what you enjoy that can keep you happy.

Part 2: Know yourself and how you fit into ‘the world’:

While you’re pulling out your enjoyable skills and interests from your life experiences – and contemplating in what way you can use them to ‘work at’ – you should come to terms with who you really are and how you’d best fit in doing the types of things you enjoy.

To do so, try to answer these questions with a positive view of the world:

* What are your core beliefs? This defines who you are – and who you aren’t.

* What’s important to you in the scheme of life? This orients you and your direction.

* What skills do you like using and interests you like following? This is what you bring in skills and interest to your work from part 1.

* What would you like to communicate to people through your work? This is what you have to offer through your work.

* How can you make things better – at least for some people? – This is what your work offers directly.

Take your time to work through part 1 for recognizing your skills and interests and part 2 for understanding who you are and where you’ll best fit in. It’s an ongoing exercise anyway. But doing so will put you on your way to finding a successful endeavor that others will appreciate what you enjoy doing.

Ready for retirement from work?

The notion of not having to get up early and go to work every day is certainly something most of us look forward to. All the more with the increasing high fuel cost and traffic conditions. However, retirement brings a different set of challenges – the potential of a smaller income, lesser spending power and the lack of meaningful daily activities for example. Some of us base our importance and identity on our jobs for the status and respect that our experience contributes to the organization, fellow colleagues and business associates. By retiring, we fear the loss of recognition that accompanies a job and our stand in society.

Retirement is not tied to a specific age group now. For some, it indicates a new phase of life, whether they are 30 or 60 years old. Whatever the age, a significant issue and question to this is, how do you work towards and fund your retirement?

Research has shown that people who have retired and living comfortably with holiday trips and spending their time in their hobbies, sports or community activities are those who have really planned and worked towards their retirement.

So, if you are one of those who are not in this ‘retirement’ group yet, planning for the next exciting stage of life is almost mandatory.

Experts advise that this crucial phase of planning begins at least 5 to 10 years in advance. A transitional plan that bridges the gap between full-time work and stopping work altogether is important. Whatever your age and your earning capacity, now is a good time to check your current standing and make plans.

Ask yourself the following:-

• When can I afford to retire?
• How much money to have to determine that I can retire?
• How far will my savings last me?
• What costs are there in retirement? Can I afford to pay for example medical expenses or emergency needs?
• Will I have enough income to live in the style that I want to live?
• Will inflation affect my savings and retirement fund?
• Am I emotionally ready to retire?

These questions merely serve to provoke thought and hopefully actions about the more important elements of your dream retirement – the financial independence that will determine the quality of your new phase of life!

So, do you want to retire from work and when can you do so?

Make Your Retirement Plan Work

The first question that may come to mind is when the right time to start planning for your retirement might be. The answer is that if you are asking the question, it is the right time. You really cannot start planning too soon. If you could start putting money back for retirement as early as right out of high school, that would be just that much more time you have to build up a really comfortable retirement nest egg that will serve you well when you need it in your golden years.

But most of us start thinking about retirement in our adult years and usually in association with some big life event such as getting married or having a baby. So we have one word of advice if you have been thinking about beginning a retirement plan. That advice is stop thinking about it and take action. If you make the subject a focus for you and your spouse to look at, you both will be glad you got off the dime and got moving on a plan.

Often the trouble with making a retirement plan is you do not know where to start. Too many people just wait for their employers to introduce a 401K plan and they just dump some money in there and count on Social Security to be there in a few decades. Then they call it a day and call that a retirement plan.

You and I both know that your security in your golden years is too important to not take more seriously than that. So set aside some time each week for both of you to sit down and start thinking about how to create a retirement fund and how to plan to build a retirement plan that you can grow into. The first step always begins with you.

If you do not know where to start, then admit that and set about to do some reading to get ideas. You are doing that right now by reading this article. But get out there on the internet and find some of the great books out there on retirement planning and take some time and read them. You will start out ignorant and end up an expert in retirement planning.

Keep plenty of notes during the discussion and learning phases so you have a road map of ideas to build into a plan for building a retirement fund. Once you have a simple plan, its time to talk to a financial advisor. If you trust your bank, go talk to them and see what they can do for you. Or you can seek out a friend or someone in your community who you know will be able to steer you toward how to build a retirement fund that is structured properly to protect your retirement money from taxes and be there for you when you need it when you are old and grey.

Now it is time to kick it up to the next level. Once you have a plan and perhaps are seeing it start to take off, start learning about investments. There are lots of places you can see your retirement funds go that will give you a nice yield that can make that fund grow more quickly do to shrewd investing. You can divert money to real estate, the stock market, mutual funds or other well know investments. Diversify where you put your money so no one financial reversal can whip out your retirement funding.

Above all stay on top of your retirement fund and your retirement plan. Review it together frequently to see if your retirement goals are still the same and your investments and pans for building our retirement fund line up with that plan. By making retirement planning as big a part of your thinking as planning your family or your career, you will give it serious attention over the years. And the result will be a strong financial plan that will give you good resources to enjoy a happy and worry free retirement life.

Levels of Retirement Planning That Can Work For You

And it is true that a big part of being ready to retire involves being ready financially to be able to step out of the work world and start to take life easier.

But just as life is not just about making money, retirement is about so much more than having the money not to work. Preparation for retirement also means preparing to live a simpler life, preparing to become a senior citizen and a grandparent and preparing to look at life differently.

Your health care is going to be an important issue in your retirement years. As you enter retirement, you may be strong as an ox and active and full of health and life. But any of us can fall prey to poor health or accidents. And if your employer from whom you retired does not extend your health care insurance for you to continue your coverage past your employment, you should make other plans. You can continue the same coverage that you had under the Cobra system but that can get pretty costly and dip into your finite retirement savings pretty significantly. Medicare can be helpful too. But to be perfectly comfortable that you have coverage, look to Medicare supplement insurance so you maintain the same quality of care in retirement that you have now in the working world.

Do not just limit your retirement planning to your money. Your retirement will be a time of a big change of lifestyle and a change to your values and how you spend your time as well. You will have more time on your hands and studies show that those who enter retirement without an agenda can become adrift in all that time and that is not healthy. Human beings are doers so even though you may no longer be working for a living, find ways to be productive and make a difference in your community. You can start finding those opportunities long before retirement so when you finally step out of the work world, expanding those hobbies and volunteer efforts is as natural as can be.

In addition to the change of where you spend your time each day, you may have even a bigger change in where you live ahead for you in retirement. Many times people who step into their retirement years find that maintaining the house where you raised the kids is just not necessary and more work than it worth. Selling the home and using the equity to finance a leisurely retirement life is a great way to go. But you should start early both preparing the home for sale and preparing the family that a grandma and grandpa house is going away.

In addition, where you go to live is something that can be great fun to dream about and doing some research on just the right place. You may choose to rent a small place in an older part of town and enjoy a whole new lifestyle in that setting. Or you might go for a high-rise condo with a view of the river or a nice quiet apartment in a retirement oriented apartment complex where you and other retirees can explore this new world together.

Above all it is important to embrace the retired lifestyle with the enthusiasm and excitement that you might greet any new opportunity. Do not let being retired mean just not working. In fact, go through the mental and emotional exercises of putting the working world behind you and redefining yourself in this new role. You are retired now and you are a senior citizen and maybe even a grandparent.

These are not negative things. There is a strong role for grandma and grandpa in society and in your family. And the world takes great joy in a senior citizen who embraces that time of their life and sets out to be the best senior citizen they can be. If you predetermine that this is the kind of retired person you are going to be, that attitude will propel you past that sudden change of life shock and get your retired life off in running in an exciting way that will lead to many happy and fun times in your life of leisure as a retired person.

Retirement — Why it Doesn’t Work

It’s hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television today without hearing someone talking about “planning for retirement”. It’s the “holy grail” of earning money, isn’t it? The ability to be able to stop working and sit down and rest for awhile. Refreshing, isn’t it?

Wrong.

It’s a flawed concept from the start. It’s an outdated concept from the early Industrial Revolution when employers told laborers, “Hey, if you’ll work for me for 40 hours a week for 40 years…then you can quit and get a gold watch and a pension.”

That plan hasn’t worked since the 1950’s. It probably didn’t work for your mom and dad and it’s definitely not going to work for you, either.

Here’s the good news: it doesn’t have to. I’m not saying that you have to work ’til you die. I’m saying that the concept of deferring your life’s pleasures until you’re 60+ years old is STUPID.

Consider Timothy Ferriss’ perspective from his wonderful book, “The Four Hour Workweek”:

There are at least three good reasons why the concept of “retirement” is flawed:

1. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you’re doing during the most physically capable years of your life. [Tony’s comments: This is already an impossible situation. There is no logical reason in the world why anyone would choose to do something they dislike for 50+ years.)

2. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs-for-dinner standad of living. Even one million dollars is chump change in a world where traditional retirement could span 30 years and inflation lowers your purchasing power 2-4% per year. The math doesn’t work. The golden years become a replay of lower-middle-class. That’s a pretty bittersweet ending, isn’t it?

3. And if the math DOES work, it means you are one ambitious, hardworking machine. If that’s the case, guess what? One week into retirement, you’ll be so damned bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes into your eyes. You’ll probably wind up starting a new company. Or taking another job. Kinda defeats the purpose of waiting, doesn’t it?

So, what am I (and Ferriss) saying? That you shouldn’t aspire to have a life where you can relax and do as you please? Not at all!

On the contrary, my point is that you should begin living that life NOW. How much sense does it make to work hard for 40+ years so that — when you’re 60+ years old — you can finally start doing the things you want to do?

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Start living yours today

Retired and Still Need to Work?

With rents and property taxes increasing, along with medical costs and gas prices, many retirees are reentering the work force to make ends meet.
More senior citizens are searching for jobs because they can no longer afford not to work.
Retirees used to dream of settling back and living off nest eggs. For some, that’s no longer enough, I found that I could stay at home and make a few extra bucks.

If you want to keep your home, pay for your medication or have any type of life, you have to work.Take a look at online work,work from home.The playing field is level.

Some return to work because they miss their jobs or want to stay physically and socially active.
what we do know is that older workers are staying in their current jobs longer as a result of financial uncertainty,

The U.S. Labor Department reports that more than 5 million adults age 65 and older worked last year, or about 15 percent of all senior citizens.

There are people who are still hurting who are middle class.

When I thought of my retirement years, I envisioned leisurely trips to Florida and California. Those plans changed after I was the victim of a violent crime.Finding myself at home and unable to work,I looked for something I could do from home ,I still love to work and I needed the extra income.
you don’t get to go to the grocery store like you want to, you wait until peanut butter goes on sale, and the same thing with milk.
I never thought the cost of living would go up as much as it has. I really don’t know how some adults are making it.
More employers are recognizing the value of hiring senior citizens.
They’re reliable, and they have a work ethic. As you get older, you may get aches and pains, but that’s expected and you know you still go to work every day.

Still, for some who retire early, going back to work can reduce Social Security benefits, depending on earnings.

I once thought I could live off my retirement, The hard cold fact is its just not enough.I love that I can work from home and if I can do it any one can.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me,I may not have all the answers but I know I can help.

Retirement: How To Work Together As A Couple

There are those days when we sigh out loud at the thought of living the easy life when we retire. But planning our retirement just might consist of more work than we expect, especially if we plan to retire with our significant other.

You and your soul mate might have very different plans, like at what age should we retire or even what activities to participate in. Being since you will spend significantly more time with your spouse during retirement, you should definitely discuss these potential problems sooner rather than later. Although, for most of us that seems like planning a bit too far in advance.

Here are some issues that should be addressed with your spouse before retirement:

Time To Retire. More often than not, couples tend to retire at the same age. It is, after all, nice to have some company when you travel. According to Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, joint retirement can create some financial problems for women. The average woman is three years younger than her husband, and, in general, women tend to outlive men.

A little under 59% of all women start receiving social security at the age of 62 (the number for men is 53%). When benefits are taken at age 62, monthly payments are permanently reduced. If you could wait until the full retirement age (which can range from 65 – 67), the size of your monthly payments increase significantly. Also, women that work longer accumulate more in their 401(K) plans, which for the most part are smaller than their male counterparts.

Retirement Destinations. According to consulting firm McKinley & Co., more than 90% of current retirees remain in their existing homes.

An increase in housing appreciation has led many baby boomers to use their home equity as a source of income during retirement. In a recent survey, a reverse mortgage lender found that 26% of males were likely to sell their homes in retirement, but only 15% of women stated they were inclined to move.

A solution to that discrepancy is to buy or rent a second home in the community where one spouse wants to move, then live there part of the year. However, sometimes married couples do agree on moving, but disagree on where to move. Start researching retirement destinations years before you plan to stop working so that all options are exhausted (in a sense) and an agreement can be made.

What To Do. About 80% of baby boomers plan to work part-time during retirement. Since retirement plans for most baby boomers have been somewhat lacking, that option for extra income is a wise choice. However, working will conflict with certain activities such as traveling. If you want to take a road trip, and your spouse is working, there might not be any flexibility for them to join you.

Also, it is a good idea to personally write down retirement goals, making an “intentions list” so you and your spouse can compare notes, find commonalities and work out the kinks in the process. Even if you and your spouse cannot agree on a time or place for retirement, there should at the very least be mutual goals for saving as much as possible for that well deserved retirement.

If you are curious as to how much you should or can save, visit http://www.aarp.org and type “retirement calculator.” The calculator can give you a rough estimate as to what you would need in order to reach your retirement goals.

Have an opinion or a question you would like me to answer, then write me! http://www.CarlHampton.com

“Your” Money Matters By Carl Hampton
From the Author of “From Credit Despair To Credit Millionaire”