So, your career is winding down. You are preparing to go into the unknown land of retirement. However, you will still need fresh income coming in via multiple sources. Of course, you have dividend and rental income, but having a more flexible type of income will also be great.
Enter business. With a business, we can expand, customize, and grow our business however we see fit. We can also build something that we can sell later—there are too many options to list. However, we need to start a business that hits multiple strategic goals. Let’s review some of our goals before we get into the types of business.
Love. We have to love what we will do for our business. Most of us have endured the grinding of the workforce, day in and day out. Now, it is time to do what we love. Starting a business will be very difficult, but that love will carry us through the hard times.
Success is a Habit: What is Your Daily Routine?
What do you love doing? What are you good at and wouldn’t mind doing for the rest of your life? Don’t worry if you have a small niche, like playing old Pokemon games. Whatever you do, you can find an audience over time. Also, we don’t need a huge audience to get the amount of money we need through retirement.
Income. Now is the hard part—identifying how much money we will need from our business. Forget about building the biggest, baddest business in your town. Look at all of your revenue streams—retirement income, investing, cryptocurrencies, and rents—to ascertain the total amount of income your portfolio will generate.
When you have your total number, throw in the luxuries you would dream of having someday. Let’s say an annual vacation to Hawaii is part of your dream life. If this vacation costs $12,000/year, you will need $1,000/month of passive (or active) business income.
Again, we are not trying to blaze the world on fire. We can build a nice-sized business and perhaps employ our children, sell it, or leave it to them. But, let’s start the business with our eyes wide open.
Mothers as Entrepreneurs
Passivity. The final step is to choose how active or passive or business should be in its final stages. All businesses start out being very busy—we call that the passive income grind. However, if we want to do most of the work upfront and automate it over time, it will become more passive.
An example is if we open a consulting business—we are the stars of our own show. No matter how passive we want our company to be, we will always exchange time for money. However, we still have options.
We can perform as a consultant but take notes on general questions that our clients ask us. Then, we can start a YouTube channel or blog giving generic professional advice. This would also generate more leads for our business.
Over time, we would build a great stream of content, and we can even create an online course to go along with our videos. Eventually, your consulting time will decrease as your online (passive) content generates more content.
Become Insanely Productive During the Magic Hours
Removing yourself. One of my favorite subtitles to one of my books is “The Magic of an Automated Business: Your Business Works Better Without You.” The most challenging part of starting a business is not creating a job.
An entrepreneur is a business owner. A business owner may not be an entrepreneur. Just because you start a business doesn’t mean you are an entrepreneur. You have to learn how to become an entrepreneur.
The main difference between an entrepreneur and a business owner is that the entrepreneur knows that they must bring value to build an audience and earn an income. Let’s explore that statement quickly.
Let’s say we have a business owner who opens a liquor shop. It is clean, and they situate it in the perfect location. The business owner makes a decent amount of money and is happy with the revenue the business brings.
Retire Rich, Retire Comfortable with a Business
Now, let’s say that the business owner became an entrepreneur before they opened the liquor store. They see the complete vision of the value a liquor store brings. On Friday nights, the entrepreneur brings in bartenders to host bartending classes for free. These classes get a lot of attention to his store, both online and in person.
The entrepreneur also knows that it is their civic responsibility to prevent binge drinking. They spend two Saturdays a month at the youth centers having open discussions about healthy drinking habits for teenagers entering college.
In the long-term, the entrepreneur establishes their liquor store as a pillar of the community. He can also remove himself from working inside the store because he has created more resourceful ways to increase awareness of his store.
Retirement Planning at Any Age
Starting a business (entrepreneur) or creating a job (businessperson) are two separate paths, and knowing the difference (before starting) will pay off in spades.
The four types of home businesses. These four types are just the four categories I created. There may be more, and I will add to this list as I progress. I want to focus on home-based businesses because most of us reading this are past the huge, physical store stage of our lives. Here are the four types of home-based businesses. I will write a detailed article about each of them.
Outside. This is a physical business that you can do from home. Some examples are gardens, farms, and baking.
Online. Online companies sprout up all the time, so you will have to stand out. Some examples are Amazon FBA, drop shipping, and eBay arbitrage.
Content. A content business is also online but concerns more about creating content. Once you have a following, you open yourself up to affiliate marketing and sponsorships. Some examples are blogging, music, and YouTube.
Consulting. I separate consulting because it may be online, but you still exchange time for money. We want to get away from that, but consulting may be a way to leverage our lifelong profession into an additional revenue stream—on our terms.
Happy Financial Independence Day!
Conclusion. I look forward to diving into each one of these home business categories. Again, the purpose of this article series is to prepare us for retirement by creating additional income streams.
It takes time to build these income streams, probably 2-4 years. So we must jump into this world as soon as possible. Of course, we want to read books (read these 10) before we start and do our due diligence and research.
We live in an exciting world where we can decide how much money we want to have throughout retirement. If you have a scarcity mindset or a fixed mindset, change those beliefs to abundance and growth.
Starting an income stream will push you to your limits. Just like marriage, it’s not supposed to be easy. The harder you try, the easier it gets—not vice versa.
With that, I’m off to the races. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. Please follow me on Twitter to see my new Freedom PDF releases!
- PDF of the Month: Don’t Gamble with Retirement 3+4 (696-Page Free PDF)
- Free PDF Downloads: Download FREE PDF books here (Twitter Link)
- Financial Mindset: Become CEO of Yourself (book)
- Retirement Planning: Don’t Gamble with Retirement 4 (Free PDF)
- Investing: The Pros and Cons of Dividend ETFs (Free PDF)
- Cryptocurrencies: The Magic of Cryptocurrencies (Free PDF)
- Real Estate: Real Estate is a Mindset (Intermediate) (Free PDF)
- Business: Retire Rich, Retire Comfortable with a Business 2 (Free PDF)
- Everything!: The Biggest Book on Passive Income Ever! (book)(Web Edition)(Art Edition)
- I bought a Kindle Oasis: Check it out Amazon
- Read My Books for Free: Free Kindle Books Schedule
- Sign up to Access our “Hidden” Free Kindle Book Schedule
- My first Children’s book: A Child’s First Book on Passive Income (book)
- Book Reviews: 54 Takeaways from 54 Books (book)
- Want to Build Passive Income from Books and Affiliate Marketing? (Learn here)
- Writing: Can Grammarly Make You a Better Writer? (direct)
- My Favorite Chromebook: The Ultimate Chromebook (direct)
- Follow us: On our Facebook Page and Join our Facebook Group
- Amazon Author Page: Check out my author page on Amazon
- Monthly Dividend Planner: Check it out on Etsy
Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. All Right Reserved Military Family Investing
Leave a Reply