Everything That You Need To Work At Home

You hear it from every segment of the media: The Baby Boomer generation is quickly becoming the “retirement generation.” While some boomers – defined as those born between 1946 and 1964 – have already retired, most are still working and wondering when (or if) they’ll be able to retire.

There is another segment of the population, those younger than the “baby boomer” generation, who live in an entirely different work landscape – a landscape where job security and working for a single company for 30 years and retiring with a pension is a thing of the past.

The federal government’s own social security web site states that most retirees will need about 70% of their pre-retirement income to maintain the same lifestyle. Yet Social Security replaces on average only 40%. That means you better have an impressive portfolio of savings and investments ready to make up the shortfall.

The Government Accounting Office estimates that an average-income couple who receives $20,000 annually from Social Security at age 62 needs investments of over $500,000 to bring their annual retirement income up to $46,000.

Do you have a portfolio of $500,000?

Okay, so you can probably manage to live on less than $46,000. But here is some not-so-good news. Stan Hinden, in the September, 2006, AARP Bulletin reports that more than half of workers 55 and over state they’ve saved less than $50,000 for retirement. How can that be?

People in today’s environment have not followed in their parents’ footsteps of staying in one job forever. Many of us have changed careers a number of times, sometimes for better pay, sometimes because we got downsized or outsourced. Unfortunately, changing jobs frequently means we’ve missed out on becoming fully vested in some of our employers’ 401K plans. Our payouts or rollovers have been tiny or nonexistent

• Some of our lives took turns we never imagined. We’ve been overwhelmed by large medical expenses for ourselves, our children, or our elderly parents. These kinds of expenses can be real retirement-wreckers. We may have little more than a few thousand dollars left.

• Changes like divorce often mean retirement savings, even company retirement plans, are split between spouses. When you say good-bye to a relationship, you say good-bye to half the money in your retirement plan, and you have to work hard and fast to play catch-up.

• We wanted our kids to have college educations. We borrowed from our 401Ks to finance ever-escalating college costs.

• Some of us had to drop out of the workforce altogether to care for elderly parents or grandchildren.

• Some of us are overextended due to poor spending habits. Struggling to pay off credit cards leaves little for retirement savings.

• Some of us have just plain worked hard our whole lives and budgeted carefully, but have never had much of anything left over to save.

• There has been no increase in real wages-that is, purchasing power-since the mid-70s. Despite the happy faces on TV, a lot of us are still struggling just to get by.

Not too long ago, people worked for one company for most of their adult lives, faithfully putting in their time and counting the years until they could retire and start to enjoy life. The company pension was one reason people stayed at jobs they didn’t even like. “At least,” they thought, “the company will take care of me when I’m old. I won’t have to worry.”

A recent trend is for major companies to reduce retirement benefits to workers who believed the company would be there for them in their retirement years. Cuts in post-retirement health insurance benefits are the most unpredictable and the most worrisome for people who are entering their 60s. The few people who even qualify for such programs find that the initial modest premiums and co-pays for themselves and their spouses have skyrocketed to the point where they are simply unaffordable. And by the way, Medicare doesn’t cover dental or vision care. People can buy separate policies for these, but the coverage is usually meager.

Then there’s the longevity “problem.” As we live longer and longer, our retirement dollars must stretch further. What if we run out of money? What if we’re old and sick and poor?

As many companies convert employee pension funds into “cash balance” plans, retiring employees are given lump sums – the money you’ve accumulated in your pension plan or 401K. At that point, you’re on your own to create a “do-it-yourself” pension.

You could take a crash course in investment planning. You could hope you’ll find a trustworthy financial advisor, but there is no way to be 100% confident about putting your financial future in the hands of someone you barely know. Either way, it’s difficult to feel really secure about your financial future in retirement, and the chances are you can’t afford to lose a bit of your nest egg to bad investments.

Quite simply, neither today’s nor tomorrow’s retirees can afford the luxury of feeling secure.

By now, you’ve probably figured out where your retirement prospects fall among all these possibilities. You might be wondering if you’ll ever be able to retire, or if you’ll have to just keep working for the rest of your life. Yes, it’s challenging. Yes, it’s scary.

But there IS an answer. Instead of letting other people determine how you will spend your “golden years,” you can take charge of your life now.

It doesn’t matter if you must stay home to take care of a spouse, parent, or child. It doesn’t matter where you live. It doesn’t matter if you’re one of the many who has not saved enough for retirement. Even if your love to travel, you can establish and build a business using just the Internet and a telephone. Successful professionals will teach you how to stop trudging along on the worry treadmill and start speeding down the road to success. You will be amazed at how quickly you can turn your life around!

The sooner you get started, the sooner you can stop worrying about an uncertain financial future and let yourself think about all the wonderful possibilities of a truly secure retirement. It’s your life, and you should be the one controlling it. Take the first step today by filling out the form on the main page for more information.

Are You an Average American?
Did you know that the average American household has 13 credit, debit and store cards? It’s no wonder. Most US households receive at least one offer of credit a week. They always sound like the perfect answer to your problems, too. Transfer your debt from that really big-balance card to this new one, and you won’t have to pay any interest on it for six months! You’ll have that debt paid off before then, right? And there’s only a little balance transfer fee.

Of course, that other one will now have a zero balance. Doesn’t that sound great? You’ll want to use it for any new purchases, because you don’t want to add to that big balance you just transferred over to the new card. And if it turns out you can’t pay it off, well, by then you’ll probably get another balance-transfer offer from someone else. It seems like this strategy could work forever. You might wonder, “Why doesn’t everyone do it?”

The sad truth is this: The credit card industry collected 43 billion dollars in late-payment, over-limit, and balance-transfer fees in 2004. They aren’t very consumer-friendly. They exist to make money from you.

If this situation is starting to sound familiar to you, and you’re getting a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, you don’t need to feel alone. A Federal Reserve study showed that 43% of US families spend more than they earn. The only way to do that is to use credit. And it’s pretty obvious that if you use credit to spend more than you earn, you are going to be in debt.

When Minimum Turns Into Maximum
Of course, as long as you make the minimum payment every month on all your cards, your credit report will look OK. You will probably be able to get even more cards! But is that actually good news?

Sorry about that. The answer is No.
Did you know that if you made the minimum payment on a $4,800 balance on a card with a 17% interest rate, it would take you 39 years and 7 months to pay it off? You’d pay a total of $15,619, and two-thirds of that would be interest. You’d be paying interest on restaurant meals you ate decades ago, clothes you’ve donated to Goodwill, and electronics from the stone age!

It’s Not Always Your Fault
A 2004 research study showed that most credit card debt incurred by older Americans was due to the high cost of healthcare and prescription medications. In the same vein, anyone with a costly medical condition or emergency can find themselves deep in debt. Health insurance has caps on spending, and even if the caps aren’t reached, a 20% co-pay is common in many policies. There are deductibles and supplies and drugs that aren’t covered. A serious illness can be devastating to the average family’s finances.

Another debt problem beginning to hit Americans this year is that the rates on their A.R.M.s (adjustable rate mortgages) are beginning to reset. With the federal reserve interest rates climbing, many people’s mortgage payments have increased by 25%. If your mortgage payment is $1200, that would mean it would readjust to $1500.

So What’s a Debtor to Do?
Some people take equity loans on their homes to pay off credit card debt. Of course, that means you have to pay back the equity loan-usually by increasing your mortgage payment-and if you sell your house, you’ll make less profit because the equity loan will have to be satisfied. And one other thing-the interest on equity loans is higher than it is on a regular mortgage.

Others turn to one of the many credit counseling agencies advertised on TV and all over the Internet, only to find that many are simply not ethical. With mandatory counseling laws put in place for people considering bankruptcy, the industry is overwhelmed. On top of that, IRS investigations into 41 “non-profit” credit counseling agencies in May of 2006 revealed that they were not acting in the interest of the consumer and were motivated by the money they could make. They lost their tax-exempt status, and investigations into other agencies are continuing.

Bankruptcy used to be a last-ditch resort for people stuck in a bottomless pit of debt. Most bankruptcies are not the result of overspending, but occur because of huge medical bills, job loss, or divorce. In 2005, Congress passed laws that made it much more difficult to declare bankruptcy. Credit counseling is mandatory but difficult to get. Bankruptcy attorneys’ fees have increased; filing fees have increased. More money than before must be paid back to creditors.

Is There a Reasonable Solution?
Yes, and it’s quite simple:

To get out of debt, you need to make more money.
You need a second source of income that you can generate when and where you want to. A job that will fit in with your family obligations and won’t interfere with the things you love to do. If you’re determined to change your financial circumstances, a home-based business could very well be your way out of debt. After you’ve got the debt monkey off your back, you will probably find that running your own business is so easy and so financially satisfying, you’ll want to keep at it, running your personal wealth steadily higher. You might decide to quit your “day job.” Other people just like you are making everywhere from modest incomes to fortunes, and the only equipment they need is a computer and a telephone.

It’s an idea whose time is definitely now. If you’re ready to say goodbye to the worries of escalating debt-ready to take charge of your life in a way you never dreamed was possible-just fill out the form on the main page to receive free information.

Job Security is a thing of the past. What can you do to protect yourself from this?

If you’re like most people, then you want job security. That steady paycheck and ability to count on income in the future helps you sleep at night knowing that the bills are going to be paid. But long term reliable employment is getting harder to come by. Job security, once taken for granted as a part of American life, is declining, and in recent years job markets have continued to shift under people’s feet.

Your seniority at a job won’t protect you from job cuts.

Seniority can actually hurt you because older workers tend to be paid more and companies have many creative ways of removing older workers from their ranks. The “golden handshake” is the nicest way of losing a job, but sometimes a company will just close an office or plant that has an older workforce and that’s the end of it.

You may not enjoy thinking about these uncertainties, but deep down you know that you need a plan for maintaining your income in the future instead just relying on companies to employ you. Expecting to find a well-paying job that will be there for you until retirement is just not a realistic idea anymore.

Manufacturing jobs that used to be the pillar of well-paid secure employment are disappearing. The headlines always tell the same story. For example, Ford Motor Company, whose founder Henry Ford made sure his workers earned enough to actually buy one of his cars, has started massive job cuts.

In the coming years, Ford will shut down 14 factories in North America and it has already started laying off workers. It plans to shed 25,000 to 30,000 jobs before it’s done. These shocking job cuts include white collar workers as well.

Overall, in the years from 2000 to 2003, the United States lost almost 3 million manufacturing jobs according to the Economic Policy Institute. There is no sign that this trend is going to change.

You can also be leery of getting one of those “good union jobs.”

Tied in with the crumbling of manufacturing is the decline of union membership. Compared to 1945 when nearly one third of Americans were union members, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 12.5% of wage and salary workers were in unions in 2005. Unions that used to command high wages and protect jobs are fast becoming a thing of the past.

Then there is “offshore outsourcing” in which your job can be transferred to someone in India or Mexico who will make 15% of what you earn. Outsourcing doesn’t just happen to factory workers whose plant is moved overseas. It happens to software developers and it happens to administrative support jobs and to medical service jobs.

Why does this happen? The greatest factor motivating employers to scale back on secure employment is cost. Companies want to make money, and well-paid full time employees in America aren’t cheap. That is why companies look for ways to switch to lower cost employees in other countries or use non-union, lower paid, or part time workers here. And, because major employers tend to be very large multi-national companies, it is easy for them to play musical chairs with jobs among different countries.

This logically leaves you asking: “What can I do to be financially secure?”

As the above statistics show, looking to the job market is not going to get you what it used to in the past. You’ll need to take charge of your future and start making your own secure income. When you are the boss, there is no one to lay you off or cut your hours. Fortunately, there is an exciting home business opportunity that offers you a way to create your own safety net.

Security and financial success can finally be in your hands – not someone else’s.

Yes, it is tempting to keep putting all of your eggs into one basket and believing that your good job will last – or believing that you will find a good job for years to come. You hear about job growth and new jobs, but they are not the same jobs that are being lost. The new jobs are lumped into the category “service industry” – that means working in sectors like retail or customer service. These service industry jobs are notoriously unreliable in the amount of hours given and they pay less than the old manufacturing jobs.

White collar workers are feeling the pinch too. The stereotypical laid-off steel worker has a lot of company these days. In 2002, the technology sector dumped 150,000 jobs in the software sector. And computer chip maker Intel just announced in September 2006 that it will be cutting over 10,000 jobs in the next few months.

These technology jobs have been touted by politicians as the future for the American worker, but it is not a secure future. Those secure jobs from a bygone era when you could count on a company being around and taking care of you just are not reality anymore. This means that you have to start looking out for number one because no one else will. Your first step toward security is getting information about starting your own home based business.

America might be hard on workers, but it loves business!

Internet access and a telephone are all that you will need to build a successful business, and our team of trained professionals will educate you and help guide you down the path to success. It is amazing to think that you can so easily change an uncertain future, and begin to look forward to the lifestyle you always hoped for.

It is time to stop worrying how you are going to afford to live the rest of your life, and instead, take the first step towards securing your financial future. If you are ready to learn how you can begin to generate a substantial income right away that can continue to provide for you and your family, then you are at the right place. Fill out the form on the main page for additional information. You deserve the security and success.

This should be good. My wife and 3 boys are flying to Nebraska to my 30 year class reunion. My wife April graduated from the same school a year earlier and knows most of the same people.

All three boys were born in Omaha where I owned and operated my professional photography [www.billingsphoto.com] business for 20+ years. Alec, our oldest is 2 weeks shay of 21, our middle son Nick is 17 and our youngest son Derrick is 12. Both Alec & Nick are tallest than I by 2-3 inches and I am 6′ 2″.

Billings Family 2008