Why Start A Home Based Business?

Why start a home based business? The latest financial news is cause enough… consider this headline:
AARP: Freeze Retirement Accounts Now.

They want mandated distributions to be stopped because of the upheaval in the stock market.

Another problem, income from reverse mortgages is going to drop off since the value of the homes is going down. Even in rural areas that were generally immune to the housing bubble, $30,000 prices cuts to sell homes (@ 15% to 20% of the value) are common.

When I was doing retirement savings calculations as part of my job way back when, I realized it was all impossible to calclulate…

If you were responsible, you used a historic spread between inflation and investment return in your estimates. But that could tell people they needed to save so much money they though you were lying to them and decided to do nothing.

But just think about it, if you wanted to live off your investments at your present level (hopefully your debts would all be paid except property taxes and utilities) how much would it take?

At 10% it takes 10 times your income saved.

At 5% it takes 20 times your income saved.

At 3% it takes 33 times your income saved.

Simple but do you have it?

And what does “saved” mean?

Gold is “safe” but bears no interest.

Hmmm…

Will there be “Social Security” to help reduce what you need to save? Who knows? Will it be worth anything? Or will it just pay for your health care at best?

It might be good to create some income streams on the side that can give you some flexibility in tough times.

Just today’s headlines and the realities of saving for retirement make it a wise option.