What can you do if you don't have enough income
to meet your financial needs in retirement? In this video I will give you some practical
ideas and possible solutions. [Music] Welcome to the Financial Fast
Lane my name is Lane Martinsen. If you are concerned that you will not have enough
income to meet your financial needs throughout your retirement years, You Are Not Alone. As you
think about your financial situation you may feel a little anxious and unsure or your situation may
feel overwhelmingly difficult or even impossible. But just because something seems to be impossible
does not mean that it is impossible. Now I'm going to give you several ideas and share some stories
of what others have done to turn things around and improve their financial situation. The purpose
of sharing these ideas and stories is to get you thinking creatively. The power of creative
problem solving should not be underestimated! Now, before I share some of these ideas
I have four important prerequisites. Prerequisite number one is to be willing
to explore a wide range of possibilities. If all you can see are the obstacles before
you and you can see no viable solutions then you're going to feel stuck and discouraged.
To get unstuck will require some out-of-the-box thinking, it will require shifting your focus
from the obstacles to the exploration of potential Solutions. With a fresh perspective and some
determination you will be free to brainstorm new ideas and discover new solutions. Prerequisite
number two, don't reject or accept ideas quickly. It is really essential to keep an open mind, give
ideas time to marinate and to develop. Ideas that may seem completely implausible for you, may
grow into surprising innovative solutions. Rejecting ideas quickly will
hinder the creative process. Albert Einstein said we cannot solve our problems
with the same level of thinking that created them. Prerequisite number three, remove any
self-limiting beliefs. Don't hold yourself back, we are limited only by what we allow ourselves to
be limited by. You are not too old and it is not too late. Prerequisite number four, brainstorm
improvements for both ends of your budget, income and expenses, the inflow and the outflow.
Ideally we want to add additional sources of income to increase our income but equally
important is the managing of our expenses. Be sure to explore creative ideas on both ends of
your budget. If you make a million dollars before lunch and you spend a million and one dollars
before dinner you go to bed broke and in debt. Now I'm going to share with you three big income
generating ideas along with several stories and suggestions. Again these ideas are just to get
you thinking creatively. Okay big idea number one, create an Accessory Dwelling Unit or an ADU.
An Adu is a self-contained living space or a secondary living space located on the same lot as
your primary residence. For example, if you have a house with a basement you may be able to convert
the basement into a basement apartment, find a good renter, and establish a new stream of rental
income. Affordable housing is in high demand. Another example would be to create an apartment
out of a space above your garage if you have one or maybe even to convert your garage into a small
apartment. If converting a basement or a garage is not a viable option for you, another popular idea
is to build a detached tiny home in the backyard. These are sometimes called a Guest House or
a Casita or a Backyard Cottage. There are many people looking for affordable housing that
would be very happy to pay you rent every month. A Casita or a Backyard Cottage can be
made very nice and very comfortable. Let's take a quick look at one of these tiny
homes this is a short video clip provided by Minimal Living Concepts a great company located
in Phoenix Arizona that specializes in building these tiny homes. All of our units are built on
a concrete slab foundation fully sealed in this standing seam metal exterior, it's actually
a metal roofing material the same thing that you would see on a lot of new luxury homes that
are built with metal roofs. All of our kitchens feature this glass window backsplash in them. All
of our units are priced to be as all inclusive as they could possibly be of a finished
unit, just a pretty normal size but fully livable bathroom that we try to make the most
of and make people feel really comfortable in. I will also provide a link below if you want
more information about Minimal Living Concepts. Rental income can be a very welcome additional
stream of income in retirement. You can consider long-term rentals or possibly short-term Airbnb
rentals that may be more profitable depending upon location and other factors but something
that you could consider. Now, to make an even bigger financial impact, I know people who instead
of renting the basement apartment or casita they move into the smaller unit themselves so that they
can then rent out the larger home for more income. With that method you are simultaneously increasing
your income on one end and decreasing your expenses on the other. I know a single lady
that rents out her basement as an apartment. She also has a casita in the backyard, and a
garage that she converted into a livable space, and she is collecting rent on all three units,
and she is very much enjoying the rental income. If you consider converting or building an ADU
you want to make sure its done properly and safely. The laws vary so you'll want
to check with your local government. In the United States most municipalities require
you to obtain a permit. Big idea number two, generate additional income with a home-based
business. The possibilities really are endless. Remember it is not too late and you are not
too old. Let me share a couple of stories you may know the story of Anne Mary Robertson
Moses, she had a unique career as an artist that didn't start until she was age 78. She had never
tried painting before, she had no prior training or experience. She picked up a paintbrush
for the very first time at the age of 78, and she painted every day for the next 23 years!
She sold her paintings for extra cash in the beginning but the demand grew quickly and she
was making thousands of dollars per painting. Her paintings gained International interest
and have sold in the millions of dollars. Every one of you at some point have probably
purchased a product from Duncan Hines. Duncan Hines was a man that retired after a long
career as a food critic. He didn't start selling his own line of food products until age 73.
You may know the story of Colonel Sanders the founder of KFC. He sold his first KFC franchise
at age 65. The company grew incredibly fast and just eight years later by the time he was 73
there were over 600 KFC locations. He sold Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation for millions
of dollars. Now you don't need a super successful business like these folks, I just want you to
see that age is not a reason to limit yourself. Most of you just need some supplemental income to
add to your other retirement income and assets. If you feel like your ship has already sailed and
you weren't on it, I would say it's time to find a different ship! There are countless opportunities,
I would encourage you to not give up. You just need to discover a solution that will
work for you. If you don't have any ideas as to what type of home business you could maybe
do, consider your strengths, what are you especially good at? What unique experiences
have you had that others could learn from? What would you enjoy learning about? What
skills would be fun to develop or share? Do you have a hobby that you could turn into a
business? You want to brainstorm. Now let me tell you about my wife and her new home-based business.
Tara and I met in college and got married young and we started our family young. We raised five
kids and Tara has always been a stay-at-home mom. She did not finish college and she has never
had a career outside of being a homemaker which is the ultimate career, right. C.S Lewis
famously said, the Homemaker has the ultimate career all other careers exist for one purpose
only and that is to support the ultimate career. I love that quote. As our kids grew and we started
to approach the empty nester phase of life, Tara found herself with some extra time on her
hands. She has always loved anything that has to do with childbirth and expecting mothers. She has
always had an interest in labor and delivery and thought that someday she would consider going back
to school to become a labor and delivery nurse. But our oldest daughter graduated from nursing
school and Tara realized that there were some aspects of being a nurse that did not really
appeal to her, and so she became a certified birth Doula and a certified Childbirth Educator
and she absolutely loves everything about it. She's self-employed and she is hired directly by
expecting mothers and couples. She gets to be an active support to these mothers as they labor
and give birth as well as the anxious fathers. It's incredibly rewarding for her and she
averages about two births per month, and she's also teaching some classes online as well.
She is really only working about four or five days per month and she's generating additional
income doing something she's good at and that she thoroughly enjoys. I'll put a link below to her
website if you have interest in looking at that. The Internet really opens up a ton of
possibilities for home-based businesses. Retirees can offer tutoring consulting
services in areas that you're knowledgeable, maybe it's mathematics language, science,
music or a million other possible topics. We met a couple at our church that told us how
they started an online store unintentionally. One day the wife is out shopping and she came
across a store that was going out of business and was having a huge going out of business sale.
As she was looking at the lower than normal prices she had the thought, I bet I could sell
some of this online and make a profit, so she bought a dozen items and then listed them
for sale on eBay. She sold all of the items and made a nice profit. She thought, wow! I think
I'd like to do that again. And so she started looking for discounts on items that she thought
she could mark up and sell. And as they did this it just kept growing and growing, and her
husband also who helps now, are making as much money they said now in retirement as they were
making before retirement with their home-based online store. There was a story in the New
York Post about a man that was earning 120 thousand dollars per year by walking dogs while
the pet owners are away at work. He charges like twenty dollars for a 30 minute walk. And after
he had gained about a dozen loyal clients, he was making about 240 dollars per day he
retired as a school teacher and has continued to grow his business by hiring others to take
the dogs out each day for a 30 minute walk. Big idea number three, finding a home-based
part-time job. So if having your own home-based business isn't a good fit for you then
maybe a home-based job will be the answer. These days many companies allow jobs to be
done remotely from the comfort of your home. Working is only a burden when
you don't enjoy the work. Now, many of you will have Social Security income
as a foundational component of your retirement plan. If you are approaching retirement age,
you'll want to be sure to have a good Social Security strategy and a good tax strategy. My
financial planning team at Martinsen Wealth Management offers a professional social security
analysis and strategy report customized for your specific situation. For more information on that
please visit socialsecuritylane.com. I will also include a link down below. So, first and foremost
you want to protect and maximize the income and assets that you already have and that comes with
good financial planning. And then, if additional income is needed you could consider some of these
other income generating ideas. Again these ideas and stories in this video are to get you thinking.
I'm not suggesting that any of this is easy they all require hard work, dedication and a good
plan. You have to take the time to do the research and to develop a viable business plan if that is
what you want to do. And as a word of caution be very careful about spending or investing in a
business idea that you're unfamiliar with. Make sure you do your homework consult with skilled
professionals before making any investment. Any new business idea should be tested and verified
with little to no money if possible. Thank you for liking and sharing these videos I really do
appreciate it! I welcome feedback and comments below and I look forward to seeing you in the
next episode of the Financial Fast Lane. [Music]
