Supplemental Retirement Income - Why You Need It

Tear up your newspapers & turn off your TV! To listen to the TV, radio, and press these days, one would think that we are on the brink of severe financial hardship. It gets real discouraging, if you participate. I am convinced that this will become a self fulfilling prophesy if they continue to give in to these fears. This certainly can be depressing for those on a fixed income f they have not taken steps to insulate themselves from it.

Most retirees have saved a "nest egg" that is designed to provide them with income during their retirement year. Many times, those folks have invested their funds in stock market mutual funds or other securities that are based on the market, in order to obtain the highest possible rate of return. This is a very logical thing to do, if it is done with a long term view of the market and how it works. This is the critical part.

You cannot view a downturn as a crisis. For the past 80 or so years, the stock market has always returned to higher plateaus after a market sell off like we are seeing today. Patience is the important virtue. Money is only made or lost when securities are bought or sold. Any market movements in between buying and selling are only 'paper' gains and losses and they don't really count for you or against you. You never actually lose money until you decide to sell for a price lower than you paid for the stock.

I have found that one very good way to insure against market volatility is to have some streams of supplemental retirement income. These are established to provide income that is independent of my investment portfolio. This internet income comes in whether or not the market is doing well. When the market is up and thriving, income from this source just adds to the wealth, but when the market is down, it prevents me from having to sell stocks when they are down. This also enables me to focus my attention on things other than the stock market, which is a very good thing!.

Before I had my "Cash Machines" established and producing income, I would watch the stock market each day religiously. I would worry each time that the market closed lower than the previous day (which it normally does about half of the time). Now, I barely look at the market every few weeks. When there is a market downturn (like now), I find myself looking at it even less often. Life surely is much simpler now and my attitude tends to be more consistently positive as well.

My "Cash Machine" on the internet comes from writing articles, electronic books, and hosting a membership site. My membership site is where I show others how to leverage their experience to create cash machnes of their own!. My articles generally drive traffic to this site and my e-books sell quite well and thus produce a small stream of cash to augment my Social Security check and investment income. All of this is very inexpensive to do and only takes a couple of hours each week. Besides the income aspect of these activities, they provide me with activities that make me feel productive and engaged. This whole idea of "Supplemental Retirement Income" is just ideal for me in many ways!

There are many, many other ways to produce a steady stream of income. It has been said that "If you find something that you are passionate about doing, you will never have to work again in your life". Everybody should do that which they enjoy and, that way, it will not seem like work and be more like a fun hobby. I know several people who buy and sell items on eBay for nice profits while others are doing what is called "Affiliate Marketing". This is where you sign up as an advertising arm of a company with a product to sell and you spend some time developing ways to advertise the product online. A sales commission is automatically deposited into your bank account on each product sale.

Once you setup an ad or webpage to sell the product, you just monitor the activity, tweak & tune your ads and watch your bank balance grow! After a while, this really becomes a very passive activity. Once you have one of these "Cash Machines" working, you set about to create other, independent machines. Each time you creater another income stream, it just gets easier and easier! Don't worry about the technology, either. There are many freelance we page designers who will create your ads and pages for only a few dollars!

Although a few people are getting quite wealthy with such endeavors, most people I know are generating from $2,000 to $8,000 per month from some combination of internet activities. This may not be enough to fully fund your retirement, but this level of supplemental retirement income certainly will make your retirement a whole lot more fun and worry free!