Joan’s Boomer Blog

They Can’t Tax Voluntary Simplicity - Yet!

What is Voluntary Simplicity and How Can it Help You Avoid the Coming Economic Crisis?

Voluntary simplicity has a different meaning to each person who practices it. In a nutshell, voluntary simplicity goes against the commercial culture of America which equates material possessions with happiness and fulfillment. Advocates find fulfillment in saving money, downsizing, living simply and finding ways to do for themselves.

Many who embrace voluntary simplicity live debt free, clip coupons, cook from scratch, live closer to nature and try their hand at pass times like gardening and sewing or raising their own chickens.

Maybe this isn’t you but each of us can simplify our lives and focus on saving money, rather than making money. They can’t tax you for saving $20 with grocery store coupons but that is $20 you still have in your pocket.

Is Economic Disaster and Double Dip Recession Coming?

Life as we’ve all gotten used to it may soon end. For the past 20 years, the economy has been booming mostly, real estate prices shot up, the stock market was going great guns. Then it all fell apart. My 82 year old mother recently told me when she hears the term “new normal” in relation to the high unemployment, volitile stock market and near depression-like economy, she can’t help but think that the years of the booming economy were the abnormal years.

Most of the years of my mother’s life, she knew depression, war, pinching pennies. I grew up learning thrift and tried to teach my kids the same thing, but young people really have no clue about living through a real depression.

Are you worried about what the looming economic crisis will mean for you? Are you worried about the huge tax hike coming in 2011 to pay for the exploding national debt and President Obama’s health care plan. Perhaps you have one of those “Cadillac” insurance plans, where your companies’ contribution will now be taxed as income. Dick Morris says America is facing the same financial disaster that is now occurring in Greece.

President Obama campaigned on the promise of tax cuts for those earning less than $250,000 (really all Congress would have to do is keep President Bush’s tax cuts in place - which saved our family $2,000 in taxes each year.) Yet, on June 22, 2011, House Majority Leader, Rep Steny Hoyer, acknowledged that it would be difficult to reduce long-term deficits without breaking President Obama’s pledge to protect families earning less than $250,000 a year. (See New York Times article)

My husband wants to retire. He has a military pension and a good job, which already puts us in a tax above $88,000. Anyone earning over $88,000 will be taxed to pay for the health care of those who cannot afford it. I am trying to earn extra income to supplement our retirement but unfortunately, the more I make, the more taxes we will pay.

So what is our plan? How will we protect ourselves from economic collapse? I’ve decided that I can limit my hours of working on my multiple streams of income (which is pretty much on autopilot now) and focus on pinching pennies.

• I search coupon websites and grocery ads for the best deals, buying only what we need and what is on sale.
• I rejoined our organic food co-op to get fresh organic produce for our green smoothies.
• I planted tomato plants in pots for the first time since we moved to Texas. We are currently buying land where we can grow a bigger garden.
• I dusted off my dehydrater so I can preserve food and not waste anything.
• I bought a sprouter to I can grow fresh sprouts for our smoothies. You can grow tons of sprouts for pennies, providing fresh greens for your diet.
• I am making my own kefir with kefir starter instead of buying sugar-laden and expensive yogurt.
• My husband and I are putting major purchases on hold and going on a spending fast, after reading Jeff Yeager’s Guide to Cheapskate Living (a great book with lots of voluntary simplicity tips and advice)
• We’re buying an RV to put on the land and if we need to live in it for a year or two to save money, we can do that.

We are in the process of purchasing 5 acres of land where we can have a huge garden, raise chickens and build an energy efficient house with wind and solar power. (President Obama admitted that his cap and trade bill will cause electricity prices to skyrocket and trying to break our dependence on oil could cause gas prices to go to $7 a gallon.)

All is not gloom and doom, whether the nation experiences economic disaster or not. What each person must do is be ready to live in the worst of conditions and become more self-sufficient. Try saving, not spending money. Try saving instead of increasing your income. Give voluntary simplicity a try and you will have the satisfaction of knowing you can face whatever happens.

One thing our government officials have not considered is what will happen when more and more people are willing to earn less, do more for themselves and pay less taxes? They’ve made it the sensible solution but how will the government machine survive once they’ve destroyed our economy?

Resources:

Making your own kefir is easier than you think.

Sprouting seeds at Home

Raising Chickens in Your own back yard.

Check out the many coupons and money saving articles on this blog as well.

Learn more about Living Simply

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Being called a cheapskate used to be an insult but now guides to cheapskate living are some of the most

The Ultimate Cheapskate by Jeff Yeager

popular money saving books published. Voluntary simplicity has become a lifestyle to be proud of and Jeff Yeager’s The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches: A Practical (and Fun) Guide to Enjoying Life More by Spending Less is one of the most useful books on cheapskate living that I’ve come across.

If you’re interested in downsizing, saving money and learning to embrace the voluntary simplicity lifestyle, Jeff Yeager’s book about becoming the Ultimate Cheapskate yourself, can be a wise investment.

Do you get enjoyment from buying “things?” Do you tend to buy as an emotional choice? Perhaps you’re stuck in a good paying, but unfulfilling job and buy things, telling yourself “Why not buy stuff? I earn it?” Do you have large credit card debt and were wishing you had none? The Ultimate Cheapskate can help!

I’ve been following the advice of Jeff Yeager for nearly 30 days and I’ve found that many of the purchases I made before were not things I really needed. I love to shop and I pride myself on finding the best prices but when you embrace voluntary simplicity, you learn that it is possible to spend zero money in a week, that being debt free brings more enjoyment than buying things and that being free of “things” brings freedom and fulfillment to your life.

In America, we are bombarded with commercials just about every minute of the day. We are convinced by smart marketers that if we buy their product we will be happier and more fulfilled. If you become an ultimate cheapskate like Jeff Yeager, you can find that not spending money brings even more fulfillment - your quality of life will increase, rather than decrease with each dollar you don’t spend. Plus the book is written in a humorous, lively style that makes it a pleasure to read.

If you’re looking for ways to be happier by spending less money, whether because you’re forced to or because you see it as a better option in life, then The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches: A Practical (and Fun) Guide to Enjoying Life More by Spending Less can help you live in voluntary simplicity in a totally painless way. Order through Amazon for less than $10, plus the order qualifies for free shipping. What a cheapskate deal!

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Many Baby Boomers fear they won’t be able to retire at all. If this is you, check out some of the best retirement calculators to see where you stand with your retirement finances.

Some baby boomers enjoy their jobs and want to continue working and some will be forced to continue working into the forseeable future due to economic setbacks or not planning for retirement. I think many baby boomers would like to continue working, but perhaps in a different, more fulfilling job, or even working as a volunteer, doing something they enjoy.

My husband wants to retire within the next year but he hopes to transition into an online business as a virtual assistant. My income also comes from my online businesses so this will leave us free to travel in our RV and take our means of income along with us. We also hope to travel to places where we can volunteer our time, doing something fun and fulfilling.

Best Retirement Calculators

Most of these retirement calculators allow you to put in your vital statistics and come up with an answer for the amount of income you’ll need to live the lifestyle you choose and answer the question as to whether or not the amount you have in savings and investments, plus other resources, will offer you the chance to retire in the near future.

Of all the retirement calculators I tried, I liked these two the best as being simple to use and offering the best information.

MSN Money Retirement Planner

Bloomberg Retirement Calculator

When I calculated our retirement income, I was pleasantly surprised at the findings. Some people don’t like the idea of scaling back their lifestyle but actually, we are looking forward to living in a smaller house and having time to plant gardens and spend more time on leisure activities.

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I watched Wayne Dyer on the PBS station talking about his new book, Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits. This 3 hour presentation was a perfect way to begin my new year. Manyu Baby Boomers have excuses for not achieving their goals based on age. Are you using any of these excuses for not creating a better life:

• It will take too long - At my age, I don’t have time!
• It will be too late to change now
• I’ve always been this way
• It’s too risky to try at may age

Louise Hay wrote her first inspirational book at age 61. Wayne Dyer himself is in his late 60’s and still speaking, writing and motivating people. What is too old anyway? As for being too late - do you plan to die tomorrow? If you don’t, then it’s never too late to live a better life for whatever years you have left?

I think seniors especially need to read Excuses Begone. You may have spent your entire life making excuses for not achieving what you want in life and by now, after multiple failures in life, you believe it’s not possible to change now and live a better life.

What do you want to achieve in the new year? Do you have a medical issue you want to heal? Do you want to retire? Do you want to volunteer more and work less? Would you like to lose weight, write a book, have a more loving relationship with your family? All these things are possible if you get rid of the excuses that have been holding you back.

In his book, Wayne Dyer goes over the 18 most common excuses, sent to him by his readers, people like you. He goes over each one and helps you look at the excuse, and your thoughts about it, in an entirely new way. Using this new perspective, Dyer offers a plan for you to over come the excuses and achieve whatever goals you may have.

One of Wayne Dyer’s books, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, literally changed my life, helping me to be happier and have more loving relationships in my life. That was the first of his books that I read and since then, I’ve read all the others. They’ve helped me to set out a plan for my life and achieve what I think is important for my happiness.

The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Make your first step reading Excuses Begone and you can then lay out a blueprint for the rest of your journey to the life you’d really like to live. At our age, we don’t have a single day to waste on excuses!

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The New Year is almost here and it could be time to start a new business sideline to make some quick money or even start a whole new career. Baby Boomers all need extra income so they can retire in style. Other reasons for needing quick money might be that a car that breaks down, or you’d like to start traveling or maybe just pay off some bills and provide basic household needs. Whatever reasons you might need money fast, here are a few ways to use the Internet to get that flow of cash into your bank account.

The Internet can provide anyone unlimited, legitimate opportunities to make money online. Choosing your money making method is the first step to earning an online income. Many of these online income opportunities require having your own blog or website, which I can also show you is easy, and inexpensive, to do.

Method #1 — Provide a Service to Businesses

One way to make money using the Internet is to provide a service online to businesses. There are many out there that are looking for people to drive traffic to their websites by posting on forums or on blogs or to write articles for them.

This is a good option if you have studied a little bit about Internet marketing and know how to do these things. You’ll probably earn a fee per hour or per job depending on how you make arrangements.

Method #2 — Affiliate Marketing

Many companies spend a lot of money on advertising. Part of this advertising budget includes paying affiliates to send traffic to their website. You can sign up for free with product or service, receive your affiliate links, which include banners, and post it on your blog or website, use it as your signature in emails and forums or simply let your friends know about these products. You are then paid a commission for any purchases made.

Many companies with affiliate programs are well known to you, such as Amazon.com and Google. Many pay immediately through pay pal so you get your money quickly.

Method #3 — Selling Your Own Information Product

If you are able to quickly create an e-book or other kind of information product, you can make quick money. You can simply drive traffic to your website through Pay Per Click, or by promoting your ebook on blogs and forums and you can start earning money right away.

You can see a common thread among these ways of making quick money is that they are all made possible through blogging.You can blog about your services or make a sales page for your services or ebook. You become an “expert” in your field by posting blog entries, which go up in the search engines. You add articles about the products you are promoting as an affiliate and add a link to the product.

Once you have your blog set up, with all the proper plug-ins to drive traffic to it, the rest is easy. If you know nothing about blogging, or if you’d like to set up a professional blog to help you earn money quickly through many avenues, you need The Niche Blogger Program. The Niche Blogger is a subscription site that takes you day by day through every single step to set up your first blog, then, using the same steps, you can create multiple blogs and begin earning real money fast. It even helps you choose a profitable topic, or several of them.

The Niche Blogger is affordable (in fact it can save you weeks or time and energy trying to figure things out on your own!) and you can cancel once you get your blog up and running. However, besides setting up a blog, The Niche Blogger program also teaches you to write and sell your own ebook, set up an automated email campaign and many other more advanced techniques to get you to where the real money is in blogging.

The program is set up like a blog, with steps to take each day and place for comments so you can get instant feedback if you have questions. There is also a helpful forum where you can get advice and tips.

To create a good retirement income for my husband and myself, I used The Niche Blogger program to set up several very profitable, self-hosted Wordpress blogs, including this one. You too can begin earning quick money on the Internet in 2010, by using The Niche Blogger Program.

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Would you like to make money at home using your computer? In the current economy, everybody could use some extra income, or maybe even a new career. Working at home means you can get out of bed, grab a cup of coffee and head for your computer to put in a couple hours work. This sort of extra income sounds great and it IS possible for anybody wanting to make money online.

Jumping out of bed, throwing down a cup of coffee and scampering to your car to face bumper to bumper traffic, while trying desperately trying to motivate yourself do do work you don’t like may be something you would love to eliminate from your life. Some of you may be sitting at home with no job to go to and no money coming in.

The good news is that you can make money at home online to supplement or even replace your income. It’s all made possible through blogging!

You probably read blogs on all sorts of subjects all the time. There are literally millions of blogs out there on every conceivable topic which are called niche blogs. They find a niche and fill it, while making money online.

You might think it’s difficult to become a blogger but, with the right help, it’s possible to make a great income online by blogging and change your life for the better.

Instead of sneaking a peek at your favorite blogs during your 9-to-5 job, you can be the one sitting at home and writing these blogs that other people read! You’ll not only be providing great content for people, you’ll also be pulling in some great money that can literally change your life and having fun too.

Getting rid of the doubt that you can do this is going to be an important first step. As long as you are able to compose and send an e-mail, you can be a professional blogger!

What you need to help you learn the art of blogging is a tutorial that will show you step-by-step how to do this. It’s also important to have motivation and encouragement. The absolute best place to get this online is The Niche Blogger.

This membership site is great for the beginning at blogging and also for the intermediate marketer who wants to learn more about how to build a successful, money-making blog. In fact, many of the people who join the membership site are brand-new at blogging and have little computer knowledge.

The good thing is that there is a whole mix of experience levels so you are sure to be able to find help among the community whenever you need it.

The startup cost is incredibly low as well — making sure that those who want to join learn about blogging and making money online to escape their jobs are able to do so. Even if you’re happy with your job, it never hurts to have extra money coming in. Blogging is fun!

You already know that companies spend millions and millions of dollars in order to attract customers. Part of their advertising costs online go to a affiliates. These affiliates place ads on their websites and blogs and their readers often make purchases. When readers make purchases, the blog owner makes money! It’s as simple as that.

All you need to do is have your blog in place, with affiliate ads relating to your content and you can be the one whose links customers buy through.

The main difference between making money at home online and going to a 9-to-5 job is that you are now in business for yourself - a professional blogger.

There is no reason to limit yourself into thinking that you have to stay at a job you don’t like forever. Become your own boss and work at home in your PJs so you can do what you want to do, when you want to do it.

Try The Niche Blogger for FREE! Click Here for a FREE 3 Day Trial and see for yourself what a great blogging program it is.

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About a year ago, I decided to try my hand at blogging for money. I love writing but what I needed to know is the nuts and bolts of how to build a self-hosted WordPress blog from scratch. Earning blogging money is easier than you think, no matter what your level of expertise - even if you aren’t sure of your writing or computer abilities. The most important thing, if you want to earn money from blogging is to have a solid plan of action to help you earn a good income from your blogs. It’s not enough to just put a blog up and hope that the money will soon show up.

Blogging can create retirement income for you. What will you do in retirement? Travel? Volunteer? Play with your grandchildren? Are you still working and saving? All of these make great blogging topics.

So, you think you want to earn money blogging - now how do you find the right plan of action to help you earn as much money as possible? By finding a mentor or model in someone who is already a successful niche blogger. Niche blogging is the art of creating a successful blog in one small subject area. Do you know something about gardening? Where to find great coupons on the internet? Birding? Nostalgia? Just about any topic you can come up with has a small niche waiting to be filled.

The source I used to help me create several successful niche blogs is called “The Niche Blogger!” This is a complete program that was put together to help new people get their own start in blogging.

This will cut down on your learning time and help to ensure that you don’t make mistakes that will prevent you from making money. The program covers just how to set up a self-hosted Word Press blog, how to choose a successful topic and write about it, what plugins you need, how to promote your blog and much more.

One note of warning, if you join The Niche Blogger, you are going to have to dedicate yourself to it. You need time each and every day to devote to the program, which takes you step by step. There is also a great forum for asking any questions you may have.

One of the problems with trying to earn money blogging is that there are many different methods out there. The trick is to choose a good model from the very beginning, making it much easier to dedicate yourself to it because you know you will be able to succeed.

You should also realize that even though you can start earning very quickly, you won’t become rich overnight. Building a successful niche blog takes time but it’s also fun and you can enjoy the process as well.

Blogging money will begin to trickle in and then build upon itself over time. Before you know it, you can be earning a great part or full-time income from your blogs! And, once your blog is set up, the income becomes relatively passive. All you need to do is write a blog posting 2-3 times a week.

Earning money from blogs gives you a great second income, retirement income or passive income.

All you need to do is make sure you find follow The Niche Blogger instructions, and that you dedicate yourself to it until you are successful. You may well remember the moment you became a niche blogger as one of the decisions that changed your life for the better.

Blogging money is truly the way to go for passive income!

The Niche Blogger - Make Money Blogging

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