(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to Retirement Unpacked with Al Smith, owner of Golden Eagle Financial. You want a retirement plan that alleviates your fears about the future so you know your money will last. As a chartered financial consultant, Al Smith will help you find a balance between the risk and reward of the market and the safety of your retirement income. And now, here’s your host, Al Smith. Welcome to another program of Retirement Unpacked. Hopefully I’ll have some information that you will enjoy and that you haven’t heard before and also some insight to some things that maybe even go beyond retirement. Maybe some things that you haven’t thought about. I’m going to talk a little bit about today, about as people plan for retirement, a good share of that planning has to do with determining how much income people will need. And that is sort of, rather than just a formula or something like that, it can be a process. And the more time people spend with that, the more accurate that will be. And most people, as they get close to retirement, they start to think about that. A lot of times people will think in terms of, well, I’m going to be retiring so maybe the wife and I won’t need quite as much income as we’ve been generating right now. If two people maybe have their home paid for and their children are out of the house while they’re working, they may be living on substantially greater amount of income than they will be needing in retirement. And so that planning is a very important process. And also, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, when people have a pretty healthy income and live modestly, they may not be using a budget while they’re in a working phase. And that’s because if they live modestly, they don’t need to look for every single penny goes, so to speak. But as people make that transition into retirement, it’s kind of important to take a look at your spending. And one of the ways to do that, and obviously one of the most important ways, is to create a budget. And if people haven’t been using a budget as they’re making that transition into retirement, it’s good to sit down. If it’s an individual, fine by himself. If it’s a couple, they can both sit down and take a look at what their expenses had been while they were working and what they’re going to be as they move into retirement. And a lot of things to consider, excuse me, some people as they make the transition into retirement, choose to move. And whether that’s a good or bad idea, of course, it depends on a lot of circumstances. Sometimes people move in order to be closer to children and grandchildren. Sometimes people move because they’re just not crazy about Colorado winters, which aren’t as bad as winters in some other parts of the country. But they are winters, winters with snow, with shoveling, with ice, with cars sliding around, and schools closed, and businesses closed, things like that. And as a result, they may think in terms of moving to a warmer climate. And as again, I mentioned, sometimes people will move in order to get closer to where their children live. And if that’s the case, one of the things I strongly recommend is if you’re moving to an area where you’ve not lived before, it’s a good idea to rent for a couple reasons. One is you’ll get a better feel for that community and that city, assuming it’s a city. And that way, since you’re renting, you can travel around that city and determine what part of that city you would like to live. And also, if you would actually like to live there at all. And it’s much easier to leave after a rental lease is up than if you purchase a home and go through all of that and then have to turn around and sell it later. Because you never know what the real estate market would be like nine months or a year and a half after you’ve moved into a new property. Because purchasing property and then selling a property involves quite a lot of expenses. So that’s one of the biggest things in a budget. And also people think in terms of how much are we going to be eating? Are we going to be entertaining? Are we going to be, you know, driving a lot? Are we going to spend less on fuel? One of the things I’d strongly recommend is that you get with your property casualty agent as you make the transition into retirement. And if you had been commuting 18, 20 miles to work each way, let your property casualty agent know that your mileage has been reduced, you know, radically. You might go on a trip or two each year, which you were doing before you decided to retire. But as you’re moving into retirement, explain that you may only be driving 10,000 miles a year and you had been driving 25 ,000 miles. That should lower the rate you’re paying on your automobile insurance. And with the increased cost of all kinds of property casualty insurance, at least for the companies who have remained in Colorado, some of them have left because of hail damage claims and things like that. But it’s important that you’re not paying for risks that really aren’t out there. So as you make that transition to retirement, let your automobile insurance agent know how many miles you’re driving. And in order to lower your premiums in retirement, if your car is getting a little bit older but, you know, you’re going to hang on to it, you may want to drop the collision insurance. If you can handle a loss of whatever the value of your vehicle is, that’s something to think about. So a budget, very important because that’s how we can help determine how much income we’re going to need in retirement. You can sort of take an inventory. If you enjoy television, make certain that you’re not paying for a service that’s offering 250 channels and you generally only watch a dozen of those. You’re still paying for the 250. Also, with some of the streaming services that are out there, you can pay far less than you would have to on Xfinity or any of those other services that are out there. So creating that budget is really important in determining that income. And when that income is determined, I think it’s important to keep part of the financial nest egg separate for emergencies and for expenses that you’re hoping won’t come up but they may come up. Critical care, personal care, things of that nature, those expenses are so great. You need to have those in an emergency fund rather than part of your personal income. So once you do the budget, then it’s sort of necessary to sit down and look at where is the income going to come from to pay for that. And one of the big things is social security, of course, and that’s something that a lot of people have conversations with me about when they come into the office because we take a look at not only the benefits at various ages for social security but we also look at the taxation of social security. And that can vary enormously depending on how much other income is added to social security. And of course, how much other income is added to it depends on if that income is going to be taxable or not. So that’s part of the planning process that I do with people when they come into the office. And if that’s something you think would be of benefit to you, please contact my office. The number is 303-744-1128. And if no one is there, I answer my voicemails rather quickly. And a good share of the time, either I or my office manager are there to field calls. But in any event, so part of that process of figuring out where your income is going to come from in retirement is determining when is the best time to fire up social security. The other thing, of course, is if you have 401K that you may have rolled into an IRA, determine how much, what percentage of that you want to generate to have income to provide for yourself or yourself and your household. And if you are fortunate enough to have a pension, there may be a choice that you’ll be looking at as you make that transition into retirement having to do with how much income your pension will generate and also how much of that income you would want to continue to a survivor. Normally, that’s a spouse because I don’t think too many pensions offer continuation for anyone other than a spouse. But that’s something that is part of the planning process in determining how much income you’re going to be needing in retirement. Now, sometimes when I have conversations with people, we take a look at people’s circumstances. And most people I know have worked hard for a number of years as they get closer to retirement. And some have larger nest eggs than others. Some of the fortunate ones have pensions, as I mentioned. But I’ve often thought about, well, what are some alternative sources of income, whether you’re retired or not? And in many cases, this can be something for retired people. And so, I did a little bit of research and learned about some things people can be doing in retirement. And I’m not necessarily talking about, you know, driving Uber a few days a week or working part-time as a greeter at Walmart and not taking anything at all away from those. But part-time work is only one alternative that people can do in order to supplement their retirement income. But some of those, in addition to providing additional income, they provide some socialization and activities that people genuinely need in retirement, even if the additional income is not terribly important. But in any event, a little bit of the research I did came up with some kind of unusual ideas that many of you have not thought about that can generate income in retirement, especially if you have some creativity and like to work on the computer to help learn things and so forth. One of the things that you can do as a retired person, this can be something. You don’t need to be retired to do this. This is something you could do in your spare time if you so desired. You could create a course, a course that people could take and pay you in order to take this course. And there are some platforms that you can use. One of them is called Udemy, U-D -E-M-Y. One is called Skillshare and one is called Coursera. And any one of these three platforms can be used for you to make your course available to other people. And obviously, the important thing is to create a course that, you know, that people are interested in learning information from. And if in your conversation and your exposure to other people, there’s a particular topic that you believe people could really, really benefit from, when it comes to expanding their knowledge about things that are important, then go ahead and create a course. It might be a course about personal safety. It might be a course about, you know, computer use. It might be a course about the outdoors. It might be about exercise or weight reduction. Almost anything. And once you have planned that course, you have the option of which of these platforms to put it under and how to structure that. And we’re already at the halftime of Retirement Unpacked. Again, if I didn’t thank you for now, and I have multiple other ideas about alternative sources of income, and we’ll talk about those after the break. Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial offers a free initial consultation for potential clients to learn what he can do for you. Al wants you to know that the process is simple, comprehensive and effective, and that there’s no reason to avoid it. He digs deeper than other financial advisors. He wants to know what you want your retirement to look like. If you want to travel the world, Al will help you know when you can start. If you’d like to relocate or buy property, he’ll make sure that you know what steps you need to take to make it happen. Al knows that about half of retirees will need some sort of long-term health care, so he’ll make sure you’re prepared for that reality. Contact Al Smith at Golden Eagle Financial today for a free in-person or Zoom consultation to discover how he can help you. Just go to klzradio.com slash money to find out how. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC, a registered investment advisor. BCM and Golden Eagle Financial Limited are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents. Welcome back to Retirement Unpacked, and we are talking about income in retirement. And more specifically, we’re talking about alternative sources of income. We were just talking about one thing people can do, and that’s to create a course, a class that people would like to attend online. And some disadvantages of that are it takes a lot of effort to put together a course. It’s not something you can, you know, whip together very quickly. And also, the course must be good. It must be comprehensive. It must be something that, you know, people enjoy, providing them information that they believe is important. It may also offer or it may require some expenses on the front end to get, you know, saved up. But the important thing is that you would be, you know, providing a real service that people would need. People need information in an enormous number of different areas. I don’t have the stats, but I think when we look historically, the amount of information available to people doubles every, you know, short number of years. It’s really incredible. Which brings me to the next topic. Rather than a course, what you can do is you can write an e-book. And it doesn’t need to be something that’s terribly long. It could be 30 to 50 pages. And it’s important that whatever you write about, that you’re an expert in that field. And the ultimate idea is you want, obviously, people to read your book. So, you must, the book must be of something that’s of importance to other people, regardless of what the topic is in the book. And with e-publishing, it’s certainly less expensive than it used to be to write books with hardbacks and paperbacks and things of that nature. So, there is a modest cost involved. But what’s more important is that you be an expert in that field and that whatever it is you’re writing about, that’s something people find really interesting. Now, one of the other advantages of writing an e-book is if you have other presences, is that a word, presences? If you have other presence on the internet, let’s say a blog or website or something like that, your e-book can help drive people to that other source of information. So, it can sort of piggyback with a blog or a website or something like that. And one of the slight disadvantages is if the e-book doesn’t really attract customers, it’s also not going to attract anyone to the other sources. So, it must be fairly strong in that respect. Excuse me. Lots of other mechanisms to generate income. Here’s one, flip retail products. I think most of us at one time or another have purchased something on Craigslist or eBay or whatever it is. And interestingly, there is an antique establishment at Kipling and Bowles that reminds me of people who may have taken advantage of this concept. It’s an enormous amount of square footage where there are many, many small booths that sell just all kinds of different things from antiques to, you know, golf equipment, pictures, artwork, an enormous selection of things. But basically, flipping retail products amounts to finding things at very low prices and then rather than reinventing the wheel, resell them on eBay or Amazon or Craigslist. And you make the difference. So, the problem is, not the problem, but the goal is to find products at very, very low prices. It could be garage sales. It could be a different website. It could be through networking with people that you know. And once you find these products, if these are products that people, that there is a market for, people desire these, then you can in turn by using one of these other platforms, eBay, Amazon, Craigslist or something like that, resell the products. And one of the advantages of doing this, it’s if you have the contact where you can find inexpensive products that people want, then this can be a very viable business. The slight downside is you may have to really dig deep and hustle in order to find things at low enough prices to make it attractive for other people to purchase them. Another slight disadvantage is this is going to require a little bit of money on your behalf to buy these products and then resell them. And I don’t have any answers on the logistics of shipping and payments and that sort of thing, but I’m certain there can be Venmo or PayPal accounts set up or something like that. So the potential customers feel secure and you feel secure that you’re going to be compensated. Another example is selling photography online. I’m an amateur photographer. I’ve not sold any of my photography with the exception, I think I did some for charity at our church. But the idea is if you’re an amateur photographer and you have a really good eye for things that other people would like to have mounted in their home or something, you have the opportunity to sell these online. There’s a company called Getty Images, another company called Shutterstock, and another one called Alamy. And essentially, once you are approved to have your photos on one of these platforms, then in turn you license these photos. And if there’s one that people find really attractive, you can sell this photo to hundreds, even thousands of people. But this is also an area where there is a lot of competition. You go online and you’re interested in images or photos or things like that, you’ll realize that there’s a lot of other photos that are out there. So yours have to have something that’s a little bit unique. Either it’s from a landscape, from a location that most other people haven’t posted or something like that. And I think in order for that to be even workable, you would have to keep adding new photos. So if you had some people who like to view your images online, they’re going to be more likely to revisit your site and your photos if you have fresh new photos there for people to look at. And so that’s one source. And I don’t have the remotest idea what kind of income this can generate, but it’s something that I think people really enjoy. Again, I enjoy photography. Another way to generate a little bit of income, whether you’re retired or not, is something called crowdfunded real estate. And you’re thinking, well, gee, what’s that about? Well, it involves a management fee and a platform. And you end up investing in real estate very incrementally because crowdfunded real estate permits people to invest in real estate deals that are preselected by various platforms. And it can involve an equity investment or a debt investment. The equity investment with potentially higher returns but also potentially higher risk. You’re investing in the appreciation of a particular asset. But crowdfunded real estate investing, it can have very small minimums and you can invest in multiple different real estate locations. And each of these need to be evaluated. And the other thing with crowdfunded real estate investing is that in order to mitigate your risk, you could have small investments in multiple different real estate investments. So that’s one of the ways to bring in a little extra income. Here’s another one. It’s called peer-to-peer lending or P2P. There are some sites and it seems like every way of bringing in a little extra income involves using the computer, but that’s the way people buy and sell things anymore. Peer-to-peer lending, there are several platforms. One of them is Prosper. One of them is called The Lending Club. One of them is called Upstart. And these are sort of like the intermediary. And you can essentially loan money at various interest rates. And in order to mitigate your risk, because these are unsecured loans, you could have loans to multiple, multiple people and your chunk of that investment may be very small, as little as $25. So these are just a couple of ways of making additional income in retirement. Depending where you live, you could rent a parking place. If you live near where there is really difficulty finding parking, you could rent a space near where you live. There’s a few other of these, but as we can see and we can hear, we are out of time. God bless you and thank you for listening. Hopefully you’ll be here for next week’s Retirement Unpacked. If you’d like to see if you’re on track with your own retirement, call my office 303-744-1128. Again, God bless you and let’s continue to pray for our friends in Israel. Thank you for listening to Retirement Unpacked with your host Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial. Set up a free consultation with Al today at klzradio.com slash money. Find your purpose in retirement with Golden Eagle Financial. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC, a registered investment advisor. BCM and Golden Eagle Financial Limited are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.