Still Waiting for Your Bailout – Try creating your own

I don’t know about you, but this geezer is getting tired of waiting for his bailout. How about you.?

• The government is paying off other people’s mortgages but Karen and I are still making our own payments
• The government is bailing out the auto companies and the banks but my little company is still chugging along. Yes, business is down but we are still doing OK –we just have to work more hours.
• I have been working hard for the past ten years to pay off all of our debts so we are almost debt free as we go into retirement, but the government just committed every living American to about $45,000 in new debt I hadn’t planned on. That one will probably outlive me but it will eventually be paid back with increased taxes, reduced Medicare and SSI payments and inflation that the debt will cause.

So since I am not holding my breath waiting for a government bailout –how do I get one for myself?

Personally I follow four strategies:

1. Reduce debts – in any recession cash is king. Now is the time to be ruthless in cutting your expenses and paying off your debts.
2. Keep your cash is safe banks or US treasury bills. Don’t think the stock market rally means we have found the bottom. There is a lot more bad news to come. Before unemployment finds the bottom it has to stop falling –but current unemployment rates are still accelerating. Although residential real estate is probably near its bottom, the crash in commercial real estate is just around the corner. And the banking crisis is far from over.
3. Keep a little silver or gold on hand.
4. Find ways to supplement your income.

Whether you are already retired or about to retire, there are lots of ways to supplement your income without taking an extra job or going back to work.  The very fact that you are reading an online blog means you have some basic computer skills.  In my latest book, The Official Geezer Guide to Making Money with An Online Business we take you though several online business opportunities that are low cost and low risk that can help supplement your income in hard times.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 7:18 pm and is filed under Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.