The Sandwich Lady - How one Geezer-Gal Earns $2000 a Month
The Official Geezer Guide Newsletter - Your guide to making, saving and getting the most out of your money
Volume 1, Issue 1, March 2009
Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Official Geezer Guide News. If you
signed up for this newsletter over the last couple of months, you were probably
wondering when you would receive your first issue. Well, here it is.
We launched the Official Geezer Guides in mid-December and readers have been
subscribing at a pretty good clip. Frankly I was waiting until we had a good
nucleus of readers. This week we just hit 500 subscribers, so I figured I
better get an issue out. So from now on you can expect this issue to arrive
monthly. As our subscriber base grows we hope to increase the frequency to
twice-monthly.
Let me take a minute to talk about our philosophy and the mission of this
newsletter. The purpose of the Official Geezer Guides is to help mature
Americans, those who are retired, or soon to retire, find ways to make extra
money to supplement their retirement income. Initially we are concentrating on
finding easy online businesses that almost anyone can run but as we grow we will
expand that to include all types of legitimate business opportunities.
We focus on legitimate business opportunities that are low risk;
require a minimum of technical expertise and very little investment or start-up
capital. I underlined the word "legitimate" because the online business
opportunity arena is filled with scams and opportunities that require large
amounts of time and money that are beyond the resources of most of us. The other
area we do NOT cover is multi-level or network marketing. There are plenty of
other websites and newsletters that cover those.
Besides making money we will also focus on ways that our readers can protect
their savings and investments, save money on purchases, and the occasional
lifestyle item or idea to help our readers have some fun and enjoy their
retirement. We are not planning to compete with AARP or Golden Years -we will
try and find the lifestyle niches that the mass market misses.
Each month we post new articles on our FREE Articles page. We cover a wide
range of topics from income generation, savings, finance and lifestyle issues.
This month's new articles:
Scamalot: The Worst Con Jobs Are Yet To Come - You think Bernie Madoff was
bad; The era of scams has just begun.
Anyone Can Build A Website - Simple ways to build a website and get traffic
to it.
Looking Beneath The Recession - Where did it come from and where are the
opportunities for the future?
Eight Online Home Business Opportunities That Work for Seniors - Eight low
cost, low risk online business opportunities.
So let's get started with our first issue.
1. The Sandwich Lady - How one Geezer-Gal Earns $2000 a Month Working 4-5
hours a day.
Each month we plan to feature stories about our readers who have found unique
ways to supplement their retirement income. Although we focus mostly on earning
an income from online ventures, we will also feature unique stories about ways
to make extra money if we think they are interesting and relevant to our
readers.
Jeanne G. is a 64 years young widow who lives near Raleigh, NC. Until
recently she was living on approximately $1300 from Social Security and what was
left of her husband's insurance policy. Jeanne had been out of the workforce for
over 25 years and didn't really have much in the way of employable skills. One
day she had an idea. There are several office parks near her home and she
reasoned that people have to eat, but going out to a restaurant or fast food
place every day at lunch time was expensive. She was shopping at her local
Sam's Club and saw that she could buy lunchmeat, bread and condiments in large
quantities very cheaply. So she stocked up on meats, cheese and breads and
purchased one of those large rolling coolers. She also bought a case of mixed
soft drinks and a case of bottled water.
She went home and the next morning she got up early and started making
sandwiches. At first she stuck with only three kinds. She wrapped the
sandwiches, packed the cooler and loaded it into her Subaru station wagon and
set off to the nearest office park. Starting at 11:15 she just went building to
building, going into the reception offices and asking if the employees would
like to buy a sandwich. She was rejected a lot and some of the buildings
required a security card even to get into, but she persisted and finally sold
all 30 sandwiches she had made and most of her soft drinks and water. When she
totaled up all of her sales and subtracted her food costs she made around $60.
Over the next couple of weeks, Jeanne learned which sandwiches sold the best,
she added bags of chips and cookies and eventually figured out a route of
buildings where they welcomed her. By the end of her first month she was
averaging $100 a day gross profit and hired another lady to come in each morning
to help her make the sandwiches. Eventually she hopes to hire another person to
help her work the route and even expand the route.
2. Win a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate and a Free Geezer Guide of Your
Choice
We are looking for stories like the one above about the Sandwich Lady to
share with our readers.
If you have found a way to earn extra income after you retired and would like
to share it with our readers then please drop us a note, using our
contact form. Tell us what you do and give enough details that show
how other people can do this. We don't need all of your secrets or wholesale
sources -just an outline of how the business works and how much money you are
making. If we select your story for the newsletter, we will send you a $50 Gift
Certificate for Amazon.com and your choice of any of the current Official Geezer
Guides or you can wait and choose one of the new titles that will be released
next month.
We need your full name and what city you live in, but we will only use your
first name and last initial to protect your privacy. If you live in a small town
where you could easily be identified, then we will use the name of a large city
near you.
We are interested in any type of business, but we are especially interested
in businesses you can do online working from a home computer. Please -no
network marketing or multi-level businesses.
3. Get Your Money Back From Scammers
Have you been scammed? Here is a great video from fellow Geezer and my good
friend Chris Malta, founder of Worldwide Brands where he explains the techniques
you can use to get refunds from scammers.
Chris is one of the smartest eBiz guys around. A few years ago he started
Worldwide Brands with $500 and built it into a multimillion dollar business. He
has just launched a new venture built around eBiz workshops that he will put on
personally in Orlando. FL.
I have been an affiliate of Worldwide Brands for a long time and over the years
have seen the quality of information that they put out. I have no doubt that
Chris' workshops will be top notch.
It's always said that it's not what you know, but who you know, and Chris is one
of those guys YOU want to know. He is not only a phenomenally successful eBiz
entrepreneur, he is also a person of the highest integrity and a genuinely nice
guy.
Chris' workshops afford you the opportunity to spend a full 2 days of getting to
PERSONALLY KNOW Chris and have him help you with your business; not to mention
that you will have the opportunity to meet and get to know 14 other business
owners - people like yourself who
may have solutions to your questions. I am not going to tell you his workshop is
cheap, but it is priced a lot less than similar workshops I have seen over the
past couple of years.
Over the course of the weekend you will learn how Chris built
WorldwideBrands.com starting with $500 and has built it to now be worth tens of
millions. He is going to take his experience and show you how you can do the
same thing with your eBusiness. So if you live in the Southeast, or wanted to
visit Orlando and this interests you,
click here for more information.
4. New Titles in the Works
The OGG team is hard at work creating new guides for our readers. Here is
what we are working on and the estimated release date:
- The Official Geezer Guide to Making Money on eBay, by Skip
McGrath. This is a concise guide to making money on eBay working from home.
I have focused on ways to start and eBay business that require very little
investment in merchandise and very little risk. There are thousands of
retired folks running small eBay businesses out of their homes. Many are
doing so occasionally and very part-time, just to make a little extra money.
But others are working more and earning very good money -in some cases more
than they used to earn working. Look for The Official Geezer Guide to
Making Money on eBay in late April or early May.
- The Official Geezer Guide to Getting Out and Staying Out of Debt,
by Leo Quinn. Leo is a professional debt counselor who has counseled
hundreds of seniors and others who have found themselves under water and
over their heads in debt. Even if you are not deeply in debt, reducing that
debt will help you fund a more enjoyable and survivable retirement. Our
country is entering a period where cash is king. This will provide many
opportunities for those who are free of debt and have money to invest in
solid low-risk opportunities. Look for The Official Geezer Guide to
Getting Out and Staying Out of Debt in early April.
- The Official Geezer Guide to Blogging Your Way to Profits by Skip
McGrath and Marsha Perry will be released in early May. This is a
step-by-step guide to making extra money working just a few hours per week
by blogging. If you have a hobby, interest or special skill, there is
probably a blog about it -but there is also room for more. The hunger for
information has just started. Most people don't realize that you can make
huge profits even from small blogs. We show you how to use a combination of
Google AdSense and affiliate relationships to earn hundreds or thousands of
dollars per month. Even if you can't write, there are ways that you can blog
for profits.
So just stay tuned to this newsletter. We will let you know as each of these
new titles are released.
5. The Future of eBay for Small Sellers
I get a lot of email from people who ask, "Can the little guy or gal like me
still make money on eBay? Isn't it now dominated by large sellers?"
Yes, eBay is dominated by large sellers and that trend will continue. Last
week at their annual meeting, eBay execs said they have plans in the works to
work with large liquidation sellers of branded merchandise to offer their goods
on eBay. But in the same meeting, eBay also stressed that they will continue to
court the thousands of small sellers who ultimately bring the variety and
interest to eBay that keeps it vibrant.
It has taken eBay a while to discover how important the small sellers are and
how eBay slipped in performance when those sellers were left to feel unwanted.
So over the next few months I expect eBay to update and revise a lot of the
policies that burdened small sellers. There is still even some talk of creating
a classic eBay site, just for small sellers that operates in a much simpler and
more-friendly manner -much like the eBay of old.
But, back to the original question -can the little guy make money on eBay?
Even with all of the problems eBay has gone through over the past couple of
years, there are still thousands of small sellers operating out of their homes
who are doing very well on eBay. The trick today, however, is to avoid trying to
sell popular consumer merchandise or name brand products. The real opportunities
are in almost any type of used or vintage product and for new merchandise is
very narrow niches that aren't' addressed by the big guys. This is the sweet
spot for small sellers.
6. Spending Habits of Baby Boomers and What it Means To Your Financial
Future
Take a look at the US Government chart of Birth Rates from 1930 - 2006. If
you want to know when baby boomers will reach retirement, just look at the rate
for any year and add 62 years (I am using 62 instead of 65 to account for the
trend in early retirements which is accelerating). For example, the first peak
wave of the baby boom started in 1946 and went through 1948. So if you add 62 to
these years you get 2008 - 2010. We are right in the middle of that cycle now,
give or take a year. The next major wave started in 1952 and peaked in 1962.
When you do that math you get 2014 to 2024.
So we are smack in the middle of the first wave now and the next one will
begin in five or six years. We all know what this will mean to government
spending as these folks apply for social security and qualify for Medicare, but
what about the rest of the economy?
Over the past 50 years the US economy has become transformed from a
manufacturing and export oriented economy into a service-based and consumer
driven economy. This means that our economy relies on people spending money on
homes, cars, vacations, health care and all types of consumer goods. The
problem is that a huge segment of the population is about to stop doing that.
Just look at the construction industry as one example. The peak years for
trading up to a larger home are between ages 46-50. Already a large portion of
the population is past that age and it will shrink further. Same goes for cars.
The age group 25-50 is the segment of the population that trades up to a new car
the most frequently. After age 50, people tend to keep their cars twice as long
as the average -and over 60 it goes up to almost three times the national rate
with people keeping their cars an average of 6.8 years.
About the only segments of the economy that will see increased spending are
in health care where the gains will be huge and in the vacation and leisure
industry where there will be some small gains as the economy recovers. But that
is the big question. We may not go into a depression as many have forecast -but
the population trend where the largest segment of the population is starting to
spend less money will insure that any recovery is long and slow. A true
long-term recovery may not happen until 2038 when our children, the so-called
Echo-Boom generation, enter their peak spending years.
I am not an investment advisor or economist, but these long-term trends are
pretty much common sense. About the only way to reverse what's coming would be
to open the US up to massive immigration of younger people who are in their
spending prime. But given the severe unemployment, increased immigration is
unlikely to happen as working people will resist the increased competition for
jobs.
So what to do with your money?
- The stock market may have found a short-term bottom, but be very
careful as any rally could be short lived.
- As the government continues to borrow and print money, the
marketplace will demand much higher interest rates to compensate for the risk
and the oversupply of debt (Bonds). The price of bonds will fall. This will
increase the yields. If you are patient, within a year or so you may be able to
lock in some very high interest rates on 20 and 30-year US Treasury Bonds. I
have seen some predictions of rates as high as 8%.
- When this happens to government bonds, the same thing will happen to
high-quality corporate bonds shortly thereafter. Rates on Triple-A rated
corporate bonds could be even higher, allowing you to lock in yields as high as
10%.
- Eventually the stock market will find its real bottom. At that point
it will be easy to pick up some very high-quality companies that pay decent
dividends. The best candidates will be selected defense and health care stocks.
- While you are waiting for all of this to happen, you may want to put
your money in highly liquid and safe short-term Treasury bill funds and Treasury
Inflation Protected (TIP) bonds. You can buy the actual bills from the US
Treasury or there are now mutual funds that allow you to easily purchase these
securities.
Lastly the best thing you can do now is pay off any debt you have. Start with
consumer debt and then start working down your mortgage.
Well that is it for our first issue. Look for the next issue in Mid April.
We plan to publish each newsletter around the middle of each month. Please feel
free to use the contact form to let us know the kind of information you would
like to hear about. And don't forget our contest.
Skip McGrath
Head Geezer
Official Geezer Guides, Inc.
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