I am in my mid - sixties and finding retirement not gladly what I expected. Our story began the
equivalent now most couples. Since a young couple we regard we had all the time in the world to prepare
for retirement. That was for ancient people. My cultivate and his father owned a very successful floor
cope business and reasoning it would be passed on for several generations. We were so ingenuous.
Along came a bad economy in the 80s and suddenly in 1990 we were no longer in business and
had huge debts.
We are now in our forties with two partly grown sons and no business. Forty isn ' t elderly so we
contemplation we still have extraordinarily of time. We decided to catch a very different path for our life. My
uphold was consumed of the leak pursuit of retail sales and being at the mercy of every economic wind so
we totally changed directions for our lives. We had both been involved in short - term mission stress
with our sanctum and heard of an good fortune for a longer word of mission need. I had been teaching
school for about 5 years and learned that there was a need for a teacher in a mission hospital in
Mafraq, Jordan. I would be teaching the children of the missionaries and giving them an American
education. Succeeding settling our college - age daughter in an apartment, we isolated for Jordan in August 1994. We
made the preference to go on God ' s retirement plan. We were in Jordan two years. I taught and my
guard oversaw the preservation of the hospital and built furniture for the wards and common
areas.
Alongside two years we returned to the United States and worked in New Mexico at a Christian
children ' s home. There I had a variety of responsibilities and my husband was in charge of the
maintenance. At last a job with benefits including retirement, but you had to work for ten years to
be fully vested. We loved the work and New Mexico is a beautiful place to live. When family
responsibilities required us to return to Georgia after just five years, we lost about 40 % of what was
in our retirement account. This was 1999 just before the tech - stock bubble burst. So we lost even
more of our retirement money. This was followed closely by 911.
We began work in Georgia at another Christian children ' s home and again they offered us a
retirement benefit but only after you had been employed for two years would they match your
contribution. Since my husband had previously been employed at a Baptist church, he qualified
immediately but I didn ' t. After just two years, I realized that being a house parent to 10 teenage
girls was not my calling. I left and returned to the classroom in a Christian school with no retirement
benefits. He stayed for another three years. After a serious back injury, he was forced to retire
when he was just 61. I continued to work so we didn ' t need to draw on his retirement immediately. Remember those economic winds we didn ' t want to be subject to, well I was teaching in a private
school and those winds blew, enrollment dropped and teachers lost their jobs. I ' m 64 and no one
wants to hire a 64 year old teacher. Now we had to draw on that very small retirement we had set
aside along with Social Security. ( Young people you cannot live on Social Security. ) We needed
more income and we knew that the small retirement would only last a few years. We had to look for
another source of income.
My husband loved to build furniture and I loved photography. Taking these two pleasures we
decided to see if we could sell our work at arts and craft shows. As we learned the ropes, we
gained some degree of success and enjoyed what we were doing. We participated in our first
show in 2006. Flash forward to 2011. We are five years older and our bodies are slowing down.
We began to wonder how long we could continue doing this. My husband ' s outdoor cypress
furniture is heavy and his injured back and shoulder are having more difficulty lifting. I ' m not much
help. I was never physically strong and now I have a torn rotator cuff that needs surgery. We knew
we needed to find something else that was less strenuous.
We began to look to the internet for possible solutions. We couldn ' t sell his furniture on - line
because it was too expensive to ship. So we tried to sell my photographs. The saying " if you build
it; they will come " just isn ' t true in the world of e - commerce. I didn ' t sell anything. I didn ' t have any
visitors. I knew other people were making money on - line so I wanted to find out how they did it.
After a lot of research and investigation, we became involved with a company that not only hosted
web sites but offered coaching and lots of support each step of the way. We made the financial
commitment to work with this company and then they introduced us to another company that did
extensive training and coaching. They had great people who came along side of us to guide and
direct us. Was this expensive? Yes, but it is an investment in a business and I am confident it will
pay off in the future. I have learned more about internet marketing than I ever knew there was to
know. They suggested that I try to sell another product in addition to my photographs. We have
built a great web site that sells slipcovers for all furniture needs. The furniture slipcovers are Subm selling. Slipcovers for all your furniture needs at EverydaySlipcovers. com ( I still haven ' t sold a photograph on - line. Nature and Nostalgia Pictures by George at natureandnostalgiapictures. com ) My photographs and my husband ' s furniture are
available on one web site for people to see. The slipcover web site is beginning to work for me,
thanks to all the folks on my marketing team and my coaches.
We still have to do craft shows but I see the day coming when the web site will be that income
supplement that we need. Then we can really retire and not work so hard. This is not the retirement
plan I would recommend to any one. It is retirement the hard way. Plan ahead while you are young.
Realize it is necessary to save for the future. If you want to build an internet business, start sooner
rather than later. It is a great way to supplement your income. An internet business like any other
business needs time to grow and mature. We don ' t have the luxury of a lot of time left. Our
business is going to have to grow up fast. Learn these lessons early so you can retire the easy
way; not the hard way as we did.
Joe George is the author as well as the owner of http: / / www. everydayslipcovers. com which sells slipcovers for all your furniture needs. A few years ago, I was looking for a recliner slipcover to cover my comfortable old recliner that was looking pretty shabby. After months of searching, I couldn ' t find one that had the look of quality and style I wanted. The frustration of the search led me to start my own business. My goal was to offer top quality and stylish slipcovers at an affordable price. I truly believe our furniture slipcovers will give you top quality at a budget price. I also wanted to offer furniture slipcovers for the hard to find furniture styles. We carry slipcovers for both wing - back chairs and wing - back recliners. We also have a slipcover for your lift recliner. What ever your furniture style or size we have a slipcover for you. Get ready for Spring with a fresh new look for your furniture with a new slipcover from http: / / www. everydayslipcovers. com
