Retirement Jobs

Today I have many “retirement jobs“. I am a husband, a father, an opa (that’s German for Grandpa) and a serial Entrepreneur, a half-joking, half-serious term a friend and I use to describe our desire to own our own businesses rather than work for someone else.

When not napping, eating or playing, here are some business activities that I focus on:

• Mobile Notary Public – As a Notary Public Knoxville TN I mostly do loan document signings for title companies around the country who have closings in east Tennessee. I also meet people at local coffee shops to “Notarize” documents for them as well.
• International Dental Concierge Service – We saved $8,100 by traveling to beautiful Costa Rica for dental care. Now I help others do the same.  I started a blog Costa Rica Dental Implants that tells our story in words and pictures. We encourage people to contact us with their questions.   Anyone facing high dental costs now has an alternative that includes a vacation to the tropics and saving a lot of money.  The $8,100 we saved was after paying for both of our airfares and lodging.  In between dental appointments, we visited the Arenal Volcano and we went to the Pacific coast for a couple of days. While there, we took a one day sailing and snorkeling trip in the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica. Here’s us on the sail boat and there are more photos are at our blog, above.
  When I returned in December 2011, I interviewed a second dentist and we now work with him, too. Details for both dentists are at Costa Rica Dentists.
• Online entrepreneur – I build websites and do SEO work to help websites rank higher on search engines.  It’s a challenge, much like playing a game, only the results yield great income enhancing results. I play with it and I like that I can pick it up or put it aside at leisure.
• Amway IBO – For 17 years, I have helped customers shop for Amway products without bothering them about becoming a business owner. I understand two things about Amway – the products are great and most people do not want to be solicited to become an Independent Business Owner (IBO). They just want to shop and be left alone!   Customers can register at our Amway products site with or without our help.  There are no costs to register as a Customer, no minimum purchases to make, plus there are free shipping offers.  Normally Customers pay retail, but we setup all our Customers at the same wholesale prices that we pay as IBOs.  Occasionally some people want to learn more about the Amway business opportunity and we help them, but only those who ask.  More about that can be found at our American way webpage.
• Investing - Nothing big, but I do like to gamble and it’s fun seeing if I can still pick a winner now and then!
• Personal – As with any business owner, personal and business bleed together because when you enjoy what you’re doing, you never work. It’s all play and some other interests include travel, flying small aircraft, ancient history, reading and about a hundred others that would bore you right to sleep so I’ll spare you the rest of the details.  You probably have better things to do than reading about my story -

At these “retirement jobs“ I am the boss. I work when I want, from where I want and I work much smarter and do much better than I ever did at any job. But it didn’t start out that way.

I used to believe that a college degree meant you could “write your own ticket” as I was told. I believed it, but life taught me different.  How about you?

Turns out, write your own ticket meant following the “40-40 plan” – 40 hours a week for 40 years. We all know how that turned out!  And that’s back when college was affordable and there were plenty of good paying, middle management jobs.  Today’s grads have it much worse.

Today, I own my own business and I only wish I had someone who would have guided me in that direction to start with. Not that I would have listened right away, but I believe I would have figured it out much sooner.

Like many, I trudged over, and sometimes through, the normal hurdles in life – college, the USAF and jobs with the IRS, HUD, bank auditor, business broker and traditional business owner.

Have you ever heard the acronym for the word job, i.e. ‘just over broke’.

Residual Income wasn't taught at school =|:~(-

That explains it, doesn’t it?  You get by, and even ahead of many, but rich?  No, it isn’t going to happen at a job, so you better enjoy what you do. That way it’s not work. Well, I learned that lesson and a few others along the way. How about you?

That’s what I refer to as “linear income” where you trade your time for their money. What I learned in the real world was that residual income was the way to go where you leverage your time and leverage your income.

My focus is on living life to the fullest and that includes using my past business expertise to help others achieve their goals.  I am at that age where I want to give back about as much as I want to get ahead. It’s a good balance and I’m enjoying it quite nicely, thank you.

Happy trails . . .

Kurt and Martha Gross
Knoxville, TN USA