HOME SHARING FOR MORE INCOME

Do you own a home and need more income?  Are you constantly searching for money making opportunities on the internet to boost your retirement or social security?  Keep doing that, of course. But,you can benefit even more from multiple sources of income.  You should consider HOME SHARING as an easy, passive source of extra income.

HOME SHARING is when you  rent out your extra bedrooms, the basement or even a mother-in-law suite, and share the common areas in the house.  Home Sharing is also when two or more people rent a house or apartment together with private bedrooms while sharing the rest of the space.  The shared areas might include the living room, kitchen, dining area, yard and parking areas.  A private bathroom would be nice.  But, a shared bath can work too.

You might also share cooking, meals, grocery shopping and household chores.  It's like a family arrangement, but could be a sharing among friends or compatible strangers (future friends).  Think about the  TV shows  The Golden Girls and Friends when you try to visualize how you might share your home.

Of course, your journey into home sharing will not be scripted.  It will take a little bit of effort, work and patience on your part.  But it is worth it.  

The benefits are enormous.  In addition to more income, you will experience companionship and a better sense of security.  You will have someone coming in and out of your house every day who can call for help if you fall and can't get up.  You don't have to wait for those monthly visits from the kids.  

WHAT TO DO?

Hold on.  This will be a little more complicated than just finding someone who can afford to pay you. You need to think about this.  Sit down.  Get a glass of wine and a few sheets of paper.  In order for this to work, you need to find people you think you can tolerate living with you.

Put together a list of questions.  I'm not talking about weeding out people by race, creed or color.  I mean people who don't clean up after themselves.  People who make too much noise or like to party.  Maybe you want someone who can drive you to the store or someone who can cook some of the time .  Write that down.  Of course, you want to know the source of income and how they plan to pay the rent.  

WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE?

You will be surprised by all the different types of people who are seeking shared housing accommodations.  The list includes: seniors, baby boomers, college students, single parents, divorced men and women, working professionals, people relocating from other states and from abroad, and anyone who wants to live in a nice home in a nice neighborhood.

This should come as no surprise.  Even in a good economy, baby boomers and seniors are trying to stretch severely depleted savings and nest eggs.  College students, and their parents, welcome stable housing.

Just don't forget tenant screening.

WHAT IF IT DOESN'T WORK?

Don't worry about whether it's going to work or not.  It usually works out just fine.  If you take precautions  to screen the potential renters up front and ask some good questions, you should not need to worry.  Think of it as a new adventure.  If you are a senior or a baby boomer, you have withstood the test of time and will relish this type of change.  Just look around you.  Seniors and baby boomers are living their lives with gusto.  Why not go for it?  

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Why Don't More Seniors Share Housing? - NYTimes.com

YOU CAN RUN AGAIN!

If you are a BABY BOOMER, you have probably come to this stage of life lamenting that you will never run again.  That sucks.  You're stuck in the walking lane.  Doomed.  But, not so fast.  

Before I had kids, I could run.  I even ran in a few long distance races.  Just 10K-not the marathon.  In fact, once I got going, I got into excellent shape in a short period of time.

But for the past 25 years, I have walked thousands of miles.  On my third reading of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (yes I said third), I fantasized that one day I could walk endless miles with the hobbits.   I imagined that to walk on and on and on would be sublime.

Of course, I was only trying to convince myself that walking is the perfect exercise.  Bliss. Especially since I could only run a short distance without feeling like I was about to collapse, have a heart attack and die.

WALKING  HAS GREAT VALUE


Don't get me wrong.  Walking has great mental and physical value.  But, I have walked in my neighborhood, my sister's neighborhood, my mother's neighborhood, on the treadmill and on the track. The problem was that whenever I missed a few days or a season, I would have to start over.  Very demoralizing.  Plus the results were minimal and slow to come by.

INTERVAL TRAINING

Then I read an article about a clinical trial on interval training in the health section of the Washington Post.  The trial was comprised of two sets of out of shape women getting into better shape for their health.  What's not to like?  Half walked for an hour.  The other half interval trained for 20 minutes.  Not only did the 20 minute intervals have better results, but the training was something I could easily do.

Interval training consists of 20 minutes of walking with eight 30 second intervals of running spread over the 20 minutes.  So you start out walking to warm up and run for 30 seconds, then walk and run for 30 seconds until you have run eight times for 30 seconds.  That's two intervals every five minutes. Get it? Not only are the the short runs manageable, but you sweat like crazy and you feel like you've accomplished something.  In fact, you are.  YOU ARE RUNNING AGAIN!  HA HA HA! Plus you're not killing your knees.

The way it was explained is that the metabolism rate is sped up when you run and is maintained when you walk in between intervals.  So, the results are as if you had run most of the 20 minutes.  And you get better results faster.

Of course, build up to it if you have to.  Who can't squeeze in a 20 minute workout over having to walk for an hour?  Start out with two or four intervals and build to eight.  Walk until you get your breath and then run.  Once you've mastered the eight intervals, add more intervals.  Run longer.  Raise your incline.  You can do intervals on the treadmill, the street or the track.  Not a problem.

It  helps to have headphones and music-especially in the beginning.  I also use pennies to keep track of my intervals.  The beauty part is that if you miss days, it's easy to back on track.

Now this is bliss.  It's predicted that the boomers are going to be around for a while.  Let's do it with panache.

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ARE WE OLD YET?

Most Baby Boomers won't admit to being old.  We're in denial.  We believe that we've got a lot of years left.  So, if we're old already; we'll be old for a long time.

Let's examine the facts.  When you run into classmates from high school, do you think to yourself, "damn, he/she sure looks old?"  If you went to a class reunion recently, you know what I mean.  Of course, some of those folks started looking old at the 10 year reunion.  We're now at what?-the 30 to 45 year reunion.  Ha!  Those folks look old.  But when you look in the mirror, you don't look old like they do.

LAPSED MEMORY

OK, so you still look pretty good.  What about trouble remembering things, especially names?  It's crazy when my sisters and mother get together.  We sit around talking and hinting at what we are trying to say or who we are talking about because names don't come so easy anymore.  I daresay mom is sharper than the rest of us.  I find that Ginkgo works wonders.

LAPSED ENERGY

What about energy?  Is it more than a notion to walk far or think about an onerous task?  When you go out, do you just want to get back home?  Have you given up a lot of the activities you used to love?  Like ice skating, riding your bike, playing basketball, skiing, dancing?

Do you feel like your brain is fried and your skills have lapsed?  Do you feel yourself going downhill slowly? Do you just feel old?  Do you think, "wow, I'm not as far from 90 as I used to be".  Yet, a lot of years remain.

Maybe we really are old.   But not that old.  We need to turn this buggy around.  And quick! A one a day multiple vitamin is a must.  So is some form of regular exercise.  Get some hobbies.  Write a blog.  Start a business.  Volunteer to help others.  Do whatever it takes to give yourself the zest you need to feel young again.

WE'RE NOT OLD-WE'RE FAT

Anyway, we have other more pressing matters to worry about than our vanity about getting old.  According to a recent article on obesity, Baby Boomers are fatter then folks who are younger and older. That fact makes us more prone to heart attack and diabetes.  So it's not being old that we need to worry about.  Getting older is something we can't do anything about.  We can, however, do something about being so fat.

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NO HEAVEN

Physicist Stephen Hawking, cosmologist and Britain's most eminent scientist recently stated that he has concluded that there is no such thing as God.  He went on to suggest that we should live our lives to the fullest now because this life is probably all there is.

Well!  Ponder that.  It makes sense that we should stop deluding ourselves.  But, I don't know.  Most of us just want to believe that there is something else.  Something more.  Something bigger. We want someone to figure out how all of this came to be. Maybe Dr. Hawking was just tired of thinking about it. I'm sure we've all tried to connect the dots.  It's just mind-boggling.

Of course if we do live our lives as if this is all there is - what's the point of that?  Should we just stop looking for answers?  And what about the non-physical part of our existence?  What about our minds, our thoughts, our dreams?  Where does that come from and how did thought get attached to our physical beings?

I am not a religious person by any means.  In fact, I am one of the legions of lapsed Catholics populating the world today.  I should say angry, lapsed Catholics.  I don't know that I've heard of a lapsed one of any other kind of religion.

Sorry, I digress.  But, I'm not buying what you're selling---Stephen Hawking.  We still need to figure this out.
But, just in case he's right, I promise to remember to live as though this is all there is.  However, I want my heaven.  


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BIKING BOOMERS

MOTORCYCLE RIDING COMES OF AGE

I recently read that there are more Baby Boomers riding motorcycles than any other age group. This bit of information stopped me cold.  I'm sure most of us have either owned one, ridden one or been on the back of a motorcycle with a friend when we were in our late teens, twenties and even thirties. Then came children and responsibilities.  We figured that the fun time of our lives had passed us by.

Riding one now just seems crazy.  The thought of riding a motorcycle seems dangerous, scary, thrilling, invigorating.  I get chills just thinking about it.  I want one.  

I should have known that other baby boomers feel the same way.  Plus a substantial number of these bikers are women.  And they're not just riding in the neighborhood or through the park.  They're riding to Canada, Mexico and up and down both coasts.  They're joining and forming biking clubs.

I used to want a motor scooter.  In fact, my cousin and I dreamed of getting scooters and riding out to UCLA for college (from DC).  We never saw women riding motorcycles in those days.  Then I considered the moped.  Whatever happened to them?  I've seen ads for these three-wheel types of motorcycles.  Some of them even have a back seat which seems like a good place to put the groceries.

A few years ago, I read that someone had invented a sturdy, heavy duty bike with a wide seat to lure all the baby boomers back into bike riding.  I thought about it.  Remember when we bought a bike rack right after we bought a car?  We spent our weekends riding those bikes.  We even determined our relationships based on the willingness of our dates to go biking.  Made sense.

SAFETY ISSUE


But what about the safety issues?  Especially now that our reflexes, hearing and sight have become suspect.  Not to mention the extra pounds we've put on.  Apparently, plenty of boomers think it's worth the risk.  Of course, being the responsible boomers that we are, we would not think of riding a motorcycle without training.  The Motorcycle Safety Foundation offers courses at http://www.msf-usa.org/.

Since gaining this knowledge, I've begun to make a point of looking more closely at the motorcycles passing on the highway.  I've noticed that the sleek cycles rocketing past well above the speed limit are usually younger folk.  I hope that they make it to their destination.  Then I've noticed big, heavy, sturdy motorcycles riding in the middle of the lane at the speed limit.  I've even sped past a few.

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EMPTY NEST ANGST

Leave it to us Baby Boomers. We don't know how to do anything halfway. We were the definition of obsessive when it came to our (now grown) children.  We lived by the credo that you cannot love your kid too much.  We put our kids names on lists for pre school, nursery school, kindergarten, private school and whatever else we could find. That was before real school even began.

We followed the bus to school on the first day and watched to make sure he or she found their way into the building. We attended all school meetings and functions. Of course, we drove them everywhere.

We knew the principal, the counselor, the nurse, the janitor, the bus driver, the other parents. We took off from work, if we worked, and volunteered for field trips, fundraisers, PTA, teacher's helpers. We scheduled play dates. We signed the kids up for swimming, karate, ballet, tap, gymnastics, baseball, soccer, tennis, cub scouts, brownies, boy scouts, girl scouts, chess, vacation camps, AAU teams, summer camps. You name it.

Husband coached football, little league and basketball. I fetched and dropped off the players (had the entire football team packed into the car one time). Waited for tardy parents without getting upset - because I understood especially when you have multiple kids all playing sports.

Witnessed first hand the crappy behavior of too many parents overestimating their kids talents and pushing too hard. I'd like to blame the husband for being over zealous. But, I got caught up too. Had to force myself not to run out on the field when sonny fell running from first to second. Ran to get into the ambulance each time a kid got hit by a hard ball.

We baked cookies and cakes to take to schools on their birthdays until that was banned. Then we just took store bought.

Don't forget the birthday parties. We bought dresses and shoes and gifts when all the girls in the class were invited, at least once a month, if not every week, to a birthday party with pizza, cake and a clown and that was just kindergarten. (So happy our kid was included)

With our son, we kept neutral faces when unknown mothers dropped off the friends, without notice or invitation,  and yelled "thanks for inviting him" as they pulled away. Then we looked guilty when the pick up parent came and we had to go fetch the unattended kid from the pond, the creek, the park or the woods as we tried to explain the muddy shoes and different shirt.

Then came the parade of "not at home" birthday parties at the pool, Chucky Cheese, Discovery Zone, the skating rink, bowling, the park, the zoo.

The teen parties,the games at school and out of town, the angst when the kid was left to sit on the bench during games, our sheer joy when our kid played and scored or did just about anything. We fought and complained if our kid didn't play and scoured the universe to find an adequate AAU team. We travelled all over creation for games, staying at crappy motels every weekend during AAU and little league season. You think our kids are now professional athletes - not hardly.

We wound down for the prom, graduations, the college visits, the college applications, begged the kid to get one more reference letter from a teacher, the driver's license, the SATs, the FAFSA, the pack up the car to take the kid to college, lugging all that stuff up four flights of stairs, tracking down carts for the load, the calls, the visits, the hunting down someone at the school to check in on my kid when she seemed to not know what to do, the trips home and back.

The backing away, the letting go, the waiting to be called, the not butting in, the graduation, the decision to come home to find a job (Thank God). Whew!!! The rude awakening when the kid found out that their first job would be entry level with entry level pay. The even ruder awakening when the kids realized they might have to live at home because they couldn't afford a place of their own. Woe is me.

Now I'm burned out. How could they stand us? Our happiness depended completely on their happiness. But I miss it. Of course, it doesn't just end there. One kid finally escaped and moved in with her boyfriend. The other kid is still trying to find his way and still lives at home. But, I no longer can tell him what to do. Can't take him here nor there. Can't run his life and make everything all right.

They have spun me off. I'm on my own. Me and my husband. I wish I had saved some of that energy for me. That's what I'm looking for now. I never thought about the possibility of an empty nest. Never thought it could happen to me.

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LIFE LIVED WITH PURPOSE

Isn't life just better when you have purpose? I don't necessarily mean the kind of purpose you search for to explain your existence. I'm talking about purpose for getting up in the morning, purpose for living, purpose for looking forward, purpose for trying, purpose for expecting good things to happen. This is purpose you choose because it makes you happy or at least makes you feel good about yourself.

Figuring out what gives you purpose is especially tricky when you become the age of us baby boomers. For the most part, we have already gotten all the formal education we will get in this lifetime. We have already had, or not had, children and have given raising them our best shot. We have had jobs, careers, businesses, made and lost money, travelled. We have pretty much been there and done that. We may not be ready to retire, but we are ready to do something else.

But what? What will give you purpose? I bet if you look inside, you can find it. The purpose you find will impact your happiness. It will impact your outlook on life. It will freshen your vitality and make you a joy to be around. You have now lived long enough to know what you have to give and have experienced a few things that made you happy. Make use of that information. What do you like to do? What makes you happy? What is fulfilling? Make a list.

Your purpose can be simple-such as smiling when you go out for the purpose of getting a smile back. Your purpose can be something greater-such as helping others. You can volunteer, start a business or create a foundation with purpose in mind.

But you don't need big purpose to get the satisfaction you seek. Start with something small and keep piling on. But you need enough, often enough, to keep your fires burning. Just existing or being available is not purpose, now is it? Don't fool yourself. Now, get to skipping!

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