If you've ever thought about going into business with your spouse, you need to read Let's Make Money, Honey: The Couple's Guide to Starting a Service Business. The book has received excellent reviews from book reviewers and readers alike. It tells the story of how a Boomer couple started a small service business and sold it seven years later. You'll find plenty of advice about what to do and what not to do when starting a business with your spouse. Included are details about planning, financing, outfitting, and launching a service business, as well as operations, marketing, sales, customer service, and managing growth. Useful tools to help couples assess their business interests and business compatibility are also included. 

From December 25, 2017 through January 1, 2018, Happily Rewired is offering the eBook edition of Let's Make Money, Honey: The Couple's Guide to Starting a Service Business at half price -- just $3.50 -- if you order it through Smashwords. You can get the book in any format for any device, including a PDF. 

To get your copy at half-price, simply go to: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/568837  When you place your order, enter the code SEY50 and you'll pay just $3.50 instead of the regular price of $6.99. This offer is only good from December 25, 2017 through January 1, 2018 at Smashwords so order today!

Will the new year be the time when you decide that you'd like to phase out of your full-time job? You can dream, but apparently, it isn't so easily done. While "phased retirement" sounds as if it would be a win-win for both employer and employee, the reality is that gradually phasing out of a full-time job is a concept most U.S. employers are not widely endorsing, at least not yet.

A recent article about phased retirement in U.S. News cites a sobering statistic: Only 6 percent of employers offer a formal phased retirement program. What's more, only 11 percent of Boomers gradually retired from their jobs, according to a 2017 Government Accountability Office report. The article goes on to discuss six challenges of phased retirement:

1. Negotiating the arrangement
2. Qualifying for health insurance
3. A reduction in retirement benefits
4. Getting a 401(k) match
5. Unplanned phased retirement
6. Justifying your reduced schedule.

Challenge number six gets to the heart of the matter. According to Emily Brandon, author of the article, "Those who want to gradually retire may need to prove their continued value by being a consistent high performer, staying up to date with innovations in the field and learning how to use new technology. It can help if you are willing to mentor younger employees and pass on your acquired skills and institutional knowledge."

What it really amounts to is convincing an employer that a phased retirement is not just good for you, but good for the company. Unless an employer believe you and enthusiastically embraces the idea, resigning may be the only real option to retiring from a full-time job.

Read the entire informative article here: https://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/second-careers/articles/2017-11-13/6-challenges-of-phased-retirement

In early December 2017, Norman Lear was a Kennedy Center Honoree at the 40th annual national celebration of the arts. While Norman Lear doesn't qualify as a Boomer (he was born in 1922), this comedic genius has undoubtedly had an impact on all of our lives. He is perhaps best known as the creator of the hit TV show, "All in the Family," which famously exposed the narrow-minded but hysterically funny logic of one Archie Bunker to viewers all across the country. That was not his only television breakthrough, however; Lear created such significant shows as "Maude," "Sanford and Son," "Good Times," and "The Jeffersons."

Lear did not restrict his expansive thinking to the entertainment business. He also founded the non-profit organization, People for the American Way, as well as the Business Enterprise Trust, the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, and the Environmental Media Association. Along with his wife, Lear purchased one of the few surviving copies of the Declaration of Independence and then took it on a tour of all fifty states so Americans could see it. At the same time, he launched a nonpartisan youth voter initiative that accounted for registering over four million new young voters.

Lear published his autobiography, Even This I Get to Experience, in 2014. The book offers some insight into Lear's philosophy of life and how, despite his own challenges, he succeeded.

Norman Lear continues to be active and engaged at age 95. An iconoclast, he is always seen wearing his distinguishing trademark, a white hat (which he even wore to the Kennedy Center). Few of us can hope to achieve what Lear has accomplished (and is still accomplishing) in his lifetime, but what a great model for all Boomers. Lear demonstrates that advancing in age need not be a barrier to living a full life.