How to Keep Earning When You Have to Stop Work

If you have to stop work for any reason – do you think your bills will stop coming in? Not sure about you, but my bills just kept on coming.

When I was much younger than I am today (not telling!) I loved my business so much that I could never imagine I would ever want to stop work.

But as time went on, and I saw all my friends retiring and enjoying life, I started to hanker for a slightly quieter life. But the bad news was that, because I had thought I would never want to stop work, I’d neglected that important step of planning a retirement income. When I requested a government projection as to what I’d earn from my UK pension alone, it was scary. I wouldn’t be able to maintain even my present comfortable lifestyle, let alone take holidays, start new hobbies, etc.

It was clear I needed to come up with an alternative income plan.

Here Are Other Reasons Why You Might Have To Stop Work

Looking for a more enjoyable lifestyle in retirement is just one reason for stopping – or reducing – your hours of work. Here are some others:

• Sickness – at the time of writing, thousands of people’s income had been threatened, and often wiped out, by the COVID-19 pandemic. I should have foreseen the need for a possible retirement income plan, but I think we lesser mortals can be forgiven for not having foreseen the pandemic!

• Unexpected job loss – even in “normal” times, being employed is a pretty insecure source of income. All your eggs are in one basket, and if your employer’s company fails for any reason, you can find yourself out of a job. Maybe you will then be competing with former colleagues at job interviews.

• Holiday – Let’s take a more pleasant scenario. You want to take a holiday. Now one of the advantages of having a job is that you probably have paid annual leave as part of your employment package. But if you’re self-employed, like I am, it’s a whole different ball game. Not only do you have no paid leave, but you may also even have to pay someone else to look after your business while you go on holiday. Which is why I hardly ever take holidays.

• Family emergency – These can be whatever you least expect. The reason I had to stop work earlier this year was the death of my Dad. It’s probably unreasonable to be shocked by the death of a 98-year-old. But I was completely pole-axed. My sister and I imagined he’d go on forever.

Emotionally I was a wreck, but more practically we were flung headlong into a mind-numbing amount of unfamiliar work to allow us to take over his business. (Yes at 98 Dad still had a business. The income from it funded his live-in carers, and later in life, his time in a very comfortable care home.) So for both those reasons I had to put on hold all but the bare minimum of my own work to get Dad’s affairs in order so we could continue that business (which will generate an income for me when all is resolved). My sister was able to rely on her pension income, but my pension income is pitiful.

Luckily I had already started planning for a time when I would want to reduce my time working. Or, as in this case – need to.

So – How Can You Earn When You Have To Stop Work?

Above I used the word ‘luckily’. Actually – it’s not about luck. It’s about getting ready and planning. Just being aware that any one of those scenarios might happen.

So I had started exploring ways to make money online several years ago and it was income from the work I’d done previously that kept coming in when I couldn’t work after Dad’s death. Online work suited me best because it could be done outside the hours when I was working offline.

One trick to keep earning when you stop working is to promote something with a residual (repeat). In my case I continued earning from:

• Monthly membership of a share club https://JoyHealey.com/ABCInfo

• An auto-responder, which is an essential tool for anyone using an online business

• Various affiliate marketing products, where the product has been created for me and I share the profits with the product creator – here’s one of the best https://JoyHealey.com/JTAffiliate

What I Learned About Residual Income Working Online

My ventures haven’t all been successful, to say the least. But I’ve learned a lot. Here are my highlights:

• The most important thing to learn right away is that there is no magic money tree. You may laugh – but it’s amazing how often normally rational people can suspend common sense because they’ve been taken in by some smooth-talking Internet coach telling them ‘how easy’ it is. It’s not. You need to put in some significant work to get started. So don’t wait until disaster strikes and wonder where is the income from work you didn’t do?

• You may decide to offer a digital or physical product. It does not matter what product or service you are going to offer, what does matter is that you are offering something people want. So if you have done your research and you know what people want, then you have the advantage. (In the course I recommend, you will learn ways of researching this.)

• Having tried businesses with both physical and digital businesses, personally I find that digital products are far easier to make a profit on (no delivery costs, no need to hold stock).

• But creating and selling a digital product can also be quite a challenge. There are pitfalls to be aware of but there is a way to take a shortcut to success.

• Remember, people like variety, and buy from different genres and in different formats. Consider fiction. One group buys science fiction while another group buys horror fiction to name just a couple of genres. Some people like their fiction fix by reading a physical book, some prefer a digital or audible book, and others prefer a video.

• As we saw above when people want something they want it in an easy-to-use format – which will vary from person to person. If they cannot find the desired format they may not buy it from YOU. So for instance – you may find exactly the work of fiction you want, but you want it NOW, not when you’ve been out to the local book shop or waited for a delivery. If the book is available in digital form, you don’t have to wait.

• You can take a single digital product and convert it into multiple products to satisfy a wider market. Once they are “out there”, on the right platform, you can continue earning if you have to stop working.

• You can’t do it alone! Trust me – I thought I could, but even after years in the IT industry I struggled with all this. Unless you’re a genius and can call on a team of professionals, I bet you’ll need help figuring out all the technical stuff and the marketing side. Why figure it out yourself when you can learn from someone who has done it before?

Two Ways to Earn From Digital Products

As well as the possibility of earning from one product in many different formats, you may choose two routes:

1. Create your own product

2. Market someone else’s product and take a share of the profits – known as affiliate marketing

So long as you’re working with the right team, and following a proven methodology, you should earn more by creating your own product. But I suggest you have a very useful and in-demand product in mind. In my opinion, there are far too many ‘me-too products available online. Often in the ‘make money online’ arena. Whereas I have seen people make significant profits in niche markets as unusual as “how to keep bearded dragons”! Consider your own hobbies and interests before you fall into trying to compete in the crowded ‘make money online’ brigade.

1) Click to watch this webinar for a free education on all the things you’ll need to consider. https://JoyHealey.com/WebinarClickbank

2) Alternatively, you can promote the training above as an affiliate, and earn commissions knowing you are promoting a proven course that has set many students on their way to earning a full-time income online https://JoyHealey.com/JTAffiliate

Follow either (or even both!) of those routes, with full training given, and you’re on the road to having a residual income that keeps coming in even if you have to stop working.

This is a guest post from Joy Healey, if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.