Buckets of Income

​Many years ago I attended a seminar on the importance of creating several buckets of income to generate an income stream for retirement. I can tell you from experience that after eight years of retirement I would not have survived financially if I had not put those principles into practice.
 
The year after I retired we were living the life of our dreams. My lifelong passion has always been to travel. We were “living the dream” in that first year, 2007. We went to Europe for 16 days, took an Alaskan cruise and topped the year off with a fun-filled visit to our favorite city New York.
 
Then in came the New Year, 2008. As the news hit the newspapers, internet and broadcast systems, fear and panic set in. The country came close to experiencing another Great Depression within a few days. We lost 45% of our equity investment that we had in bucket #1. If it were not for our financial planner coaching us thru this crisis I would have cashed out and greatly reduced the future income stream from this bucket of income.
 
Fortunately by having the other buckets of income I was able to reduce my income stream generated from bucket #1 and continue to draw income from the other buckets. I also accepted a part-time marketing consultant job to compensate for the reduced income stream from bucket #1. The implementation of this concept of income streams from various sources works. I am very enthused about it and will explore options with you in the next few weeks.
 
The first concept I would like to discuss is one that many do not realize to be a source of increasing our income stream. I am referring to means of reducing tax burdens. Many times it is not about working harder to make more money but working smarter to keep more of the earned income. In my next posting I will go over ways I am able to reduce my federal and state income taxes.
 
For new followers of my blog, my original intent was to share my story with my grandkids. My first postings got the attention of family and friends and then expanded to additional readers.
 
As of last week the posting on the Dream Board was viewed by 1000 followers.  Today I was delighted to see that someone in Bolivia liked my posting. Once again if the information I am sharing is of interest to you pass it on to your family and friends. My goal now is to get the following message out to a large group of followers of my Positive Pops blog: "I live in a positive environment with people who encourage positive thinking."