Small Business Boomers

The newest “thing” in the sub-prime loan crisis is this: Banks now are freezing credit lines (called HELOC’s – Home Equity Lines of Credit) because the amount borrowed (including both the HELOC and the mortgage) is exceeding the value of the home.
For example, CBS reports that Countrywide, one of the largest U.S. lenders, has frozen 122,000 HELOC’s. It will also be interesting to see what happens when the bank that gives the mortgage is different from the bank that gives the 2nd mortgage/HELOC. Who wins?
The CBSNews website had some good tips for dealing with this …read more

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Talking ’bout my generation…
I was reading Baby Boomer Stephen King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and I ran across this:
I don’t want to speak disparagingly of my generation (actually I do, we had a chance to change the world and opted for the Home Shopping Network instead).
Ouch!
Kennth Gronbach (author of The Age Curve that I’ve been talking about) says we Baby Boomers are lazy and self-centered. After all, we’re the generation they were talking about when they coined the phrase “The ‘Me’ Decade” to describe the 1970s.
But are we really that bad? We were …read more

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A great Baby Boomer business might be selling on EBay. If you are like me, you have lots of stuff to get rid of, and you are good at spotting bargains. Suzanne Wells, over at EShopOwner, has a great book to give you to help you start your EBay business.
Suzanne says, “As an eBay Power Seller since 2003, I have sold over 15,000 items. I have experimented with many, many, different products along the way. Most of my inventory has come from garage sales, thrift stores, and consignment stores. My eBook, “Thrift Store Shopping for eBay,” …read more

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This year my husband and I joined other family members in a membership to a local community garden.  This was probably a bad year to start, because the weather in Cedar Rapids, Iowa has been awful, first with the floods and then no rain for about a month.  But it has been fun to get fresh vegetables every week, all through the season, and to plan our meals around whatever is fresh at the time.  With these home-grown vegetables, my insistence on free range chickens, and my weekly trips to the farmer’s market, I’ve become a Locavore (def: Someone who buys mostly …read more

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Here are some more great responses for the “50 things to do at 50″ contest.

Play Nintendo DS to keep your mind  sharp
Buy a Wii and get fit in the comfort of your home. I do not do gyms, so this would be a great alternative. You can do what you want, when you want and the choices of activities are only limited by your pocketbook.
Get involved in an online community to save your tv program. I am currently involved in Save Moonlight and have found friends and kindred spirits throughout the world. Laughed with them, cried with them, offered support …read more

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Yesterday I talked about The Age Curve by Baby Boomer Kenneth Gronbach.  The book’s subtitle is “How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm.”  The “storm” he’s talking about, I think, is the influx of baby boomers as an aging generation and its effect on many areas of economics.
Yesterday, I said Gronbach’s central premise is that you need to know two things about a group your business is marketing to:  (1) How big is it?  (2) What are the group’s buying patterns?  If you know these two things, you can use them to profit in your business,  investing, and retirement …read more

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I have a winner in the replay of the “50 things to do at 50″ contest (more about the winner after he/she is notified). The responses were FANTASTIC and I want to share them with you, in no particular order:

Think about what you enjoy and then act on it! Start a hobby or business you never had time for and just enjoy.
Get a new hairstyle – do you still have the same style as in your high school photo?!?
Take time to really listen to your grandchildren
Find a hobby you love and make money on it
Sign up with a modeling …read more

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I’ve been reading an excellent book titled The Age Curve: Why Size Matters, by Kenneth W. Gronbach (AMACOM, 2008). The book is valuable to anyone wanting to understand the importance of what Gronbach calls “generational demographics” and how to use it for marketing and selling to baby boomers and other generations.
Gronbach’s basic premise is that “size matters.” In other words, the size of the generation (Baby Boomer, Generation X, Generation Y, etc.) determines its buying power. Our boomer generation at 78 million is followed by Generation X, which has 9 million fewer people, resulting in a drop …read more

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My favorite Twilight Zone episode is one with Burgess Meredith titled “Time Enough at Last,” in which he plays a henpecked husband who just wants to find time to read.  Remember it?
Well, it appears that book reading is becoming less popular among the younger generations (X and Y), and independent bookstores, even in highly literate places like Seattle, are having a hard time competing for attention with the big chains, and, of course, with Amazon and other online bookstores. An article in the Seattle Times Book Section comments that “running a bookstore has always been an occupation for dreamers.”  Very …read more

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