Is it necessary to earn a side income as a pensioner? Maybe.
Usually we only find out after retirement whether we have a good pension or not. Unless you were a specialist in the field of pensions or have had a very good financial education. Then you probably knew exactly on forehand what you would get after being pensioned, and for how long.
Also, sometimes the agreements about pensions are changed in the meantime, as happened to Tom and me – and all other Dutch people in our age group. Instead of getting a state pension at age 65, we got it at age 66 and 4 months.
Neither Tom nor I were financial wizz kids, but we were lucky to have made at least some good decisions during our working life. That way we could survive those extra 16 months on our savings.
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Make sure you are responsible for your own money
When I told my parents that I was quitting my job as a teacher and becoming a solo entrepreneur, my dad’s first comment was: “You’re too naive. You’ll never make it.” (What about that for support!)
Even though I was stubborn enough to persevere, that comment got in my way for a long time.
My biggest mistake has been that I relied on my financial advisers when I started as a solo entrepreneur. I had convinced myself that I didn’t understand anything about money and that the advised insurances were necessary and my accountant only had my interest in mind.
Thank goodness I sought financial education before retiring. That changed my view of financial planning and even my ideas about what retirement is.
Know the ins and outs
Maybe you expected to be bombarded with good advice about being an affiliate right away. Yet, you need a foundation, preferably a solid one. And that means you have to look at:
- How do you handle money?
- Do you worry about money a lot?
- What are your thoughts, both conscious and hidden, about money?
- Do you restrict yourself with a budget?
- Are you bookkeeping the money that comes in and goes out?
- What are your thoughts about borrowing money?
- Do you divide your income according to different goals?
You don’t become a good affiliate if your attitude towards money is not healthy. Sure, I know, the most important rule for a good affiliate marketer is not ‘how much money am I going to earn’, but ‘how am I going to help people the best’. Yet, a healthy money mind is essential for any success.
What is affiliate marketing?
You are an affiliate of a business when you promote their product or service for a fee. Generally the buyer doesn’t pay more than the usual price through an affiliate link. Sometimes the buyer even gets a discount when using the affiliate link.
An example is my affiliate link with Your Super: who orders through this link and uses my code HEALTHYSUPPLEMENTS at checkout gets a 15% reduction on the whole order.
Why would companies be so generous to pay you? Well, they are glad you do the promotion for them, making them very willing to give you the percentage that they would otherwise have to spend on their own promotion.
Be the best affiliate marketer there is
Becoming an affiliate marketer is no different from becoming an entrepreneur. You need to have a guideline for yourself, a mission or vision if you will.
Having a clear idea on what you want to reach, makes it easier to determine what your subject of interest will be and who your target audience is going to be.
It is my mission to inspire aging people to take the responsibility for their health and their environment into their own hands.
I want to be an ethical and sustainable affiliate partner. It complicates things at times, but I will always hang on to my principles for as much as possible. This means for instance I will never promote the cheap stuff from certain web shops because they don’t meet my standards of durable material and life span of the products.
Is it difficult to become an affiliate marketer?
The short answer is “Yes and No”.
Years ago I had a business together with my son about Muay Thai (Thai boxing). On our website we threw in some links to sports gear, hoping that someone would use that link and we would earn something extra.
It’s a good thing that our own products were good and selling, because we never earned any affiliate commission. Hmm, do you wonder as well why that would be?! 🙂
This method of ours clearly has been the wrong approach. So then it seems difficult to become an affiliate marketer, don’t you agree?
My present approach
In May 2020 I started again with an attempt to be an affiliate marketer. My reasoning being: if I sucked at it then, it was clearly because there was something I didn’t know.
Another reasoning could have been: I sucked at it back then, why would it be any different now. Many years ago this would have been my thought, given the limiting beliefs I had implanted in myself.
Seeking financial education helped me in more than one way. 🙂
So, I am glad I was open to learning new things. And you know the saying: if the student is ready, the teacher will appear. In this particular case in the form of a network called Wealthy Affiliate. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be a part of this network now.
The main reasons why you should join too
- You can start for free, and stay for free for as long as you want in the Starter membership;
- The Starter membership has 2 thorough 10-lesson video courses about affiliate marketing;
- There is an upgrade to the Pro version for $49/month or $495/year;
- In the Pro membership the courses are extended to 120 lessons;
- The community is an unbelievably committed, supporting group of people like you and me who are all willing to help newbies on their way;
- When you join through my link I will send you a 3-lesson course about design as a bonus.
The reason I am entitled to be enthusiastic about my affiliate skills at the moment is that I am already earning a monthly income. Can you believe how happy I am? Not only am I helping people with my websites, but it pays off as well. Win-win we call that!
What are your thoughts about affiliate marketing? Tell me in the comment box.
I don’t even know where to start. This article came at the right time for me. I am not a pensioner but I am getting old enough that this information matters and means more to me now than it did in my youth! I have started a blog and I am not yet making money but I hope to some day! I never thought to ask myself those financial questions. I think I will spend the day mapping that stuff out! Thank you!
Hi Brianna, you made my day! I am so glad I was able to inspire you. And I have read your blog – I am sure you are going to earn money from it. 🙂
I can really recommend “Women & Money” from Suze Orman to you. It will help you to ask yourself even more financial questions.
Take care!
Hannie, thank you for a very good article about the time of retirement and if it is possible to make some side income as pensioner. For myself, this article is very timely. I have 5 years left until I have to retire. I am working in the government and as such have to retire early.
By retiring early I have a lot of years left to focus fully on another type of job, and I think affiliate marketing is a perfect type of job when I am retired.
In my country the government are changing the retirement regulations, which impacts future pensioners in a negative way. I will have less money than what I have been planning on based on the original retirement arrangement.
To become an affiliate marketer I think you have some very valid points with regard to what your approach to money is. Depending on how you see money you will be more or less successful as an affiliate marketer. If you “throw away” the money you earn immediately, you will never be successful.
I think it would be wise to invest the money you earn by marketing back into your business.
Stay safe!
-Roy-
Thanks, Roy, this is a valuable addition to my article. Retirement is different in each country and thinking ahead is so clever! As long as you have a steady income, like you, it is indeed a good marketing decision to put the earned money back into your business. I don’t invest everything, but put a part in my savings account and part in my investment account. 🙂
What really touched me, was be the best affiliate there is. And to be honest though I am still very young, this phrase will go a long way to help me in my career as an affiliate marketer. The truth is when we venture into any given space we adopt this mentality of “i will just give it a try” and before we know it we quit. Affiliate marketing just like any other business model, has its challenges. That is why we have to approach it, with the: “I will be the best mentality”. This to me is very primordial if we must succeed. Thanks again for this wonderful article.
You are so right, Rinelle, it’s also the words that count. “I will give it a try” is too non-committal. “I will to be the best” doesn’t guarantee us to be the best either, but it sure gives us more chances to reach that goal.
This is a very relative post for the current state the world is in! I am not a pensioner however, a friend and colleague of mine retired last year before corona hit and he was always a hard worker. He not only worked at our company but he had fingers in many pies. Now he has retired, he is looking for a way to make a little side earning without the job at hand being too physical. I have sent the page on to him! Thank you!
That’s so sweet of you. Thank you, Russ. If your former colleague has any questions please let him know he can email me any time. Whenever I can I’ll be happy to answer them. 🙂
Hello Hannie, thank you for your valuable article. It’s good to share it, especially for beginners who don’t know where and how to start. Your answered most of questions which beginners concern. Affiliate marketing is the best way to generate passive income, and it’s not a get rich quick scheme. It takes time to achieve, because for your website to get traffic takes time. That’s why it’s good to start as early as possible. Your post helps a lot! Keep your work going, and write us more quality articles like this one!
Thanks, Ling, but you do make me curious. ‘Most of the questions answered’ leaves open questions, and I can’t help wondering what they are? Could you enlighten me on that? Thanks 🙂
Hi Hannie,
You’ve provided with good options to make money as a side income. You’ve highlighted it really nicely how easy it is to earn money online these day, only if you follow a legit platform which the right training and support and make the dream a reality. I really like your recommendation of Wealthy Affiliate and I will surely look into it.
Many Thanks
Great, Habib, thanks.
A small correction though. It’s not easy to make money as a side income; it’s easy to start. And after that it does require work 🙂
Hi Hannie,
Affiliate marketing is a great idea for people who retired or for everyone who want to make a side income or have their own online business.
I agree with most of the points you have expressed and I can also tell that in order to be successful at affiliate marketing you need 3 things: to have a passion, to like writing about it and to know how to promote your website. So, I would say it is not easy and it requires a lot of hard work, time and effort.
I believe many people don’t succeed as they believe affiliate marketing is easy. The affiliate marketing world is competitive and in order to succeed you need to stand out from the crowd.
Thank you for this great article. I hope it will motivate and change the life to many people.
Kind regards,
Yoana
Thanks Yoana, your additions are spot on. If we are not passionate about what we do, we are likely to either fail or not getting the desired results. And we need passion to be able to continue when it gets difficult at times. What also happens of course.
Your other 2 points are equally valuable, but it is my conviction these are skills we can learn. Where passion can’t be learned. 🙂
Take care.
Hi Hannie,
I would say that 90% of people should consider earning a side income when they have free time building something online since we are not taught with adequate money education in school. However, it’s never too late to start an online business just like affiliate marketing you mentioned here.
Affiliate marketing is indeed the best one that people can build an online business because I am doing it right now so I know it. The platform your share here is one of the top affiliate marketing platforms in the industry, and it looks like we have many thoughts in common.
I always like to connect with people who are likely minded. 🙂
Cheers,
Matt
Thanks, Matt, yes, also for working people affiliate marketing is a great side hussle. 🙂
The nicest thing for me personally is I not only hone my skills, but also meet a bunch of lovely people from all over the world, like you! Connecting is indeed great.