Retirement for Small Business Owners

Business owners retire later in life than people who have been employees.  Some say this is because people who run their own business are more likley to be doing what they love and don't see any reason to retire.  Others say it is because succession planning is complicated.  And some say it is tough to give up the business income, especially if there is going to be a substantial drop in income once the business has been sold/closed.

Depending upon the type of business, some owners have the option of either dropping some of their lines of business to free up more time, or cutting back on the hours during which they offer their services.  My esthetician only works 4 days a week; she is prepared to sacrifice income for free time.  In the summer she only works 3 days a week.  Most importantly, she hasn't lost any of her clients by doing this.  She is fully booked year round.

The best advice I can offer to small business owners is that it is important to invest time in succession planning, to consider who might be intereted in buying your business, and in the end, even be prepared to shut it down if no one wants to buy it from you.  We have friends who were running a thriving and prosperous framing business in a nearby small town.  When they decided they wanted to do something else, the could not find a buyer and in the end decided to simply close it.   This can be tough to do but in some cases it ends up being the only choice. 

Semi-retirement: Is it for you?

So...I haven't posted in awhile.  It isn't that I'm ignoring issues that relate to retirement.  Quite the contrary, I spend a lot of time reading, and thinking and pondering the issues.  What I'm finding is that since I began splitting my time between working and leisure, I seem to have lost some of my "edge".  By this I mean that the more leisure time I have, the harder it is to move back into work mode. 

Don't get me wrong.  Once I'm in work mode, I really get into it.  I think that issues around retirement and aging are fascinating and when I'm working, I quite enjoy myself.  But be forewarned if you are thinking of moving from full time work to semi-retirement, you may enjoy it, but you may find that you lose your "edge" too.

Maybe my next post will be about whether "losing one's edge" is a bad thing or perhaps a good thing.