If you are senior or nearing retirement, you’d want to investigate some of the home based business ideas or work–at-home opportunities. Working at home can be a great solution towards meeting your retirement needs, such as supplementing your social security benefits or even financing some of the extras you’d want to acquire during retirement. Most people who are retiring or nearing retirement find themselves in a difficult financial situation and that’s why it’s important to consider having a workable home based business idea. The following are some of the home based business opportunities that can earn you a stable supplemental income during retirement.

Start a Home based Consultancy

You can turn your wealth of knowledge into a regular flow of income during retirement. As an expert or an experienced senior, you can help the upcoming entrepreneurs on how to start or operate their business. You may also want to offer consultancy to firms or small businesses that might be interested in your expertise and long experience.

Become a trainer

Training others is another amazing way you can use to translate your experience into an income. The best way to do this is through conducting classrooms or practical training in the field of your expertise and earn from it. You can also offer tutoring lessons online where you can earn an hourly commission. What you need are credentials from a college or university in North America and experience in subjects such as English, math, social studies and science. With such credentials you can simply access online tutoring opportunities by logging in to a site such as tutor.com and make from $10 per hour or more from home.

Engage in Network Marketing

Bill Gates once said that if he’d be given a chance to start all over again, he would choose network marketing. Indeed, if done systematically, network marketing can earn you a good residue income that can support you throughout your retirement. What you need to do is to choose between online and offline setups, pick a reputable company and a good product and begin looking for prospects to grow your business.

Offer Catering Services

If you like cooking, you can make some stuff and supply them to offices, possibly starting with your former office. You can also make and supply confectionery products to schools since many Kids love biscuits, candies, chocolates and so on.

Start a Home Based Franchise Business

Although starting a home based franchise business is a bit challenging, the advantage is that you will be working with an established brand name. It is easier to market an established brand than starting and marketing your unknown brand from scratch.

To succeed in a home based franchise, you’d need to do some research on a number of things. Apart from putting your home office in place, there are a number of things that you need to do to get your business running – like a business plan, getting a client base, settling on the businesses you want to do business with and so on. It’s important that you get in touch with groups that deal with home businesses and franchisees for advice. Some of the resources include The American Franchisee Association (www.franchisee.org), The National Franchisee Association (www.nfabk.org), for legal assistance, product and service knowledge and advertising opportunities. You will also be able to compare different business models and know where franchisee events are held around the country.