The chances are if you are one of the 77 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 you are probably now retired or wondering how you are going to afford to retire. I fall into the latter, and am seriously doubting whether my financial plan for old-age will see fruition, and wondering how baby boomers can change retirement plans for the better.

We have taken a blow in the old financial pocket due to low interest rates, the abandonment of the statutory retirement age, and the demise of final-salary pensions and our dreams of future security have been shattered along with the nest egg.

The solution for many of the baby boomer generation is to keep on working and earning at their jobs well into retirement. But job insecurity and enforced redundancy, together with increased life expectancy has made people seriously consider new alternative ways of earning a living how to spend their last years of employment in the 9-5 rat race, without expiring under the weight of executive stress and the long commute.

One of the emerging industries is that of the online entrepreneur. Mature workers are well placed to take advantage of this fast-growing marketplace because often they have the experience, understanding and business perceptiveness that much of the younger generation doesn’t possess. Internet marketing businesses tend to be small-scale, home-based and modestly financed.

For someone who has a desire to reinvent themselves and learn new skills to earn money online, one of the better ways to build an online business is through affiliate marketing. Companies are in the business of advertising which is very expensive for them. They are more than happy to have affiliate marketers promoting their products and will give a good percentage of the selling price to you if people you have sent to their website purchase a product. Companies are willing to do this because you enable them to reach a wider market creating more sales for the company. It saves them a lot of money for you to promote products for them. Actually, the greatest expense is the time put in learning new skills.

The great thing is you don’t need to be a computer or internet genius to be able to do this, and there are thousands of companies and products out there just waiting for you to earn a commission and as an affiliate marketer you don’t have to buy products or find space to store them at home.

Learning how to affiliate market will give you a lot of freedom and independence once you have learned the techniques and put them into practice. It is also very fulfilling to help people by finding a solution to a problem, and much fun once you learn the skills to earn money for your retirement.

I use a free website platform with hosting, but just pay for a domain name which is $10 per year. Where else could you start a business for that little? That’s not even the price of a fancy coffee and cake at a posh coffee house.