Most Americans don’t have enough money saved to retire on, and Social Security isn’t sufficient all by itself. Earning additional income is the answer, aside from downgrading your lifestyle.
You can, of course, tap into the traditional job market — typically low-skill, low-income service sector work. For many retirees, that’s fine, so they can enjoy the daily routine as well as socializing with co-workers and customers.
Unlike generations past, however, today’s retirees live in the internet age, which offers abundant opportunities to create income from side hustles that aren’t dependent on age or location.
Some of those jobs generate but a modicum of income. Others offer the possibility of meaningful paychecks in retirement. I’ve interviewed scores of retirees who earn a few hundred to few thousand dollars a month through all manner of jobs they create for themselves across various industries, talents and skills. Many of these jobs are based on skills gathered over a career or built up over years, and decades of pursuing hobbies.
Websites such as Upwork, Fivver, Freelancer and Guru allow freelancers (that’s you) to build a profile and then compete for thousands of assignments in areas including web development, all manner of writing, architectural drawing, chemical engineering, language translation, animation, voice-over work, contract law, customer service support, data entry. The list of needs is huge (more than 18,000 at the moment on Upwork), the demand is global and age is irrelevant.
Once you start an account at any of these sites, you can scroll through hundreds of jobs posted in your category and submit proposals for any that match your skills. Or you can consider and accept jobs proposed to you by those in need of your skills.
What you earn will depend on the skills you possess and the time you devote to winning new gigs. There are structural engineers on Upwork, for instance, earning $80 to $175 an hour. Over on Guru, a roofing company is paying $500 to $1,000 for help creating a Keynote presentation. And if you have any experience teaching Microsoft products in a team-based setting, there’s an Atlanta company ready to pay up to $2,500 for 12 hours of classroom-based instruction over two days.
Not every job requires engineering or deep computer knowledge. Upwork, at the moment, lists more than 20 jobs for travel writers.
Jobs exist for cover letter writers, ghostwriters, press release writers, copy editors, resume writers. And on and on. Again, the pay spans a broad spectrum from a few dollars per assignment, to ongoing gigs that pay well above minimum wage. A recent posting for someone to edit a business oriented manuscript is offering to pay between $25 and $75 per hour (the average bid is just over $53 per hour).
Best of all with these gigs, you can set your own hours and work from wherever you want to be.
However you approach it, the 21st century has made earning an income in retirement easier than ever. It just takes logging in and finding the best fit for what you’re good at.
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