“Can a side hustle rescue your retirement?” is quite a big ask you’ll probably agree and quite frankly most people will look on it with some skepticism which is actually a shame because if you know how to do something people would hire you for and you know how to make it available to them then there are numerous ways you can generate an income from a retirement side hustle.
The truth is that whilst most financial gurus will tell you to get a steady job and put your money into some kind of pension savings scheme, a 401(k) in the USA, etc and then, 40 years later — if you play your cards right — you can finally retire comfortably.
It truly isn’t real life… certainly not from our perspective or the perspective of many we have spoken to over the years of encouraging entrepreneurship of some kind to help people to live their retirement lifestyle dream.
Sadly many of those are remaining in employment past retirement to supplement their retirement savings or worse having to seek employment when they realised that their money might run out before their time”
“When Exactly Were You Brainwashed Into Thinking the Best Way to Earn a Living Is to Have a Job?”
– Seth Godin
The truth is that is has never been easier to get rich than it is right now (even during a pandemic as we write this article) and many are creating the retirement lifestyle of their dreams through a side hustle or side income as some would prefer to call it
WHAT IS A SIDE HUSTLE?
A side hustle is a business you run in your free time that allows you the flexibility to pursue what you’re most interested in. A chance to delve into food, travel, fashion, fitness or whatever you’re passionate about. Something you can make an income from if you want a better retirement. And if you think a “side hustle” is just for the youngsters then think again!
If you want to make more money without having to take another job to do it then a retirement side hustle of some kind might be just what you’re looking for
Of course, everyone’s situation is different, and not every income secret and dare we say it “trick” will work for everyone. Some do require an initial investment or special talents to get started but really there’s something for everyone from just a handful of ideas here.
We cannot guarantee which one will work for you and that’s not the purpose of this article. What we’re aiming to do is is inspire you to do some further research and find a retirement side hustle that will work for you. Of course we have our favourites as we’ve advised clients over the years on some of the most lucrative ways to generate a retirement income
Life is certainly different when you have multiple sources of income coming in.
Soon, the days of waking up worrying about outliving your savings or not having enough for retirement will be a thing of the past.
SOME IDEAS FOR A LUCRATIVE RETIREMENT SIDE HUSTLE
Some of the strategies listed below offer a quick fix for making some money, others will take an investment both of money (to learn a new skill for example) and your time. Either way, select a method that fits within your skill set and if you want to chat it through we offer a free evaluation call with our compliments We have mainly focused on retirement side hustles that leverage the internet but we had to include a couple which don’t by popular demand of family and friends 🙂
Start A Blog
One of the most popular retirement side hustles and ways to earn additional income is by starting your own blog. Earning a significant income from a blog — or any income at all — takes a hefty time investment. If you’re looking to generate a quick income, this probably isn’t the best place to start. If you’re willing to put in the time though, it’s well worth the investment and you can employ people to help you with setting it up so.
If you decide this option then we highly recommend to begin by choosing a topic you are extremely passionate about. This way, you can produce meaningful and valuable content. This is exactly what we are doing on this blog where you’re reading this article – Living The Retirement Lifestyle – where we focus on the issues of retirement and help our readers find ways to “LIVE MORE. EARN MORE. TRAVEL MORE.”
It’s best to focus on content that’s both helpful and engaging to your audience. If you’re writing a travel blog for example, focus on the best sights to see or places to eat and as it grows you will find ways to monetize it. Like our friends Dave and Deb, the founders of The Planet D which they started back in 2007. We definitely wish we had known then what we know now but we hope you see how powerful that blog has become and their travel is financed by the ads you see all over their blog placed by Google Ads.
We have to say that we love blogging and our own blog which centres on online business education has been around since 2010 when we started our journey and whilst we don’t monetize it through Google Ads we do monetize it in other ways!
Monetize Your Skills & Hobbies
Knowledge and skills are highly sought after and it’s an ever expanding industry This is one of our favorite retirement side hustles because it’s based on what you know and can do that someone else might need and doesn’t have the skills to do.
Whether its web development, graphic design, or even marketing, there are plenty of opportunities to promote your skills on platforms like Fiverr and UpWork. Although services start out at $5, some Fiverr sellers are earning six-figure-plus revenues annually. You can sell just about anything on this platform but take time to do research and make sure to be competitive and add value.
If you’re entrepreneurial you can can even take this one stage further. You can become the connector of buyers and sellers. Those platforms which we’ve already mentioned give you access to tens of thousands of freelancers with diverse skill sets and expertise.
You can set up a virtual store of your own and offer services of others for a commission (we’ll talk more on this side hustle in a minute). Being an entrepreneur is all about being resourceful and creating opportunities out of nothing after all.
We had a friend once ask if we knew how to develop an ecommerce website. Knowing nothing about this particular type of website and bearing in mind it was many years ago before popular options like Shopify and Foursquare we gave him the short answer of, “yes, of course we can.” We then found a developer and helped him get his website built. Since this was a good friend, we didn’t charge him, but we realized we had created a potential opportunity. We now work with a company that provides hundreds of different services that we can direct clients to. We get a referral fee and our clients get a great service so it’s a win win for everyone involved.
We have a friend who is an amazing photographer (especially of sunrise and sunset) and he creates canvas pictures from his photography – he’s retired from “Corporate America” and his hobby and skill combined are a great way to supplement his retirement income plus he gets a lot of pleasure doing it!
We have another friend whose passion is gluten free cookery (especially cakes) and has set up a business demonstrating her recipes
And a couple who had a successful traditional music business who have taken it online now they are retired and show people how to get the voice they always wanted. Apparently even we can sing!
Seriously the world is your oyster these days making money from what you know and what others want to know
Sell Items on Ebay
We haven’t tried this retirement side hustle ourselves but we know people who have and say it’s one of the surest ways you can generate some income quickly. Any used items like furniture, household appliances, collectibles or anything else that you’re just not using or is collecting dust, can be sold online to make some money. Take quality photos and write a good description and follow the instructions on the site. If you decide to get into this in a more professional capacity then we can direct you towards some good training from experts as it’s not our field!
Manage Social Media For Small Business
If you have some social media skills tucked away in your knowledge based (or even prepared to learn them) you can offer them to small businesses who need a social media manager and simply don’t have the time or the expertise to be constantly posting on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Take it upon yourself to contact local businesses (Linkedin is a good place to find clients) and offer up your services for a contracted monthly fee. This is an easy way to make money no matter where you live.
Virtual Tutoring
You can tutor people over SKYPE or ZOOM no matter where you might live. This is great, especially if you’re like us and love to travel and you’re looking to earn more money than the local job market can potentially provide. You can tutor people from wherever in the world you are if you have an internet connection and a webcam (Costa Rica is a favourite of ours and have friends there who do this as well as a friend who lives in Columbia teaching English skills). Language tutoring is very popular especially teaching English as a foreign language.
Create An Online Course
Create an online course with a platform like Udemy or Teachable and leverage some of your skills to create a healthy income as a retirement side hustle. Depending upon how much time you invest in creating your course, you could make a substantial side revenue stream by creating courses that deliver tremendous amounts of value on a huge range of topics – we have some ideas for you here. Best of all you don’t necessarily have to create the content as you can buy ready made content on the topic you want to teach!
Write An eBook
If you’ve got some knowledge that people want access to then the passive income created from writing an ebook and publishing an an accompanied print-on-demand paperback is also a great retirement side hustle. By using platforms like KDP and CreateSpace, both by Amazon, you can create an easily create and sell an ebook that costs nothing to produce, and a paperback that earns you money only when it sells. We’ve published two books this way and contributed to a third all on the topic of entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship in retirement.
Walking Dogs
This wasn’t on our original list as we’re more about retirement side hustles that leverage the internet but your daughter said we had to share it as she and her partner (who have a local dog walking business in the UK) meet a lot of people who are retired and walk dogs for some extra income. Truthfully, almost anyone can walk dogs. If you live in a dog-filled neighborhood you can soon build up a steady stream of clients and your dog-walking service will grow over time.
Sell Products On Etsy
Use Etsy to sell crafts or other home-made items. Etsy is one of the largest resources for selling handmade goods on the internet. We have a friend who makes the most beautiful hand made house signs (he made one for us) so if you’re one of those people who love making things this could be a way to generate a retirement side hustle income
Become An Affiliate Marketer
Affiliate marketing is an extremely alluring industry and if you have the skills it takes to succeed in this arena, you could quite literally make a small fortune. However, many affiliate marketers don’t make much money because they don’t invest in learning the necessary skillset. We found it quite by accident when we started our online business back in 2010 and we haven’t looked back. However we have invested into our training over the years and we do focus on our favourite niche in that area – education and training – and we mainly focus on helping people 50 plus get started and grow their business. We wrote about it here when considering the question “Are You Too Old For Affiliate Marketing?“
Whilst it is definitely a great retirement side hustle please be careful not to get drawn into ‘pie-in-the-sky‘ hopes or dreams of making money without putting in much effort. You know there’s no such thing as “get rich quick” but we need to say it because we’ve seen all too often people expect way too much for doing next to nothing.
Become A Network Marketer
We recently interviewed Robert Laura who writes extensively on issues relating to retirement and he said – relating to network marketing “I believe that the entire industry is poised for explosive growth and can be one of the most significant solutions to America’s current retirement savings crisis“
Network Marketing, MLM and direct selling programs offer very low barriers into entrepreneurship, often providing training, support, and ample encouragement along the way. As retirees begin to realize they need activities that keep them busy, relevant, in good health, and connected to others, the time, energy and cost to participate in these kinds of companies make them very appealing.
Just as we have an interest in affiliate marketing, we also firmly believe in the network marketing principles and it being a great way to generate a passive income to supplement your retirement savings. In line with our desire to travel and promote a retirement lifestyle it’s natural that our interest lies in what we’re passionate about – you can check it out here
Get A Part Time Job
Okay, so maybe not the most popular retirement side hustle but if you need some cash and you’re just not comfortable making money online you could get a part-time job. You can kiss your social life goodbye, but it’s certainly a more guaranteed additional stream of income.
“As far as the current retirement saving crisis is concerned, more and more people are coming to terms with the fact that they probably aren’t going to be able to save enough money to just sit around and slowly deplete their nest egg from age 62 to 100. With the average 50 year-old estimated to have less than $50,000 in retirement savings, there is an obvious need to find alternative ways to either save more or generate supplemental income starting now, and continuing throughout retirement” Robert Laura
Last word…
No matter what your current financial situation is, it’s always important to seek new income opportunities especially those that can make you money while you sleep!
We hope we’ve given you some ideas on retirement side hustles and gone some way towards answering the question “Can A Side Hustle Rescue Your Retirement“
