Money Monday-Earning a Living, Living a Life

     

     
     A few weeks back on a Money Monday post, a wise young woman, shout out to you Vix, commented that she and her partner sort of retired when they started selling with intention as Vintage Traders 16 years earlier, and doing what they love hardly seems like work at all. My copied from somewhere response was, "I think you and Jon figured out how to earn a living while living a life!" It got me thinking of all the things DH and I like to do that should we hop off the work train earlier than seems practical, there's opportunities abound to bring in some supplemental to our retirement accounts (for needs), cash for the fun things in life. He and I have different skills and educational back grounds, but there's a few things we could do in partnership if we set our minds to it. We'd likely need to use his first year or so in retirement for him to set us up if we go that route, but I'd still be covering our bills so that could be part of the plan. Some are borrowed ideas from others and likely nothing is original as I heard about the idea somewhere.

I'll start with me:

• Substitute teaching. I'd limit the days and what weeks, and duration. I'd probably give all ages a go. Though my main experience is preschool, I've experienced both elementary and middle school classrooms as well but it's been a long while!
• Adult Education trainer, likely in my field. I would have to go through some online courses to update my credentials for adult education, but with so many options to train both in person and on-line this could be done with a lot of flexibility. I train regularly as part of my job, but program specifically, not for CEU's or in-service credit.
• Free lance project coordination, either on short term hire, or per project. In my work place alone, we regularly bring back retirees to help get projects launched, or manage a short term grant. Many of the non-profits I've worked with over the years have grant funds that don't cover enough to hire someone, but they aren't equipped to pull someone off their regular work for a meaningful length of time. This was actually the route I was going to go 8 years ago had my current job not panned out. The difference post retirement, I would take very few contracts and only for those I genuinely want to work on.

Now him-granted the first few keep him in his current field, and he might want a total separation:

• Attending car auction on behalf of local dealerships
• Car delivery, walking through the customer on all the bells and whistles after all the sales and financing is done. This is often what he ends up getting called back to the store to do on his day off because he's really good at it and customers like him.
• Filling in vacations here and there, for a guarantee rate of pay, scheduled in advance
• Car guy blog and pod cast-I don't know if this could really be much money, but I think as a hobby, that won't cost anything, but could make a little fun money, it would be great for him. Think Car Talk from MPR.
• Something with art sales, auctions, curation-I have no clue what the opportunity might be there to earn money, but again could be just a lovely hobby opportunity.

Edit: DH is not a mechanic, just good with cars/ talking about cars.  His real skills and education back ground are in sales and marketing. I just thought I should clarify that based on some suggestions and ideas.

Now joint effort:

• Online store of ..... I don't know what the niche could be, but we could partner on inventory procurements, sales, marketing, and package and shopping logistics. 
• To go along with this, the semi regular yard sale. (Another edit: no one would come into our hime. This would be strictly outside) This could be both an opportunity for a monthly April-October purging, reselling, and holding space for a small fee or commission for others that want to bring their stuff. If we were in the UK, perhaps this is like a care boot sale option, but we don't have them here. Holding 4-6 a season if done right, could mint vacation money for the harsh months of winter. I'd like to do this now, but this would be one of those need a year to prepare type activities that we could do while I'm still working if DH preps ahead. Note: The college kid hated this idea and thought the garage sale concept of strangers coming to peoples houses was "sketch". I'll keep on the list but understand her point.

     This is just a short list off the top of my head. If we did a good long drive, we'd likely keep adding. It's kind of a thrill to think of the possibility.  The stock market fluctuations makes me nervous to not have back pocket ideas. The sure fire post retirement one for me would be substitute teaching as I don't think the demand is going away any time soon. I'd be looking to just bridge until my pension fully matured, so not forever. Who knows though, my sister subs post retirement and absolutely loves it. The pay is not great, but it would be meaningful. This is all just thinking and list making, but ideas are welcomed. If not a fit for us, maybe someone reading will see an opportunity.