A Guide to Making Money In Retirement

Most people imagine retirement being an event where you just stop working and live on your hard-earned savings, coasting into the horizon.  Sure, this might be the case for many, but should you choose to, you can retire and continue making money in retirement on your own terms. Whether you’re already retired or planning to retire in the coming months or years, this doesn’t mean that income has to stop.  In fact, it’s a perfect time to spend your time doing things that you enjoy and turn them into money making endeavors!

Retirement Doesn’t Mean You Can No Longer Make Money

Take Paul as an example. Paul is 67 and just retired just last year. He spent the first months of his retirement with family and taking lifetime-awaited vacations. He enjoys playing golf, woodworking, and keeping up with the stock market.  Paul realized these are all skills that people need and discovered how to turn them into extra streams of income.

Paul now makes an additional $1,000 per month teaching golf lessons, an extra $500 per month providing skilled woodworker services, and another $500 per month writing about the stock market for finance companies. Sure, he’s retired, but he’s also spending the time doing what he loves while bringing in an extra $2000 per month, all on his own terms.

How can you retire and make money while still enjoying how you spend your time in retirement? It all comes down to one question: What would you be doing with your time in retirement anyway, and how can you turn those activities into goods or services for extra money? Here are a few ideas to start with that will generate extra money for you in retirement.

Create Passive Income Streams

Passive income refers to income that takes little to no effort to maintain.  In its truest form, the most passive form of income might be investing in the stock market. You purchase shares of a company that pays a regular dividend and make money each quarter when the dividend is paid. But investing isn’t you’re only option, there are many ways to generate passive income:

Rental Properties:

Purchasing real estate and renting out the homes/rooms is a great way to create a regular stream of passive income via monthly rent payments. It may require a little upkeep and marketing to fill rooms, but you can hire a property management company to do that for you for a fee.

eCommerce:

You can find a popular product on amazon, find out how to get it at wholesale cost and sell it on Amazon for a profit. You can also create your own website and drive traffic to your website with paid ads, and have the orders processed automatically via dropshipping wholesalers. Anything from books to clothing, electronics and kitchenware is sold online in a semi-passive manner and you can automate and even outsource the process.

Blogging:

Blogging (either for yourself or for an established entity) on a topic you are knowledgeable about is a great way to put a little time that pays you in perpetuity. Each blog post you write attracts new website visitors. Posting product ads on your website and writing new blog posts can generate decent money on the side.

Affiliate Marketing:

Affiliate marketing is like posting ads on your website that pay you when people click on them. The difference is you partner with companies who provide products or services that relate to your website niche and recommending these products and services to your readers. You’re paid a small commission each time a sale (via the placement ad or link on your website) is completed.

Do you love DIY projects, reading, finance, cars or even very niche topics such as gardening? You can take that passion and make money with it by selling a related product online, creating a blog and getting paid from ads and affiliate marketing with just a little effort up front.

Ideally, you should create multiple streams of passive income. Investments, real estate and online marketing can supplement your other retirement benefits (like Social Security) and give you the retirement you always dreamed of with little effort to maintain income streams.

Editor’s Note

We just wanted to take a moment and make sure the understanding on some of the passive income streams was stated. The topics represent a very low barrier to entry to market, meaning it doesn’t take much to start blogging, enlisting in affiliate marketing, or running an online shop. With this low barrier, the marketplace is rather saturated and highly competitive.

Turn Your Hobby into A Money-Making Machine

What hobbies do you do in your spare time? Are you knowledgeable on the topic and can delve into these hobbies without getting burnt out? There are multiple ways to turn this knowledge and expertise into a “side hustle” income. In the example used earlier, Paul loves to play golf and could make an additional $1,000 each month just for teaching golf lessons part time.

Different ways to make money from your hobbies are:

• Provide consulting services to businesses or customers.
• Work part time in the industry related to your hobby.
• Become a freelance writer providing content on the topics related to your hobby.
• Build a website that generates income via products, ads or affiliate marketing related to your hobby
• Invest your discretionary income into companies that provide products and services related to your hobby industry.

If you know far enough in advance which hobby you can profit from, you can add the supplemental income to your financial planning. (See our blog on Financial Retirement Planning for Men 50 and Over)

Learn to Day Trade

For those that are unfamiliar with basic finance and investment terms, don’t let them scare you because this is actually an easy process that takes little time to learn. Day trading is investing in the stock market or foreign exchange currency market in efforts of making money. It bases investment decisions on technical analysis, which analysis analyzes the chart patterns, key indicators and even economic alerts of companies and industries to be the basis of trading a stock or currency.

The idea behind day trading is to gather enough technical analysis data to place the odds in your favor of making money. To illustrate this in basic terms, take for example betting on flipping a coin. If the coin lands on heads, you get paid $5 and if it lands on tails, you lose $5. What are the chances it will land on either heads or tails? Of course, it’s a 50% chance either way.

What if we said that if it lands on heads, you get $15, but if it lands on tails you lose $5. You are risking just $5 to make $15 and chances of profiting after enough coin flips are pretty high. What if there was a way to gather more data to predict confidently that the next flip will be a 70% chance of landing on heads? This is how day trading works and has the potential to make thousands and even tens of thousands of extra dollars on a weekly or monthly basis.

Whether you’re new to it or have some basic experience in trading, taking a quick course on the basics is all it takes to get started making some extra money with a few hours of watching the markets per day.

Open A Local Business

You’ve probably asked yourself at some point or another “Why don’t we have a local store that provides this product or service?” Chances are that there are many people thinking the same thing! Opening a small business to operate on the side is a great way to make extra money and a good use of your time in retirement.  Questions to ask yourself to help determine a potential small business idea are:

• What are some common problems that need a more convenient solution than what’s already out there?
• What stores or businesses does your city not have that could be useful to the public?
• Are there ways you can use your career experience and knowledge to build a small business of your own in the same industry?

Whether this means opening a small insurance agency, a local boutique, or a tire shop, you can enjoy your time in a business you built making extra money while still living a fulfilling retirement.

Sell Products Online

While we briefly touched on this topic before, there are some specific ways that are worth addressing in selling products and services online. Today, there are many websites and marketplaces that promote the ability for almost anyone to sell a product or service on their marketplace. The first example of this is selling on Amazon, which we already discussed. However, other ways to sell products or services online for money are:

eBay:

You can sell brand new products or used products on eBay, much like you would sell them on Amazon. You can choose to sell them as an auction or sell at a fixed cost. This doesn’t mean you have to get too technical and find a wholesale product partner. You can find unused or unwanted items in your house, take a few pictures, write a product description and list it on eBay for extra money.

Etsy:

Have a penchant for all things handmade? Etsy is a marketplace designated to selling unique products and services. For customers who want to purchase something that is one of a kind, they can go to Etsy to find a seller who made that unique item. This can range from anything related to clothing, jewelry, artwork, home decor, arts and crafts, etc. If it’s unique and/or handmade, you can most likely sell it on Etsy.com.

Fiverr:

Fiverr is a platform that allows you to sell your freelance services to customers and businesses in need of your expertise. This includes digital marketing, content creation, web development, graphic design, financial consulting, and even game creation services.

Final Thoughts

Thanks to innovative technology and growing online platforms, you can keeping making money in retirement doing almost anything you want to. If you have a skill, hobby, or expert knowledge on a particular topic in need, your options to monetize it are nearly endless!

We’ll say again, barriers to entry into some of these industries is incredibly low which makes it highly competitive. If you need guidance, we highly recommend you talk to a professional before you make any type of investment. We also hope you find the material in this blog useful in making an informed decision. As always, if you don’t see something here that you want, please reach out to Glen directly through our Contact page or leave a comment below, we read each one! All the best ~ Glen.