Just because someone reaches full retirement age doesn’t mean they want to spend their last days sitting in a rocking chair on their front porch. Today, the aging population is more active and alert than ever before. Sure, some people prefer to spend their “Golden Years” traveling, visiting family, and enjoying favorite hobbies. However, others want to continue to work.
Here’s a nice compromise. If you’re retired or nearing retirement age, but you want the best of both worlds, you could take a part-time job. That way, you can still enjoy your “Golden Years” yet feel as though you’re a contributing member of society. Not only that, but working part-time is a nice way to supplement your retirement income.
Top Jobs for Part-time Retirees
Not that you need to decide the type of job you’re most interested in doing. That might entail working in the same industry you just retired from, or perhaps you’re eager to try something new. Either way, here are the top industries ideal for part-time retirees such as yourself.
Consulting
With years of life experience and expertise in a specific field, you can benefit others by providing consultation services. You might first ask the company you worked for before retiring if they have any consulting opportunities. If not, you can easily find a part-time position online. The other possibility is to create and market a website. That would give you a much broader reach and flexibility as to what you charge for the consultations.
Seasonal Employment
This is another great way to work but only for a portion of the year. Rather than have a job with part-time hours, you’d work during the peak seasonal periods. For example, at Christmas, companies are always looking for reliable employees. This is especially true when it comes to the retail industry.
Whether you have experience in this field or not, companies gladly provide the necessary training. Depending on your skills, you might handle a cash register, greet customers when they enter the store, stock shelves, or run deliveries. Along with retail, delivery services use seasonal employees, as do tax companies, to accommodate customers during the busy tax season.
Work From Home
Just imagine getting paid to work from the privacy and comfort of your home. Well, as a retiree, you can. The possibilities for this are almost endless. For instance, you could secure work through several trusted online sources that match providers to clients. A few examples include Elance.com, Freelancer.com, and Upwork.com.
In this case, you could connect with a client that needs your skillset, whether graphic design, finance, writing, photography, and so on. You can even work part-time from home, taking surveys, scheduling appointments, or updating MLS listings for local real estate companies.
Now, if you’re bilingual, you’ll find many additional opportunities. Using your second language, you could serve as a customer service translator. As mentioned, the sky’s the limit when working from home.
Temporary Assignments
If you’re unsure what you want to do and enjoy variety, why not sign up with a temporary employment agency. Along with going to different businesses and meeting a lot of people, you aren’t obligated to work long hours. You set your schedule, and the temp agency will work around that.
This is another area where you can do almost anything. Today, temporary work exists for paralegals, receptionists, administrative assistants, travel agents, project managers, and more. As a bonus, with a high-demand service, you can anticipate decent pay. Some agencies provide temporary employees with paid time off.
Work by the Hour
Okay, you don’t have to dedicate yourself to a full day. Rather, you can take assignments by the hour. This allows you to earn money when it’s most convenient to you. Some of the different jobs that fit in this category include babysitting, dog walking, house sitting, grocery shopping for others, and so on.
To get started with this, you could post a flyer at several local stores. Also, share your desire with family, friends, neighbors, and past co-workers. You’ll likely have someone interested in using your hourly services in no time.
Direct Selling
If you have a natural gift of gab and persuasion, direct selling might be a perfect fit. Many companies still use this approach as their overall marketing strategy. It helps get their name out to the public through a human being. That contact goes a long way for many potential customers.
Like many of the other potential jobs mentioned, you can set your schedule. That way, you still have free time to enjoy things you want to do during your retirement and have an outlet that pays a little bit of money.
Your Retirement Plan Can Be Impacted
It’s possible that working part-time can impact your tax bracket and Social Security payments. You should run your projections with a part-time job in retirement planning software such as WealthTrace or use an online robo-advisor like WealthFront to help you with this. If you don’t want to do this yourself, definitely seek out a financial planner who can help you figure out how your retirement plan might be impacted if you are working part-time in retirement.
