Are you retiring, are you already retired, or do you expect to retire soon? Are you worried that by the time he retires he will be bored or run out of money or both? This article looks at employment opportunities for retirees and lists the best retirement jobs.
DO YOU REALLY WANT A RETIREMENT CAREER?
First, take a moment to consider why you are looking for a job after you retire. Do you really want to have to work after you retire? Perhaps it is the pressures and expectations of our modern society to be rich and always busy rather than a genuine desire for retirement income or a way to fill the day.
Recent research has shown that three quarters of German adults find it difficult to switch off and do nothing. They have even coined a term for it: ‘freizeittresse’ or ‘free time stress’. This is guilt or stress when we are not doing anything with our free time. We might be stressed because we are ‘just’ reading a book, sitting in the garden, taking a nap or watching TV.
Even retirees are believed to suffer from this free time stress. They feel a subconscious social pressure to be active and ‘do things’. Is this the reason you are looking for a job to retire? Don’t rush into the first retirement career you’re offered. Consider the underlying motivations for your desire to work. You can keep busy and live a full life without having to work, or you can do nothing at all! It’s your life and you’ve earned the right to do what you want with it.
Maybe you want to supplement your retirement income. He worries you that it’s over. This is a perfectly valid concern. Many people head into retirement without sufficient funds. Discuss your financial situation with an advisor or consult one of the many online retirement calculators to see if you have enough money to support your chosen lifestyle in your later years.
Also be careful about jumping into work as a status symbol. Having a job often defines who we are and therefore our self-esteem. People love to brag about how busy they are, that they haven’t slept for days to meet this or that deadline. It is a curse of modern society that we regard overwork and high job stress as a badge of honor. Are you looking for a retirement career simply to avoid sitting down at a dinner party and hearing those words “so what do you do?”
Now that you’ve considered the reasons for going back to work, let us list the best retirement careers out there.
WORK AT HOME
Finding a work-at-home occupation is probably one of the most popular retirement jobs. Working from the comfort of your own home, without having to commute to the office every day, wear a suit, or deal with the same old office politics, gossip, and meaningless small talk; There are certainly many advantages to working from home.
Companies are looking for ways to reduce their overhead. With this comes part-time and work-from-home opportunities.
Some of the most popular jobs you can do at your kitchen table include writing, proofing, editing, and research. If you just look at the writing category, there is an amazing variety of related jobs like ghostwriting, resume writing, technical writing, blogging, travel writing. I’ve even seen jobs advertised for people to simply cut and paste research results from the Internet into a Word document.
You can find many opportunities like this on freelance websites like elance.com, odesk.com, and freelancer.com.
Other work-at-home jobs include data entry, creating crossword puzzles, testing and writing recipes, graphic design, and computer programming. My friend’s retired mother is a medical coder. Her local hospital even provided her with a computer to work on and an allowance for her broadband Internet connection.
It is true that she was a trained medical coder at the same hospital for many years before she retired, but it is possible to be trained and certified online for this.
GARDENING
Some see gardening as hard work, while others see it as a glorious opportunity to work outdoors and become one with nature again.
In modern families, often both parents work, so they have less time to maintain a garden. Isn’t it one of the ironies of life that people work so hard today to afford a big house with a beautiful yard and then have no time to enjoy any of it? Your loss – your gain. They are more likely to employ a part-time gardener to mow the lawn, trim hedges, weed and water the plants.
Gardening is physical work, but there are plenty of useful gardening tools and gadgets for almost every task. This includes knee pads, lightweight tools, and longer handles so you can avoid back strain.
There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence to support that gardening improves your mental state and may even stave off Alzheimer’s disease.
MYSTERIOUS BUYER
How can you satisfy your buying impulses without spending money? Even better, earn money to shop or eat out! A mystery shopper walks into a fast food restaurant or convenience store and pretends to order or buy something like a regular customer. Meanwhile, without the staff noticing, they are silently jotting down all the little details of their experience and service: the time it takes to order and receive food, the cleanliness of the bathroom, the response to queries or complaints, the appearance and the attitude of the workers.
This is the life of the mystery shopper and for many retirees, this is the dream career. In 2004, in the US alone, they estimate a whopping $645 million dollars was paid out to mystery shoppers. You can be at a fast food restaurant in the morning, shopping for electronics in the afternoon, and enjoying a fancy, high-class restaurant at night; all on someone else’s money!
I once got paid to spend a night in one of the best hotels in the world. A third party security company had hired me and dozens of others to secretly test the emergency fire procedure. We had a very comfortable evening enjoying the delights of the hotel, including dinner, pool, spa and gym. Around 10 a.m. the next day the fire alarm went off. The staff guided us to the nearest emergency exit and we simply had to complete a 45 minute interview about our experience. The easiest supplemental income I have ever earned.
When looking for mystery shopper opportunities, you can do a search online, but research each opportunity thoroughly, as there are scams on the Internet. Also, there is no guarantee that you will be accepted the first time or by the first company you apply to, so be patient and persist.
RETIREMENT NEW CAREER
It is said that 80% of people end up in the wrong job. So looking for a new career in retirement is an opportunity to try something completely new. Po Bronson says that his popular book “What Should I Do With My Life” says that many retirees are inspired by his stories to find meaningful work for their retirement years.
These are just a few of the opportunities available to add to your retirement income. I hope you enjoyed this short guide to the best jobs for retirement. All the best wishes for your new career!