Possible jobs for semi-retirement

[Michael_00005]

I'm close to FI, and have roughly estimated ~ July, 2020 as a max end date. But once the thought of escaping the cubical farm gets firmly entrenched, it's very difficult not to get restless... this might be the year to pull the plug. Been doing the rat race far too long, 20+ years; so it will be a not so early ER. Random thoughts during the work day: "Is it possible to die of boredom working in a cubical farm?", "Why are cubical Lifers such a dry lot?", "Is it time to go home yet?", "Why I'm I the only one interested in FI on this entire floor?", "It's too nice out to be working indoors".

Do you have Ideas for enjoyable semi retirement jobs? Important considerations:
1. Availability of the job (the very rare jobs often feel like a waste of time applying)
2. Location appropriate (any city, verse restricted locations)
3. Do they offer PT (3-4 days per week sounds good)
4. Age appropriate
5. Pay rate ( there is no doubt better pay, eases the leap)

Interests: holistic healthcare, nature (ocean, rivers, lakes, mountains), gardening, low stress environments, progressive types, non-drama company, smaller to mid-size community / cities, exercise, being around real people

In July I'll be traveling from Charlotte to NH to visit some friends, but a big part of the trip will be to check out the location for a potential move, potentially later this year.

[BRUTE]

maybe something that allows working from home. brute knows a guy who sometimes works from the park on nice days. sounds very cool.

or maybe a relaxing part time sales/barista type job? a few shifts a week, basically enough for health care + food/rent money. talking to humans. little stress. the nice thing with FI is that any income is just a bonus to decrease WR and protect the principal. so it could be a very low paying job.

[thrifty++]

I like the idea of dealing with national parks and wildlife. LIke a park ranger or gardener.

Also taking a lot of photos and seeing if anyone will buy them would be nice. Maybe selling to istock photos. Dream job doing photographs and journalism for National Geographic. Maybe writing for various sources, eg news media, journalism for other sources.

[Kriegsspiel]

I've been thinking about driving a school bus for a locally owned company. Make a bit of cash in a couple hours, you can pick which days you want to work on, and sign up to drive teams to games too. It's on a school year schedule so you're off when there's no school. And they'll train you to get a CDL license so you could pick up casual jobs repositioning trucks for companies like Ryder if you wanted.

[slsdly]

Talking to the bus drivers for touring companies here in southern Ontario, you could easily get work because they have a lot of trouble recruiting new employees. It is always retirees who are cold called the day before driving my club around. Wage reporting online suggests around $20/hour, not sure how accurate that is though.

[JBmoney]

You sound like you'd love being a gig-worker. Try looking for gigs on sites like Upwork and Freelancer.

If anything, you can simply write for websites. I've done this before and have made anywhere between $50 and $150 for a single blog post.

Best part about it is that it's location independent and you make your own hours. I use it to supplement my yoga lessons.

[Jason]

I thought of working in the Home Depot because:

(1) There is a level of customer engagement that goes beyond an assembly line retail gig;
(2) Being someone that knows nothing about Home Improvement, I could learn things and apply it to my life;
(3) There is an outside dimension to the gig, home garden center, helping people bring their stuff out;
(4) I look great in orange and outside of incarceration I can't think of another place to get the opportunity;

[2Birds1Stone]

My buddies dad works lumber at Home Depot. He's been there 15+ years. The pay is actually good for PT work, he gets a lot of side jobs, and the environment is never boring. He loves it.

[Riggerjack]

I'm looking at a lot of suggestions for public facing jobs. Barista, or home Depot. But I would never go that route. In my experience, every member of the public (in particular if there is a counter between us) is below average in temperament and processing power. There is just something about customer service that makes everyone stupid and belligerent (though sometimes I suspect that something is me...)

My point is there are lots of PT opportunities that aren't public facing. Look at what you do, and what you know, and look at where people go after retirement for clues. In my job, we routinely pull contractors for temp work, and those contract companies recruited our retirees.

Also, you want to bring flexibility and skills to the table. That is wasted on a large organization that wants to treat everyone as a number. But that is a great fit for small companies and for companies not big enough to need your services full time. Companies that are only too happy to have a part time, self managing off-site fixer of whatever problems you know to fix. But that is up to you to dig up. Nobody is recruiting for that position. You have to find it or make it yourself. Which may involve more up front work than you are willing to do.

[Michael_00005]

Thanks everyone, some really good ideas posted!

Any could be a possibility, I'll have to look into "write for websites", they actually pay for that huh? But gardener might be more in line with interests, if jobs can be found in the field. When my sister purchased her last home she hired a landscaper ($70 per hour), just to arrange and plant the yard! The hard part (for better pay) is to live near higher income homes, and that often comes with high costs.

Isn't it crazy how some of the worst jobs pay the worst, and some of the best jobs pay the best?

I used to do contract VBA work while living in CA, during the dot com bust when no jobs were available, it's possible that might bring in a little income.

[SustainableHappiness]

Ditto to Riggerjacks post. Networking = ultimate semi-retirement job locator. You find higher paying per hour gigs (in my very limited experience so far) and I've found they are more willing to be flexible. Since I've been off work exploring and talking to people about possibly working for them the opportunities trickle in, not necessarily in your field either.

Anyways, here's a few extra:
1) Teaching (whatever you can)
2) Tutoring
3) Digital marketing
4) Local kayaking guide
5) Zombie Survival specialist (I know a few guys who do this on weekends and they have a blast...one knows archery, one is a black belt in ju-jitsu, one is a survivalist, and one is ex-military)
6) Ice cream scooper

[2Birds1Stone]

Heck, Trader Joe's 2 days a week would cover 40-50% of my ERE expenses.

I definitely plan on trying different jobs for social/skill reasons in FIRE.

Bicycle mechanic, auto technician, home builder (Habitat for humanity), plant nursery, outdoor guide, small engine repairs (outboards), etc.

This will be for "fun money", or to supplement the bank roll in the event of a series of particularly ugly years in the stock market.

[Kriegsspiel]

www.coolworks.com is another place to check for jobs.

[IlliniDave]

I always thought it might be fun to find some sort of temp agency to sign up with (if the type I'm thinking of still exists) and just get a sequence of semi-random temporary jobs doing random things during the fraction of the year I'm back in civilization. Since I finished school I've pretty much been a one-trick pony.

Working isn't part of my plan: not being required to work is a cornerstone is, but if 100% leisure pursuits does not keep me from being restless or bored, or if I have some sort of financial calamity, it's an option I reserve.

[George the original one]

Unusual job: Manning the local old-fashioned merry-go-round with the goal of entertaining all the folks who ride.

[7Wannabe5]

I thought of working in the Home Depot because:

(1) There is a level of customer engagement that goes beyond an assembly line retail gig;
(2) Being someone that knows nothing about Home Improvement, I could learn things and apply it to my life;
(3) There is an outside dimension to the gig, home garden center, helping people bring their stuff out;
(4) I look great in orange and outside of incarceration I can't think of another place to get the opportunity;

Further proof that you and I are totally non-identical twins separated at birth, because I will be temporary part-time employed at a similar establishment this summer.

1) Co-sign.
2) Opposite. I am intermediate-plus handy in some realms of DIY and fearless in others.
3) Co-sign.
4) Opposite. I look terrible in orange, but passably cute in overalls and aprons.
5) Employee discount (Especially handy if applies to rental tools, end-of-season fruit trees.)
6) Above intermediate-plus handy co-workers to advise me on upcoming garden structures, book-mobile-van-build and possible foreclosure rehab projects.
7) Network with local contractors, etc.

[Jason]

(8) They are very big stores and you have to move around a lot. My grandfather owned a hardware store and people often thought he was my father. Although it was a smaller store, he constantly had to move around to find things for people, so it kept him fit. Home Depot has that component.

(4) I forgot to include crossing guard. That is a public service and in some towns you get paid and are treated like a state employee and get a small pension. I think I would be good working the stop sign and would enjoy controlling a heavily trafficked intersection. I don't think I would go as far as those guys who sing or moon dance or blow Stairway To Heaven out of their whistle while they do it but if you disobey my directions you will be publicly acknowledged as a complete fucking douchebag and will spend the rest of your miserable local life avoiding my crossing if you know what's best for your disobedient ass.

[CactusSurfer]

I've been thinking about this myself--especially since I'm past the point where my savings plus maybe $750 per month would be enough to leave my high paying, absurdly specialized engineering career behind. I've been tossing around ideas like buying (possibly refurbishing) stuff from garage sales/estate sales to resell on eBay/Amazon, random temp jobs from time to time, writing/proofreading/editing (I used to be a much better writer than I am now, and might be able to regain my writing mojo), tutoring, and a few other things. One question that I have is, how hard is it to find lower-level work outside of your established career at an older age (late 30's and up--particularly in something where you don't have prior experience?

[EdithKeeler]

I might work for a car rental company as the driver that picks people up and drops them off. I have to rent cars pretty often and I regularly ride with a guy who is a retired administrator at St.jude hospital. He retired early because being around sick kids was really depressing. He works about 20 hours a week, just picking up and dropping off. I could handle that.

[IlliniDave]

Short version of a longer story found me making a couple trips up to my local Lowe's yesterday and I ran into one of my work colleagues moonlighting there. We chatted for a moment--turns out he is working there because apparently he had some bad tenants in a rental house and now has a second mortgage on the place and is trying to get that second mortgage paid off. I guess it would be Menards where I'm headed, but for some of the reasons Jason mentioned above it would be an interesting place to earn some walking around money.