Making Money in Retirement – Your Options

It has been said that inside every ‘older person’ is a younger one saying, “How the heck did I get SO old so FAST?”

This is certainly true of me and yet Society continues relentlessly to dictate how we should feel, look like and experience life at every stage of our lives! My story I am sure parallels that of most everyone and was set in its trajectory by the age honored mantra of ‘Get an education, then get a job’ with the implicit idea these two accomplishments will lead to an end goal of being ‘happy ever after.’

Of course, the implicit goal in both these initial directives is ‘to make money’ as somehow the greater the accumulation of wealth is a bastion against of Life’s hazards.

In my seventh decade journeying around the sun, I can declare that “It Ain’t Necessarily so” as I am sure that as a fellow retiree, who is reflecting on your own personal journey, would agree. To continue my musical metaphor, I know the truth of “Can’t Buy Me Love” ….

However, what I do know, personally, to be true is that as a retiree my income flow of is far less and that a pittance of a pension doesn’t meet the inexorable increasing costs of living!!

But what can a person do?

In this article I would like to explore the options we all have available:

1) Trade (more) time for (more) money:

This in essence is to ‘keep on working’. When we were in full-time employment trading time for money was really what we were doing. What was significant was then the hourly rate of pay or perhaps the annual salary that we could earn and the potential we could aspire to. Our skills, or lack thereof, determined our income and therefore the quality of life we could enjoy. However, the ‘golden years’ that we are said to have seem somewhat (maybe significantly) tarnished by having to work just to ‘survive’. For some of us we must - admittedly sometimes are forced to - consider that time is not on our side! So, working until we figuratively or perhaps literally ‘drop dead’ is not appealing!!

There’s always been the talk of ‘downsizing when you get older’ and reducing one’s expenditure to accommodate a diminished income; however, that approach has never sat well for me as it doesn’t fit my view of ‘living in the golden years’ as I love my creature comforts. Having said that there is indeed merit in reviewing our current expenditure and taking a fresh look at where our hard-won savings and meager cash flow is going to. My current example is switching from satellite TV to streaming apps to save about $100 per month.

2) Time leveraging:

This simply means making an initial effort to generate income keep repeating itself over and over with no further input of energy, which is otherwise known as generating a ‘passive income.’

There are a number of ways you can achieve this so let’s consider each in turn:

a) A classic example of this is writing a (bestselling) book and we can consider well-known authors who have achieved renowned status such as Tom Clancy or JK Rowlings or Clive Cussler etc. You may immediately think that is beyond your ability to do so, however I challenge you to think again!

Think in terms of your personal experience and the skills you, as a retiree, have undoubtedly gained and turn that into a ‘How To’ guide. This may be a hobby passion at which you are relatively expert or work-related advice for those about to enter your field or maybe in the area of life experiences such as parenthood, surviving divorce or dealing with family members with life threatening addictions.

Do not belittle yourself into thinking that what you could share is of little significance; I am constantly amazed at the significant lack of awareness of simple skill sets that I consider “Duh!” such as money management, how to nurture family / marital relationships, and other common-sense attributes to this as diverse as effective self defense techniques to how to best catch lake trout!!

b) Multi-level marketing:

The principle behind multi-level marketing or MLM is a very sound one and is as common as the name McDonalds is!

In essence one establishes a successful business practice but instead of ‘trading time for money’ which is so common in small businesses that are ‘open all hours’ you simply show other people what you are already doing and teach them how to do it. As a result of them learning to generate a small income – just as you have done – they pay you a small amount (say 10%) while keeping the bulk of the income for themselves. When this process is then duplicated yet again the same principle applies.

The classic MLM company and one that I got involved with was AMWAY which is still the number one Direct Sales operation in the world today. There are several good articles on AMWAY should you wish to pursue making money with this company but suffice to say that, in my opinion, when you look closely and honestly at what’s involved it is, to all intents a ‘buying club’ for good (but expensive) products.

Therefore, if you are indeed considering an MLM and you are attracted by the promotion of it being a ‘part-time’ business be warned that could be is a gross misnomer! For me at least) an almost full-time dedication to generate even a very modest return!

c) Affiliate Marketing

Put simply “Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make.” The amount to be made may be earn only a few cents commission to up to 20% of the product sold. My thoughts about “it’s just a few cents” is that there is an estimated 5 billion people globally who use the internet, of which 2.64 billion shopped online as of February 2023.

In other words, it’s ‘a numbers game’… and just like fishing it’s all about how many lines you have in the water.

There you have the ‘birds eye view’ of how to supplement your Social Security income and boost your ‘pension pittance’ as a retiree!

“But wait!” you (may) say, “I want to learn more about ….” Well, there’s some good news for you 😊

My intent is to do a relatively ‘deep dive’ and share with you what has been my personal experience in each of those areas and what I perceived were the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ inherent in each of them; then it’s up to you to make of these opportunities or options as you will and hopefully, whatever income level will accrue you will be able to enjoy your ‘Golden Years”