RETIREMENT JOBS FOR THE RETIRED AND SOON-TO-BE-RETIRED

Why Retirees Work When They Don't Have To

Welcome to the Retirement Jobs Webpage on the Retirment Cafe. I have included information relating to retirement jobs and retirement businesses for retirees too broke or too bored with being retired.

Surveys show that nowadays many individuals plan to continue working in some capacity after they retire.

For instance, according to a recent survey, the Unretirement(SM) Index, the economic downturn has had an impact on retirement planning and where to retire. Over half (55 percent) of Americans now plan to work past age 67, and the number who plan to work full-time at that age is also at a new high (about 28 percent).

With economic events forcing more people of retirement age to defer retirement, coupled with fewer traditional retirement income sources such as defined benefit pension plans, people in or close to retirement are seeking alternative income sources. The most popular choice is a retirement job.

Having said this, retirees with retirement jobs want to work fewer hours, be their own boss, or switch to a career they find more personally rewarding, even if it pays less. Indeed, choice retiree jobs have become desirable and hard to get in some cases due to the recession. However, there are still quite a few jobs available to retirees. Some may even choose to go back to school to learn new skills or maybe even teach a class at the local community college. Transport jobs seem to be pretty popular among retirees as well.

The reasons that many retirees keep on working at least part-time in a retirement job are numerous.

Reasons Why Retirees Have a Retirement Job or Create a Retirement Business When They Don't Have To:

For most baby boomers, the new concept of retirement — an ideal mix of interesting work and leisure — is much more appealing than the old concept of retirement — years of endless leisure as a reward for years of hard work.

Getting a [retirement] job and trading your time for money may seem like a good idea.  There’s only one problem with it.  It’s stupid!  It’s the stupidest way you can possibly generate income!  This is truly income for dummies. Why is getting a [retirement] job so dumb? Because you only get paid when you’re working.
— Steve Pavlina

According to demographers, most baby boomers want to retire without retiring because they want to retire happy. In short, the ultimate retirement plan for high achievers is — don't retire! 

Note: The retirement quotes and sayings on this webpage come from several sources including The Retirement Quotes Cafe and the international bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free. 

It's better to be out of money than out of new creative ideas on how to make money.
— Spiritual Rule of Money

Top-20 Retirement Jobs According to AARP

First Top-10 Retirement Job Industries

According to AARP

 Second Top-10 Retirement Job Industries

According to AARP

Career Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations

Career Success Without a Real Job is the ideal retirement book for retirees and the soon-to-be retired who would like to work in retirement to increase their retirement income but not in a traditional corporate job.

Chapter 6 is titled Prosperity Comes When You Do the Right Things with Your Life. This chapter includes topics such as:

• More Money Won’t Bring You More Happiness — It Works the Other Way Around!
• To Acquire the Golden Touch with Money, Hang around People with the Golden Touch
• Prosperity Spending in Retirement Is Good for Your Financial Soul.

Other helpful topics throughout this retirement book include:

• The Work Model for People Too Prosperous to Do Mornings
• You Don’t Have to Be Able to Walk on Water to Make Money While You Sleep
• Becoming an Internet Marketing Genius Is a Lot Easier than You Think

Retire to a Fun Retirement Job That You Love Instead of Staying in the Boring Job That You Love to Hate

Note: This article is exerpted from How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free (The World's Best Retirement Book).

If you have the retirement income issue handled, you may be wondering whether there is life after retirement. There is good news here as well. With a retirement pension, you can retire early from your present boring job and find a retirement job that is more interesting, even if it does not pay as much. This will make your retirement life more exciting and satisfying than your work life.

Trust not what inspires other members of society to choose a career. Trust what inspires you. From this decision alone will come over a third of your satisfaction or misery in your life.
— from The Joy of Not Working

In fact, many soon-to-be retirees intend to find some sort of new jobs for retirement in order that they enjoy retirement life. A survey by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. found that 57 percent of baby boomers between fifty and fifty-nine want a fun job in their retirement years. About 70 percent of women want a retirement job that gives them purpose and 48 percent of men said it is important to have such work. Overall, almost 60 percent of men and women indicated that they would like fun retirement jobs in the non-profit or public-service sectors.

What is it that you like doing? If you don’t like it, get out of it, because you’ll be lousy at it. You don’t have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don’t like it you’ll never be successful in it.
— Lee Iacocca

A similar survey conducted by Merrill Lynch found that 76 percent of baby boomers plan to pursue some kind of careers in retirement. Many are planning active retirements that include a variety of creative retirement jobs. One of the people surveyed stated, “I’d like to travel a lot when I retire, but I’d also like to work part-time — not at my current job — but something slower paced and more fun!”

You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.
— Oprah Winfrey

Another baby boomer claimed, “I plan on spending my retirement giving back. I’d like to do volunteer work in the area of special education. I’ll maybe do a little consulting to have extra money to help others but for the most part I will continue with the work I love but will be doing it without pay.” Still another remarked, “Health permitting, I plan to work part-time at a book store (I’m in IT now) and do some traveling.”

Clearly, for those stuck in a job rut, early retirement from their present career is a way to replace it with a retirement job filled with joy and meaning. For retirees who are financially stable, starting retirement businesses is another option. “Boredom is a key reason why retirees start a retirement business,” says George Krassner, a consultant and lecturer at Durham Technical and Wake Technical Community Colleges and in Duke Continuing Education small-business workshops. Some retirees try consulting. Others turn a hobby into a business. Still others will start franchises. All these can lead to Career Success Without a Real Job.

If you are retired or soon-to-be retired, you may find Dorothy Cantor’s What Do You Want to Do When You Grow Up: Starting the Next Chapter of Your Life (Little Brown & Company, 2001) helpful. This self-help tome is directed at retirees, wannabe retirees, and mid-life job swappers. Cantor outlines practical ways for readers to figure out strengths and interests so that they can set out a blueprint for the last third of their lives. The book is especially useful to people in middle age who have the sense that golf and bridge and visiting grandchildren can’t be all that there is to retirement.

I believe you are your work. Don’t trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That’s a rotten bargain.
— Rita Mae Brown

Have you ever heard of a wage slave? Even worse ... are you one? Wage slaves may live in big houses.  They might drive Porsches. It doesn't  matter how "rich" you look, if you can't walk away from your job — even for a second — because you would no longer be able to pay the bills, you're a wage slave.
— Sara Glakas

Leaving a traditional job for self-employment or an unreal job can offer a smooth financial and lifestyle transition into retirement or semi-retirement. For retirees who find their true calling, retirement actually becomes semi-retirement because they work part-time at an unreal retirement job that allows them to work according to their own schedule.

Semi-retirement is a time to work for the love of work rather than for the love of money. Going to work when one knows one doesn’t have to work in itself can be satisfying. More important, working at a job in retirement one loves instead of a job that one loves to hate is highly rewarding.

Take, for example, Ron Sadownick of Nanaimo, B.C., who retired at the age of fifty-six. While he was a schoolteacher, Sadownick’s passion was making fused-glass art. Taking early retirement allowed him to devote much more time to his creative pursuit. Because twenty-five galleries in B.C. sell his work, his hobby earns him $1,000 a month, a nice supplement to his $28,000-a-year pension.

As for Ron Sadownick, working for many baby boomers will be out of interest rather than necessity, with most of those who plan to work during retirement planning to move into a completely new career. If you are one of these baby boomers contemplating early retirement, it’s easy to dream about how you’ll spend your retirement days. It’s entirely another matter to make those dreams come true, particularly if you don’t have a major purpose. Several research studies show that retirees who have no real purpose to their lives are prone to feel unneeded and fit for nothing, even severely depressed.

One research study was conducted by Jungmeem Kim and Phyllis Moen of Cornell University on retired men and women based on the definition of “retired” as eligible for or receiving Social Security, an employee pension, or both. Kim and Moen concluded that regardless of their income, health, or age, retired males have high morale and little depression if they adopt second careers. Much higher levels of depression and lower morale are experienced by men who make retirement permanent. Retired women have the most difficulty with morale and depression if they are retired and their husbands aren’t at home.

Seek above all for a game worth playing. Such is the oracle to modern man. Having found the game, play it with intensity; play as if your life and sanity depend on it. (They do depend on it).
— D. S. Ropp

Many individuals are lucky enough to have had their career work and some passionate pursuit be one and the same. Thus, they can continue happily working part-time in their field well past retirement, without having to discover their true calling. Unfortunately, this is not true for many retirees and soon-to-be retirees. If they are not able to discover their mission in life, the prescription for these retirees and soon-to-be retirees is a feel-good job.

By a feel-good job, I am referring to what some semi-retired people call a “fun retirement job.” For example, Cliff and Babette Marten of Des Moines, Iowa, get their kicks in retirement by driving vehicles across Iowa, across the Midwest, and even clear across the United States. They get a chance to drive many types of automobiles — including Cadillacs and Lexuses — and they get paid for it. “About every drive is a different situation,” Cliff Marten, seventy-seven at the time, told the Des Moines Register.

For a fee, the Martens drive new and used cars for Betts Cadillac, a Des Moines auto dealership. The couple is in a pool of fifteen to twenty drivers who drive cars to dealerships in other states or to private individuals who have purchased a car from Betts. The drivers are paid by the hour and reimbursed for expenses such as food, tolls, and lodging.

On out-of-state deliveries, Cliff Marten will drive the car to be delivered and Babette Marten will follow in another car that will later be used to bring them back home. The Martens have driven from Iowa to Florida, California, Michigan, and Connecticut, and passed through many states in between. They sometimes get the opportunity to visit family or friends along the way. “We get paid to have fun,” declared Babette Marten, seventy-years old at the time.

Bob Laabs also got himself a fun job after he “retired.” A former high-school principal, Laabs took a job as a historic interpreter in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia, a popular tourist center. Now he gives tours of the buildings in Williamsburg and lectures tourists on the events of 1774-1776. “It’s not so much a job, but a fun thing to do,” stated Laabs, sixty at the time. “I like history, I like people, and this is a melding of both of these things.”

Although the extra money Laabs makes allows him to live in more financial comfort than if he weren’t working, this isn’t his main point of working in retirement. “You’ve got to retire to something, not from something,” Laabs advises people about to retire. “Don’t just get away — do something that enhances your lifestyle.”

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
— Kahlil Gibran

All things considered, if you are going to work in retirement, the nature of the work should be much more important than the money you can make at it. Should it be the case that you need a reasonable income from your retirement career, careful thought and preparation will be needed to find part-time work that is both enjoyable and profitable. On the other hand, if you have a good retirement income without a job, even one that pays the minimum wage should be taken in the event that it provides you with satisfaction and enjoyment.

While pursuing a fun retirement job, we should do the right thing for ourselves, regardless of what others may think of the job. It’s okay to take a job that has less status than the one we had in our primary careers. A good example of a person who did just this is Dick Remy, a can-company supervisor before he retired at the age of fifty. For the first five years Remy worked part-time as a consultant. Regardless of the fact that being a consultant gave him a measure of status, Remy didn’t find his retirement job much fun. Eventually he did something about it. “I decided to see what was out there,” stated Remy.

As it turned out, Remy’s fun retirement job ended up being a truck driver, a job some retirees may have dreamed of doing as a kid, but never got around to pursuing due to the job’s perceived lower status in society. This didn’t stop Remy. He was first trained as a truck driver by Kreilkamp Trucking Inc. of Allenton, Wisconsin, before the company hired him. Now he spends up to forty hours a week behind the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler that he has nicknamed “Sweet Pea.” Remy declares, “This is a great job for me because it keeps me moving - I’m happiest when I’m on the go.”

Particularly if you have a nice retirement nest egg, you, too, can easily make the transition from “I have to work” to “I want to work for the fun of it.” Getting the right one of many available jobs for retirees will allow you to work at something you like, at your own time, at your own pace. The beauty is that you don’t have to get a retirement job for the whole year and you can work as much, or as little, as you want. You can experiment with various short-term (a week or a month) or part-time jobs for retirees (one or two days a week).

You never stop earning when you do what you love.
— Asha Tyson

Following are several other fun retirement jobs and retiree businesses that will appeal to certain individuals and that you may want to consider for your retirement years:

• Spend a year in Mexico working alongside Franciscan nuns in a home for elderly women.
• Teach English in a Costa Rican village.
• Work on a golf course and learn more about the game from the experts.
• Work as a travel agent to learn more about other countries and get some deals on travel.
• Engage your musical abilities by joining a band that plays on a cruise ship.
  Get work as an extra with a studio doing a film or a TV documentary in your area.
• Use your carpentry skills to remodel old farm houses in the south of France
• Take off for the winter on a two-month-long trip to Las Vegas and work as a blackjack dealer in a casino.
• Get a summer job driving a tourist bus in Banff in the Canadian Rockies.
• Offer your public-speaking abilities to conventions in major cities in exchange for travel expenses, food, and lodging.
• Book a working vacation and help native Maoris in the Cook Islands improve their healthcare system.

Particularly if your career work was all labor and drudgery, a fun retirement job may bring you a measure of enjoyment and satisfaction that you didn’t think was possible. Indeed, getting a fun job after you retire from your primary career gives you the best of both worlds. Having enjoyable work while also having more leisure time is a great way to enjoy life. You can have a freer lifestyle because of the increased leisure time, and still enjoy the many positives of having a job.

Best of all, retirement is your opportunity to try out many retirement jobs just for the adventure of it. If you find a job that really turns you on, you may want to stick with it for the longer term. The most fascinating aspect of a job in retirement or a retiree is that it may actually end up being your true calling in life. As inspirational author Louise Hay said, “New careers can start at any age, especially when you do it for the fun of it."

25 Best American Cities for Jobs in Retirement

Recently MSN.com reported on the best cities in the U.S. in which to find a retirememt job.

A list was generated using factors such as the rate of general employment growth, the unemployment rate in the area, the presence of employers willing to hire older workers, cost of housing, general cost of living, and the availability of health-care services.

Here are the top-25 cities in the U.S. for finding a great retirement job:

An Unusual Retirement Job or Retirement Business for Retirees During the Recession

According to a recent Associated Press news report about how the recession is affecting the retirement plans of today's retirees, some have found the ideal creative retirement job for their second career that many retired people are searching for: The ideal retirement job is becoming a landlord.

Because the value of stocks are uncertain and many houses are not selling, some retired and soon-to-be retired are keeping their money in rental property. The are looking for a steady second income that compliments their primary pension.

"Real estate can be a wonderful asset to have in retirement, because when you have tenants, you have money coming in every month and, if you don't have pensions, that's important," says Barbara Pietrowski, a Certified Financial Planner in Roanoke, Va.

Of course, the key to any aspect or real estate — including being a successful landlord as your cool retirement job — is still location, location, location.

If your goal is to receive a stable income, you have to make sure the economics for the area are right. Choosing a location where there is a strong demand for housing will do the trick. Thus, some retirees look for rental houses in college towns — where they find a large pool of well-qualified potential tenants, Phipps
says.

What's more, a college town is one of the best places to retire. College towns usually have an abundance of retirees or college students. These individuals will always require places to live and will probably look for middle-of-the-road rents, which should be the rents of the type of properties that you own.

Retirement Job and Retirement Business Resources

 Retirement Jobs and Retirement Businesses at The Real Success Resource Center: For Retirees who want to retire to a job they love instead of one they love to hate! Top-10 Retirement Jobs. Top-15 Cool Retirement Jobs. Also retirement business ideas.

 The World's Best Retirement Book

by Ernie Zelinski

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Published in 10 Languages

How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free Will Ensure That You Are Prepared for Retirement When You Leave the Workplace for Good Whether You Need to Work at a Retirement Job or Not!

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Retirement Job Ideas — Articles Coming Soon!

(Adapted from the Book 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement)

COPYRIGHT © 2020 by Ernie J. Zelinski
Author of The World's Best Retirment Book
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