Today’s blog is a guest blog written by Heidi Cookson, Marketing Director for Vinnie Bonazzoli’s firm, Family Estate Planning Law Group. Vinnie has been practicing law since 1985, and his law firm is changing the way people view estate planning through their relationship-oriented practices and ongoing client care program. Vinnie also runs a law firm consulting business called Client Care Academy that trains firms in how they can successfully implement their own client care program. 

Instead of droning on about how the majority of retirees don’t have enough savings and telling you the numbers, let’s talk about how you can supplement your income like a millennial! Millennials, you love them, you hate them, you have one or many in your life, and interestingly enough, they have actually paved the way for retirees to make extra money without having to pick up a traditional part-time job.

According to Experian, over 50% of millennials have a side gig. If you read our last blog, The $1,000,000,000,000 Generation, you’ll recall that millennials are actually a fairly conservative group in that they like to save money, and we have also talked about how many of them want to retire early in a previous blog, New Millennial Retirement Method. It is no surprise that, since this age group is strapped with debt while wanting to save and retire early, they came up with a method to get extra cash: side hustles, aka, side gigs.

The gig economy is growing and by 2021, it is expected to comprise of 9.2 million Americans according to Entrepreneur. What is so appealing about the gig economy is the flexibility, it plays to your talents and knowledge base, and your home base is, well, your home! Retirees should seriously consider tapping into the gig economy because, as you know, most retirees do not have the funds to comfortably cover the entire span of their retirement. Another benefit, money aside, is that having a side hustle allows you to keep structure in your life or continue doing work you love and sharing your talents.

A few entertaining side hustle options you can look into are:

• Sweatcoin: go for a walk and get paid to exercise
• TaskRabbit: run errands for people
• Thumbtack: offer your expertise, clean houses, teach, etc.
• Swagbucks: be paid for taking polls and surveys and watching videos
• Vayable: be a tour guide and share all those random facts you’ve collected about your area
• Air BnB: rent out your house while you visit family, or continually rent your guest bedroom

For retirees who love dogs, check out Wag, you can be paid to walk people’s dogs! You may not want a dog at this stage in life for practical reasons, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have dogs in your daily life, and you’ll be getting some low impact exercise in as well (combine these walks with Sweatcoin to really maximize your earnings).

Check out this article from The Balance that goes into more detail about other side hustle options you might want to consider!

If you are taking social security, note there are certain limitations to income you can receive, but the extra money is a great way to put money in investments, travel, make contributions to a grandchild’s 529, or supplement your current income.

To learn more about Vinnie and his team, visit his website and check out their Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Reference: MarketWatch, December 1, 2018, Retirees Can Earn Money with These Easy Side Jobs