How to Remain Active and Generate Regular Income after Retirement

The cost of living changes significantly after retirement with increasing costs for nutrition, health care and the need for more money to travel the world. However, with meager savings from past employment, most retirees might not be able to foot all their bills for a healthy lifestyle and leisure during their sunset years. This creates the need of having alternative sources of income when one retires from active employment. Based on individual preferences, one can opt to take any of the options below and make regular extra income to fund their personal financial needs after retirement; without necessarily digging deep into their retirement savings.

1. Create Passive income sources

Passive income sources require very minimal effort from you to generate regular income. You will, however, need to invest in understanding the dynamics of your chosen passive income source before allocating your money to it. There are myriad sources of passive income including blogs and websites where you can earn money from advertisements. You can also create videos, upload them on YouTube and earn from advertisement fees too. Other passive income sources include investing in real estate and earning regular monthly rental income. Indirect investment in capital and commodity markets through binary options trading also provides a convenient way to earn extra income from the comfort of your home; as long as you have internet connectivity and an account with an online broker.

2. Consulting

Your career does not have to end the day you retire. All the experience you have gained over the years can be converted into seasonal or part-time consulting. You can package your expertise into a program that can be marketed to potential customers and charge them a fee for the same. Your fees can be flat rates or you can choose to charge them on an hourly rate depending on how you package your consulting services. Drawing from your wide networks from your long career within your industry, getting referrals from former clients should be the fastest way to grow your consulting client base.

3. Venture into entrepreneurship

Again drawing from past experience within your industry and the networks you created over the years while working as an employee, starting your own small business within your area of expertise can be a perfect alternative to fall back to when you retire. For instance, if you were working as a hotel manager for a big restaurant, you can opt to start a small restaurant within your neighborhood and run it yourself. Your past experience will come in handy when managing the restaurant as a business, handling customers, managing your employees and ensuring health standards are adhered to; hence making it an easy for you to start and roll out your startup compared to someone who has not been in the industry before.

4. Write an e-book

After retirement, you will definitely have much more time in your hands compared to your previous employment days. With so much time and fewer things to do, you might end up with a boring lifestyle that can lead to depression. To avoid such, you can start writing an e-book to keep your mind pre-occupied; and once you finish writing it you can put it up for sale on Amazon or other online platforms. You can choose to write about a topic within your profession based on your past experience or you can as well decide to venture into a new field, research it and write about it. In the end, you shall be contributing to the existing body of knowledge, while also generating some income for yourself. The good thing with writing a book is that you can do it as you travel and see the world.

5. Be a research fellow

The private sector, public sector, and academic institutions are always engaged in constant research in order to advance their knowledge in a given subject matter. For businesses, the main motive to engage in research and development could be to develop new products or understand their industry better and how best to position themselves in order to maintain a competitive edge against their peers. Drawing from your past experience working in a given industry, you can find research projects in those fields and apply to be a research fellow to undertake the research at a fee. Having your prior knowledge of the industry and its dynamics will make the research much easier and fun for you; while at the same time keeping you occupied on constructive engagements in your sunset years.

In summary, retirement does not necessarily mean that you should stop being engaged in income generating activities; rather it should simply be a transition from being a full-time employee to being your own boss in control of your own income sources. The five options explained above are just guidelines, but there are many more options you can consider based on your age, location, expertise and personal preferences.