Join the Gig Economy Before You Retire

It’s always nice when the Motley Fool agrees with me. The Motley Fool has been providing sound financial advice since 1993, and they specialize in clear, actionable coaching that “makes the world smarter, happier, and richer.”

In a great online article, they recommend starting a side hustle before you leave your full time career, something I’ve been writing about – and living – for over 25 years. Many people do find that retirement is more expensive than they’d planned for. The cost of everything has increased dramatically over the past couple of years, and inflation is eating away at savings. Everyone could use a little extra income.

Many retirees also find that retirement can get a little…dull. Once you’ve visited all the family, taken a couple of the bucket list vacations, and fixed and organized everything around the house, you’re still facing years of days to fill. It occurs to you that you have skills, wisdom, experience, and gas in the tank. You’d like to do some work; you just don’t want another job.

For the last two decades of my career, I had a side hustle – sometimes as many as three at one time. I was lucky: I could manage my full-time job within a 40-hour week, and I had marketable skills that allowed me to do creative work on a flexible schedule. I did contract writing on the weekends, taught college courses in the evenings, wrote columns for the local paper and sold articles to national magazines.

I knew that my second act after retirement would be writing, and I was building the skills, experience, and portfolio I needed to walk out of my full-time job at 62 to my gig career without missing a beat. Today, I work less than 15 hours a week doing work I love and earn enough to supplement my retirement finances and live comfortably and debt-free.

The Motley Fool says: “It’s become pretty common for workers today to pick up a side hustle to supplement their income. And it’s not just millennials and younger workers who are going this route. More than 10% of people with a side gig are 55 years of age or older, according to Side Hustle Nation.”

The reason it’s important to start your side gigs early is that gig workers don’t get paid to learn on the job. You have to be good enough at what you do to get paid, and you have to develop a market for your services. It’s very much like starting a small business (in fact, it’s just like it, but I don’t want to scare you off.) You’ll need to learn how to price your goods or services, figure out the cost of doing business, find customers, and set up systems for tracking business and getting paid. That takes time and some trial and error. If you can get most of that work done before you transition to a gig career, you’ll be able to start earning right away.

If that sounds like too much work, I get it. And many people’s careers and busy family lives don’t leave much room for side hustles. But before you abandon the idea, I’d like you to imagine going out and getting a part-time job because you have to. Think through a day on the job there. (And yes, I would like fries with that.) Then revisit the idea of working gigs instead.

I recommend gig work for everyone, especially people who want to keep contributing and earning, but on their own terms. Gig work, unlike a part-time job, give you the autonomy you deserve after retirement. You’re in control of the kind of work you do, when, and how you do it. You choose how many hours you want to work – and when you want to take a break from working. You choose how much you charge and are in control of how much you earn. You have the flexibility to live the life you want and make enough money to live it well.

If you ‘d like to know more about the Gig Economy and the gig worker mindset, here’s a link to my eBook to get you started.