Making Plans

I love my job. It’s relatively low stress but highly rewarding. My colleagues are simply wonderful and add joy to my life, and I get to hang out with so many folks who genuinely care for their neighbors and the well-being of our community.

However

Carli and I are really feeling the call of retirement. While we still have a few years of full-time work to go, I want to start planning right now. Every day we see something else around the house or the yard that needs attention. We want to purge all the things that serve no purpose in our lives any longer, organize the important belongings so we can actually find them when we need them. Carli wants to set up her shop spaces and start using all the tools she’s wanted to get back to, the lathes, the mill, all the woodworking and metalworking tools she has collected over the years. I want to create quilts, make crafts, bake bread, exercise, and read more. And we both want to spend time with the dogs!

While all of that sounds great, I am guessing that it would get old fast. We’ll need to be deliberate in finding meaningful activities that keep us engaged with our community, learning new things, keeping our minds sharp and our bodies healthy. We want to retire while we are healthy and physically able to do all the things we’ve been dreaming of.

Beyond that, the truth is that even though we have a decent amount of retirement funds there are no guarantees that we’ll have enough given the uncertainty of all things financial. So we need to make plans for potential retirement gigs, things we can do that will bring us joy, keep us physically and mentally engaged, but also make a little pocket money.

So I’m asking, if you are retired from your primary profession and have a retirement job, please tell me about it. I have a friend who is a serial small business owner, and I love to hear about those experiences. I have always dreamed of owning my own little business, but I’ve never been brave enough to take that leap. I’ve always heard that if you turn your hobby into a business it loses the magic and becomes just a job. Has that been your experience? It would bring me such joy to make dog treats two or three days a week and sell them to indulgent pet parents, but will it just become drudgery? I love making a quilt and gently placing it in the hands of its new owner, but the quilts I make take such a long time it would be hard to bring in enough cash to make it viable moneymaker. Maybe teach classes on growing your own food, canning and preserving. Thanks in part to the global pandemic, the world is saturated with sourdough bread these days, but perhaps we need more English muffins.

But how does one go about building a small business that is just the right size for retirement? I honestly have no idea, but I’m determined to find out. I lack the skills to make YouTube videos, have ZERO desire to be on TikTok, and you see my website. It leaves a lot to be desired. But if I start making plans now, learning the skills I need to make a go of it, I think I could be quite content with a small retirement business.

Or maybe I should just get a part time job helping people find their next favorite bottle of wine. I don’t know. Tell me what you think in the comments below!