8 easy retirement side hustle ideas to make extra cash

Retirement is often fantasized as a time to relax, travel the world, watch grandkids, and enjoy life without worrying about money, job-related stress, endless commutes, etc. This is not always the case for everyone. Millions of retirees are finding it difficult to survive due to not having enough retirement savings and low social security benefits. If you are not getting enough retirement income, making extra cash through retirement side hustle ideas in this post is a clever way to supplement your retirement benefits.

With so many side hustles available, however, it can be difficult to find the right side gig that meets your financial needs without compromising the quality of your life. If you are looking for simple retirement side hustle ideas to supplement your income, I have a list of easy-to-do side hustles for retirees that you can start as early as today. What makes these retirement side hustles on this list great is that they are less stressful and you can easily do them by leveraging your life and career experiences.

Without further ado, the following are retirement side hustle ideas to make extra cash during retirement.

Table of Contents show

1. Become a life coach

As a retiree, you have seen and gone through good and bad times and built a life full of experiences and wisdom. Your life is like a book waiting to be shared with the world. This is why becoming a life coach is one of the best retirement side hustle ideas you can start today. You can share your life experience and train people of all ages on different ways to navigate through complex life challenges.

What makes a life coach one of the best side hustles for retirees is that you don’t need to learn a new skill. This side gig is solely based on what you know and life experiences. All you will do is share your life experience and start making extra cash during your retirement.

There are a ton of people who can’t even figure out how to make decisions that only require common sense. People are struggling with basic life challenges. This is where you come in. To some people, all they need is someone to talk to. Let alone complex coaching ideas. As a retiree, you have so much to offer, and therefore, coaching people about life easily be a great way for you to earn extra cash during retirement.

2. Become an adjunct college professor

Another retirement side hustle idea to make extra cash during retirement is to become an adjunct professor. You probably have academic experience through teaching at some colleges and universities. Being retired does not mean your years of service are over. Your brain is still fully active and you have a lot of potential. Many schools will also want to hire you as an adjunct professor due to your experience in different subjects. You might not even have to travel far from where you live. Simply reach out to your local schools and see if they have openings.

Some schools don’t require a high education degree to become an adjunct teacher. If you have been a successful business person, for example, some universities/colleges could let you offer business lectures to business students. They know you have enough business experience and have been proven invincible. The tips you offer students will help them turn their lives around and make good business decisions after graduation.

3. Create an online course

If you don’t like to stand in front of students, give homework, or correct papers, creating an online course could be an excellent retirement side hustle you might need to try. Online courses come with a lot of flexibility compared to regular classroom-based sessions. This flexibility makes online courses some of the best retirement side hustle ideas.

Your online course can either be prerecorded or live. A prerecorded course gives your students a chance to review the material at their own pace or revisit the course whenever they have problems.

Unlike pre-recorded courses that can be offered at any time, live courses require you to pick a time and date at which the course will be conducted. All participants must attend the course via video conferencing services such as Zoom, Google Hangout, Microsoft Teams, etc. If you want to take this retirement side hustle to the next level, create a website and grow your social media influence. Most of your clients might come from your social media followers and daily website visitors.

You might also like: 20 easy ways to make money from home in 2023

4. Become a consultant

If you spent many years working in the business industry, being a business consultant will be one of the easiest retirement side hustles you can start today. With this side hustle for retirees, you will support businesses on different aspects of their businesses such as product development, competition, employee retention, etc, which are cornerstones for their successes. The experience and expertise you have in these areas can be helpful to a lot of startups and more established businesses.

As a consultant, you will be analyzing businesses and pointing out their strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, you will give them recommendations to improve their processes and policies and strengthen their competitiveness levels. Many start-ups and small businesses can rely on your information to avoid mistakes many businesses make during their early stages.

A great way to establish yourself as a private consultant during retirement is to have a website and social media profile where customers can reach you. Your clients can come from all over the world and will require different levels of help which you can easily provide. Attending business conferences and networking events is also a great way to connect with business owners who could easily become potential clients.

5. Work as a babysitter or a pet care

One of the easiest retirement side hustle ideas to make extra cash is being a babysitter or pet care.

If there is one thing all retirees have in common is having a lot of free time. During your retirement, you will have so much time that you must find something to do with it. Otherwise, boredom will make your life miserable.

If you have grandkids, you can probably spend time watching them. But, If you don’t have any grandkids and want a retirement side hustle to make extra cash, babysit other people’s kids and pets. Yes, kids can be annoying sometimes if you are not a patient person. But, if you love kids, being a babysitter could be a great way to earn some cash during retirement. If you don’t like kids but like pets such as dogs and cats, become a pet care instead.

With the cost of living rising every day, millions of people are finding themselves working two to three jobs to get by. Being away for so long also makes it harder to take care of their 4 legged friends. That is why many pet care businesses are opening doors in every city. As a person in retirement, this is a great opportunity for you to make extra money. You can easily get hired by a local pet care business. Another option is to let people drop off pets at your home and babysit them without leaving the comfort of your home.

6. Become a photographer

Photography is one of those hobbies that people say is outdated. On the contrary, photography is one of the best retirement side hustle ideas for anyone in retirement to make extra cash with less stress. It all depends on how you do it.

Retirement does not mean you are done working. What it means is that you can still work only if you choose to do so. That is why doing photography as your retirement side hustle will be beneficial due to its flexibility.

There are many ways you can approach this side gig for retirees. You can either focus on a small niche such as event photography where people partner with you to take photos at their weddings, meetings, and parties, or take photos and sell them online. Although the competition in this industry is intense, there is still room for you to make a name for yourself.

Websites like iStock, Shutterstock, Alamy, Getty Images, SmugMug, and 500Px are great places to start selling photos online. To succeed at photography as a retirement side hustle, take sellable photos.

Tips to help you take photos that sell

Photos must be original
Take high-quality photos
Take photos that are hard to replicate
Concentrate on photos of rare events
Take photos that trigger emotions
Focus on simplicity rather than complexity

If you like to travel, you can easily travel and make money as a photographer during retirement. That is what is how you hit two birds with one stone. As a traveler, you will be able to witness events that are not accessible to everyone which will give you an edge over your competitors.

Another great way to monetize your photos is to create social media accounts and post your photos there. Over time, you will build enough followers and start promoting other people’s work through sponsored content, or simply get affiliate commissions by promoting products in your industry.

7. Start a blog

Blogging is my favorite side hustle to make money during retirement and it is for a good reason. Freedom, freedom, and unlimited potential.

You probably heard of some people saying that you can make money while blogging and others saying it is not easy. All these sayings are true. If you are determined and looking for ways to supplement your income during retirement, blogging is for sure a good side hustle to try in your retirement.

What does it take to create a successful blog?

The truth is that you can make money from a blog as long as you don’t give up too easily. How long it takes before you make money, however, will depend on your niche, your marketing strategies, the quality of your content, and consistency in posting.

The point here is that creating a successful blog that generates money takes time and hard work. But, once the money starts coming in, there will be nothing stopping you.

The good news is that you are retired and have all the time in the world. What you need to do is to put your time to good use and stay consistent. Most people fail because they are balancing their full-time jobs with their blogs and personal lives. On top of that, they still have kids to attend to, partners to please, etc.

That is why you are more likely to succeed because you have a lot of time at hand and fewer people who need attention from you. And for this reason, blogging is one of my favorite retirement side hustle ideas for anyone in retirement.

8. Drive for ridesharing companies

Do you like cruising around your city and enjoying its views and neighborhood? If so, ridesharing driving could be a great retirement side hustle idea for you to make extra cash.

What makes ridesharing one of the best retirement side hustle ideas is its flexibility and the freedom that comes with it.

This side gig is so flexible that you only work when you want. You make up your schedule, work only when you need to, and stop when you want.