The wife and I are getting older. We have been working for decades at this point. But we are too young to retire, and we had kids late. But one of us could totally switch over to a lower stress second career. Ideally something with benefits, maybe even a chance to get a pension. And since we still have kids, needs to be flexible. One of our kids has autism, so lots of random doctors appointment and stuff.
We both work with computers all day. What are some good options for a second career that doesn’t need to have long term growth potential. We have 8 years where ideally both of us are working so we can cover each other with benefits if something happens. After that, the kids are out of high school at least. So it isn’t like it would be a “short” term career/job. Just not a 30 year thing. And ideally, something that could at least partially be done at home.
Got a friend who got his CDL and drives a school bus in the morning and afternoon. It came with benefits and mediocre pay. And lots of unruly kids!
Assuming you’re based in the US.
Anything on usajobs.gov that you can message your resume into matching will do a good job of having good benefits, relatively low stress, and average pay.
Don’t use the builder on the website; it breaks and makes your resume illegible sometimes. Do look into what a federal resume has to look like in order to work.
usajobs.org should be usajobs.gov
Not what you asked, but make sure you’re accessing all of the benefits available for your kiddo with autism, as well as getting guardianship paperwork ready before they’re 18 - if that applies in your situation. Your school district may have a transition specialist or someone who can help you with it.
On topic, do you have any hobbies that could be marketable? Woodworking, knowledge of plants and gardening, etc? Could you get the library or senior center to pay you to teach basic computer classes or help people set up their phones?
OK - this is going to be a crazy suggestion. Do you have any storytelling or entertainer chops? How do you feel in front of small audiences?
I am a part-time magician. (Thus my user name.) I started at about age 40, with a minor interest in magic, which grew over time until I started going pro. It hasn’t supplanted my regular job, but I currently get as much work as I can handle, and then some.
I joined a local club, the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM), but there are other groups: Society of American Magicians, Fellowship of Christian Magicians, and others. They are all over the world and in most major cities, holding local meetings.
You can become a strolling magician with a small repertoire of solid close-up tricks. I literally took one of my first close-up tricks out of the Mark Wilson’s Course of Magic - a beginner’s book. But most beginner’s magic books have a couple or more of hidden gems in there that are powerful stuff. There are absolutely amazing tricks that require no sleight-of-hand whatsoever. You can launch a complete career out of a beginner’s book. I use some in my own pro repertoire. Note that, magic is about 95% storytelling skill and acting, and only about 5% special effects.
After probably not enough preparation on my part, a friend asked me if I wanted to do walk-around magic at an after-prom party for a little money. That started me off. After that, I developed a few more tricks for a stage/parlor act. About 3-7 tricks can make a parlor act, depending how good you are at the communication/acting stuff. I’ve seen magicians entertain with one trick for 20-30 minutes, and it works.
Here is a step-by-step plan for an entertainer part-time-pro career path:
- Start doing free shows. Say yes to any that will let you perform and be bad.
- Do a bunch of shows. Learn more and expand your repertoire.
- Once you seem to be getting too many shows, and you are getting better with more experience, increase your prices just a bit. Go to Step 2.
I can give more details if anyone is interested. AMA.
Edit to add: I don’t know to what degree your kid has autism, but I’m come across an autistic fellow that became a magician, and uses his autism in his act. He uses magic to bring autism awareness. He’s a heckuva nice guy, too. Check out magician Cody Clark in the Louisville, Kentucky area - from the same magic club that Mac King and Lance Burton came from! Cody tours nationally.
A very interesting idea. Not something any of us can do. We aren’t what you call people persons. And none of us are good a practicing even the things we like. But that part is a longer story. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Real-talk, pensions don’t exist anymore.
Best bet for getting benefits and flexibility is working for the government.
If you have a government job, pensions are still very much a thing. Something like 1/3 of jobs are in the public sector and the majority of them offer a pension, and they’re pretty rare but there are still some private sector jobs offering pensions as well, though I wouldn’t hold my breath trying to get one of those.
It takes a whole lot of people to keep the local, state, and federal governments running, pull up your county job listings sometimes, they’re probably hiring for a few different jobs at any given time, some require very specific skills, training, or education, others are going to be basic janitorial work, office clerks, etc. and everything in between that pretty much anyone could manage, and everything in between, and almost all of them will qualify for a pension plan.
Source- am 911 dispatcher, vested in my pension, still another 15-20ish years before I can collect on it
If you have a government job, pensions are still very much a thing.
I just retired from a government job 2 years ago (US military). I received a pension, but only because I was grandfathered into the old pension plan. The military stopped giving out pensions in 2017. They switched to the BRS (Basic Retirement System), which is basically their version of a 401K.
When they switched, they gave all service members with less than 12 years of service the option to switch to the BRS or stick with the old pension program. Anyone who joined after the switch doesn’t get a choice. They’re automatically enrolled in the BRS.
I had 15 years of service at the time, so I didn’t qualify for BRS. It wouldn’t have benefited me anyway; there’s no way I could’ve saved up enough money to retire on in my 5 remaining years. I much prefer my monthly direct deposit for the rest of my life.
It’s the Blended Retirement System and it is a blend of a pension and an employer-sponsored retirement account. In the BRS service members went from 2.5% per year of service to 2% and gained a 5% match to their Thrift Savings Plan. So a member retiring at 20 years in the BRS would receive 40% of their base pay as pension vs 50% under the traditional military retirement system.
Yeah, that’s the one. Since I didn’t qualify for it, I didn’t pay much attention to it. They always just told us it’s kind of like a 401K, where you contribute up to a certain amount and the govt matches your contribution.
