i consider being a school substitute teacher as something I plan on doing eventually. always demand for you. you pick what works for you. if you pick something like elementary school specialist (music/gym/art/media) you get a rotating crop of kids mostly happy to be out of their normal grind. nothing to take home. the rest of the building loves that you were there.
thatās my plan too. i noodle around with retirement expectations for income. I usually come in at something like $10K a year but that seems low given Klaymanās 3 month delivery haul.
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Exactly. Although I think I could be fine with $1.63M and very possibly never work a day in my life again, I want to do some work on my own schedule, and delivery is perfect for that.
The typical Instacart grocery trip I target is one mile over to the store (Hy-Vee), twenty minutes to shop and bag fifteen items, 0-3 miles to drop it off, and I am $15 richer in a half-hour before self-employment taxes. And I got a little bit of exercise. I donāt do as much UberEats as I used to because it is more driving, although I still do some. UberEats gets occasional good grocery orders too. I did a bigger one yesterday that was $35, it took 70 minutes and I earned an additional $10 charging the $200 purchase to my Discover card which is giving 5% back this quarter
I wish there were an app where instead the offers were for $100 to spend a few hours making a spreadsheet but sadly there is no UberExcel yet, just Ubereats. Itās not all glitz and glamour, I do turn away a lot of jobs to skim the best ones.
I think substitute teacher is a good idea but I donāt think I will pursue that this coming year, too soon. Iām still looking around to see what there is to do, since I could do anything I want.
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I have years before this will matter, but Iāve sincerely mentioned to my boss that in my 50s I would like to go down to 3 days/week at 60% pay. When Iām hitting my late 40s Iāll be bringing it up during every performance review and every few months in between.
Nobody in Actuarial has done this, but other employees have. Iām hoping for earlier but 60 is the latest I project retiring - or instead, I could see doing 3 days a week starting at 57 and going until 62, or something along those lines.
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I asked my boss for this very thing nine months ago to be effective January 2024. I was basically a department of one and always thought we needed two, but they said no. I donāt think they wanted to pay 1.6 people doing what they perceived as a job for 1.0 persons. But I think it could be a very good idea at the right company to allow both parties to transition.
My job involved a California filing that started November 2021 and STILL isnāt approved. Just as it was about to be approved we discovered the guy doing the manuals in the past who is now retired made some errors and now they may need to refund money and it is becoming a colossal headache. Even thought that would not be my responsibility to manage, it is almost worth retiring to not watch that unfold.
There is Fiverr (I think it has two rās?) to offer skills like that. Iāve never used it.
Iād consider asking my company to go part time, but I worry Iād get sucked into long term projects that would be more stress than I want.
I have also considered consulting. I probably know more about value based healthcare than most who work in the space. At least in the current environment, I bet I could line up a decent number of startups to pay me a few hundred bucks per hour as an advisor.
Have you considered a YouTube channel? You seem to know an awful lot about bridge. I have a nephew who is in HS and has a pretty successful channel on sports cards. He makes about $800/mo and doesnāt put in a ton of hours.
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Haha the jokeās on you, I have a Youtube channel with over a dozen bridge videos on it.
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This is very unlikely. Mostly because most actuarial departments run a very lean ship now, so they cannot afford to have the more experienced (permanent) people work less for lower pay.
We have the same issue here in the UK. The only way to transition to such a position would be by becoming a contractor vs a permanent employee. This would mean a lot less job security for you though.
We have a few part time FSAs at my old job (the largest health carrier in the US)
They were all women who became moms and scaled back to 20-32 hours a week after their first or second kid
If youāre only a year out from retirement you can just what most people do and just mail it in and do the bare minimum (come in at 9:30 and leave at 4). You wonāt be able to get away with this if you just started a new job, but once youāve been somewhere 10+ years you get a lot more flexibility
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Hit a new milestone today including home equity:
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I donāt think I agree with Polymath. I have worked in departments of actuaries at a company that was quite progressive in allowing part time work. At the time, it was almost always utilized by mothers with young children, but nowadays employers cannot discriminate and say āthis benefit is for women only and only for people under the age of 40ā
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Quite the opposite, the reason I have $ is I donāt spend it on cars.
I love retirement and when I look back and hear about all the pergolas and kitchen renovations, all I can think of is you guys are extending your incarceration. 
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At least theyāll be incarcerated in really nice pergolas.
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Youāre my hero. 
Guilty. My wife and I discussed it before we bought this big, old house. Iād have bought a smaller old house if there was one available, but this was the only house we really liked, and the location is amazing. So we agreed to work an extra year or so, and then when weāre done we will have an amazing house in which to spend a lot of time.
Demo on the porch starts next week, so Iām about to light another $30k on fire.
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I would redo my back deck for similar $ but it would be an expense, not an investment, as my house will be torn down by the next owner.
Clark Howard had a segment awhile ago where he discussed this a bit and pointed out that making $10k a year as a retiree was effectively equivalent to having $250k in your retirement savings with a 4% withdrawal rate. Basically, a really good option in your early years to have a decent retirement with limited savings.
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