Sunday Morning Coffee

We all know that the concept of retirement will, by necessity, look much different for many now-working age Americans than what it did for the parents and grandparents of now-working age Americans. Over the years I've tried to explore this inevitability in what I hope is a positive way in that I believe this is a problem/challenge for each of us to solve for ourselves in a way that is right for us.

As long time readers will know, my wife works (volunteers actually) in dog rescue. By virtue of how hard she works and the type of person she is (while I am of course biased she is very innovative one many fronts in her role) she talks to all sorts of people from every conceivable part of the animal rescue world.

She was telling me about a situation that she thinks is coming up at a rescue whereby a rescue will give a free place (one of several houses on the property) to live, utilities included, in exchange for being the onsite manager (not the most accurate word). I believe the circumstance will pay $8/hour for 40 hours but realistically the typical work week would be longer. There are other employees that come and go during the week so the onsite person might better thought of as a coordinator but there is physical work involved.

For the right person, this could be a dream situation. The person would need to be moderately fit first of all but free housing, a $1200/month income, maybe the person doing this has a spouse with a part time job, maybe rental income if this couple owns a house somewhere and maybe a little bit saved to fill in the occasional spending need.

For the right people, how much would be needed per month if there is no mortgage/rent or utilities? A married couple with a modest lifestyle; how much do they need to be comfortable if all they are paying is various insurances (including health), groceries, a car payment and maybe they take one trip per year? While this would be a lot of work, for the right animal person with the right motivation this seems very plausible to me. Again, for some small segment of the population.

It is unlikely that the above would be your ideal solution which is of course not the point. The above is offered as a reminder that whatever it is that you really enjoy doing or otherwise put a lot of time into (or would like to put a lot of time into) can probably be woven into your own personal retirement solution.