How To Make Extra Money In Retirement By Starting A Blog

At last! The event you have been dreaming of for years has come to pass – you were so excited at the prospect of retiring but now what?

Perhaps one of your big plans was to travel but you may be worried about whether it is the best use of your money at this time. In this post, I will share how to make extra money in retirement by starting a blog. Who knows, it could be your new passion!

This includes affiliate links – if you buy through my link I may get paid a commission but the price remains the same for you. Thank you for your support.

How to make extra money in retirement

Why start a blog in retirement?

Retirement for so many has been a big focus, especially in the last 10 years or so before giving up work. But it shouldn’t necessarily mean doing nothing.

In fact, I know a man who continues to work (although he is financially very secure) because every one of his friends who has retired died shortly afterward! He is simply terrified that the same thing will happen to him if he stops.

Here are what I see as the top reasons for starting a blog in retirement:

Humans like routine. How wonderful that it’s no longer the 9-5 (if you were lucky enough to only work 9-5!) but it’s a fact that we humans like routine.

According to Thought Catalog, ‘When you regulate your daily actions, you deactivate your fight or flight instincts because you’re no longer confronting the unknown’, so some sort of routine is absolutely beneficial.

Having a discipline like writing a blog that still allows you to make your own schedule could be just the job.

You still have a lot to offer! Just because you are no longer in the job market doesn’t mean that you can’t make a contribution to the world. What a shame if all of your knowledge and experience were left unshared.

You need to keep the brain cells working! One of the worst things you can do for your mental health (at any age) is nothing. According to Harvard Medical School, learning a new skill can slow cognitive aging.

Yes, starting a blog is challenging but seeing what you have created (even before you have made any money) is so rewarding – knowing that you created that – I was quite delighted.

You might live until 100 years plus! Even if you have a large pension, will it be enough if you live to be very old? If we knew we only had 10 years left, perhaps we could travel and have a ball, but what if we have much longer? With the advances of science, we could live another 40 years.

Money is decreasing in value all the time. With the economy never having fully recovered from the 2008 crash plus the devastating impact of the Coronavirus, governments are printing yet more money which further decreases its spending power.

Your pension will buy less and less in the coming years, so how nice would it be to have another income source?

Some people cannot afford to retire. There are more and more people working past retirement age who are still working simply because they cannot afford to give up. If this is you, a blog on the side until it makes enough money could enable you to finally retire.

 

How to make extra money in retirement

 

What would I write about?

This is a great question and it’s quite possible that you could write about lots of things from your life experience. My recommendation would be to pick something that you are very interested in and could happily write about forever!

What sorts of things will you enjoy in retirement? You could even document your experiences as you go, although it would be best to focus on quite a narrow niche at first with the opportunity to branch out later.

For example, maybe you will be spending more time with your pets, cooking, playing golf, woodworking, crafting or following your investments. Perhaps it will be taking up a new hobby (like blogging!) that you are learning from scratch and sharing your experiences.

How will I make money?

You could just decide to write a blog as a hobby but there is tremendous scope to turn it into a money-making venture as there really isn’t much more work required.

Essentially you will decide on the niche that you are interested in, write helpful articles for your like-minded audience and include ‘affiliate links’ in your posts to related products.

The products or services are not generally your own but ‘affiliate’ products. You are simply directing website traffic to the seller who will then send a commission to you.

You are not responsible for the delivery of the product or customer service. For more information about affiliate marketing and other ways to make money on a blog, please visit my post on the subject here.

Having said that, there is absolutely nothing to stop you from selling your own products or services. Maybe you could create a course around something you are knowledgeable about?

How to make extra money in retirement
The first 10 lessons in the free Wealthy Affiliate Starter Membership

 

What if I am not technically minded?

If you have a laptop computer and can find your way around, you will be able to get started with the right help. If you need help getting logged in or accessing your email, maybe another path may suit you better!

There are lots of posts on how to start a blog from scratch starting with hosting, choosing a WordPress theme etc.

This is the way I started and even although I consider myself fairly useful on a computer, I managed to build the site but then got stuck on a part and could not figure out how to move forward.

I searched for help from some local web designers but the only one interested in helping me would cost $70 per hour.

I knew this wasn’t the answer in any case because I needed to actually learn to do the job myself as I knew it would be no time at all until I was stuck again but I couldn’t find anyone who was prepared to teach me.

They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears! I then stumbled across a training platform called Wealthy Affiliate while searching on Google. Although I had given up on my previous website, I could see that this platform would totally have helped me.

The difference is that there are step-by-step videos for every part of the process. When you get stuck (and you will!), there is a community of members who love to share their knowledge and help you out of any predicament. For my full review of Wealthy Affiliate, please click on this link.

I am not actually retired yet, but can see that my pension won’t last long, and plan for this blog to ensure I don’t have a drop in living standards and can afford to travel and do the things I love to do. (Especially as I intend to live to 110!)

Conclusion

If this post strikes a chord with you and you would like to further investigate Affiliate Marketing or just setting up a blog to document your experiences, you will get so much pleasure and satisfaction out of it.

The money-making side takes time, but that time will pass anyway so why not do something constructive, that you have an interest in and can share with the world? It would be such a shame not to share that experience and knowledge.

Have you started a blog in retirement? Or did you give up your day job to work on your blog? I would love to hear about your experience in the comments below.

4 thoughts on “How To Make Extra Money In Retirement By Starting A Blog”

  1. I found this post very inspiring as I’m not far off retirement age. Luckily, I’m very young at heart and technically minded. Building a blog comes easily to me and I love using my creative skills. You are so right that we’re all living longer, and the idea of 40 years just drifting sounds awful. I’m definitely a creature of habit, and enjoy planning my day around writing blog posts! Thank you for sharing:)

    Reply
    • I know! Forty years with no money to do the things you want to do – what would be the point? So glad to hear that you love blogging too and using your skills. I love that I am never done learning! There is always something new to learn and put into practice.

      Best,

      Jean

      Reply
  2. Especially now with the virus that scatters sand in the wheels chances are high that state pensions will be cut or won’t be indexed because of inflation. So you are very right to promote starting something when we retire.

    And it’s fun to have a blog of your own. I retired 3 years ago but didn’t want to let myself fade into oblivion by doing nothing. Not only do we work on our grey matter like you mentioned, but you’ll meet a lot of new people as well. Be it virtually, even then those contacts are a very valuable addition to are real life contacts.

    Great article, Jean, thanks!

    Reply
    • Hannie,

      Many thanks for taking the time to comment.

      I have seen your blog and it does much more than keep the old grey matter working! I always learn something and feel inspired. Keep up the great work.

      Best,

      Jean

      Reply

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