15 Small Business Ideas for Retirees to Start Now

There are 52 million retirees in the USA as of 2021. After we retire working in several fields and become experts, we will have the capacity to guide and coach others.

When we are young, we are not sure of what we can do in our lives. But with our experience, we can write blogs or go for bookkeeping etc with confidence.

Below are listed several businesses open for retirees if they still want to work and not spend the rest of their life in idle talk or going to clubs to waste their valuable experience.

They can turn their hobbies into fruitful business and help the young to come up in their lives in home repairs or become a property manager.

Here are 15 Best Retirement Business Ideas You can Start Now:-

#1. Coaching/Consulting – Language, Life Coach

I had retired and I could see others were struggling to find success in their lives.

They wanted to sit down and listen to me when I talked to whites and blacks alike.

Some even suggested that I should become a guru to teach others so they could benefit in their lives.

I could have become a life coach in the States but life took me into other paths.

Why don’t you become a coach if you can help others to find success if you can see what they are doing wrong?

Be it in sports, or life.

You could become a visa consultant or any other field if you have become an expert in getting your visas to other countries.

Teach a language if you know about grammar or creative writing. You can connect with your audience easily with the help of YouTube. Create your channel and then grow it using some paid advertisement.

You can also start your own consulting business and target specific audience in any particular city using highly targeted Facebook demographic ads. Reaching targeted audience is very easy with some initial budget for advertising.

#2. Become a Writer

There is fun in writing a blog or a novel if you have become good at writing after several years of practice.

Time to share your knowledge although your physical abilities don’t allow you to leave your home and go to work catching buses or walking.

You can do blogging at home and earn money.

Your novel can become a bestseller.

Write about any subject you know and look for a publisher or do it yourself on ebooks.

Sometimes I can’t sleep like I used to sleep and wake up early in the morning.

I am happy that I can write something useful at this wee hour instead of listening to songs of a radio station or go on FB like other old people do.

You can bid on available writing projects on various platforms like Upwork, Freelancers, etc. You will win projects for sure because of your experience in that particular subject.

#3. Start Service Based Businesses

(i) A career in bookkeeping can keep you busy writing accounts for some business if you’re good at it. I could do it having worked in a bank or just go to work in a garden if I am fed up of keeping books or writing on a desk all my life.

(ii) Working in the open air landscaping your garden can yield flowers and fruits which can be sold. People pay you for shaping their gardens.

(iii) Become a handyman if you have learnt plumbing or electrical work. Just fix up houses and make it look better by painting it to make money.

(iv) If you’re good at languages, you can become a translator which pays well like $10 a page.

(v) Care for pets if you like animals. Become a dog trainer or groom the cats or horses.

(vi) Get into anything like administration of your building complex to get paid.

(vii) Home repairs can get into real estate deals to fix up homes and sell them to make profits.

(viii) Gardens can look better by weeding or planting seeds or trimming those overgrown trees and bushes and bring you money at the same time.

#4. Turn a Hobby into a Business, Arts and Crafts

My hobbies writing became a career for me after I retired and my movements were limited.

What are your hobbies that you could turn to a retiree career?

Do you know painting?

Go for it by buying a canvas and some water or oil colours and try out your talents.

My Italian friend could put up three four canvases at the same time on his wall and go on painting at the same time.

Switching from this to that, he would leave one to dry while he painted others.

Sold them well too with his genius.

Another friend turned her talents of making jewellery by making bracelets and necklaces or just sew dresses to be sold.

#5. Buy/Sell on Ebay/Amazon/Etsy/Ecommerce

If you’re good at selling, choose from Amazon or Ebay. You can buy their goods, store them in your garage to show it physically to buyers who don’t know or don’t like to buy online.

Etsy and e commerce can bring you money if you can put up a shop online with your own goods.

Pay their website a small percentage when your item is sold, be it a dress or a book, whatever you want to sell.

#6. Become a Tour & Travel Guide

Do you like traveling?

You could become a travel or tour guide to earn money and satisfy the travel bug at the same time.

If you don’t know how to become a guide, go on a tour of the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas yourself and see how those guides make money.

You could learn from them or from travel videos available plenty on YouTube.

Be your own boss or work with a travel agency.

#7. Property Management

Management of property is not easy for beginners.

You could help those who are abroad and can’t manage themselves due to having too many properties.

People give them a hard time not paying rent or bills.

They can trash up the house or cause damage if you don’t follow up and make them clean up or pay a fine.

I had an HMO in Denver with 7 rooms and everyone took turns to clean the bathrooms and common areas.

It could pay you well as you get a percentage when you get tenants and manage the property in the absence of the owner.

#8. Start Child Care/Babysitting Business

Don’t underestimate this job is easy.

Children can give you a hard time unless they are well disciplined.

The kids I used to babysit would go upstairs in a minute and turn their parents room upside down in a moment.

You have to run behind them all the time.

I looked after nice kids too who would sit and listen to a story and doze off in my lap.Their mothers would be surprised to see how they made noise not obeying them like they did with me.

But you need a special licence to do it.

You could start a child care at your home with proper license and permissions to help parents who go to work.

You also need a police certificate that you don’t have criminal records.

#9. Painting/Interior Decorating

It’s a rewarding career for a retiree if you have the energy or you could hire a worker or two and supervise the work when you get a contract for painting a house.

Interior decorating is an innate talent some people have.

I took over the flat of my friend when she moved out in Norway.

She was surprised to see the same house when she came back to visit me.

She couldn’t believe her eyes how it looked beautiful with a fewer things (få tings they say in Norway) than she had piled up.

A lamp in the corner or even my altar gave a special look that my students appreciated and wanted to see it in the same way like I did.

You could make it a career to make houses and offices look better by visualising what you can do.

No special licence is required.

But you will need a permit to do business.

So register your business and get a tax identification number.

#10. Financial Advisor/Tax Services

If you have worked in the financial sector, you could help people to save their taxes by investing in a pension scheme or some such strategy.

Tax relief is provided for a lot of things common people are not aware of.

Study the tax books or take courses to become an expert in helping people to file their tax returns for a fee.

Investing is another field where you can help to get loans etc.

Just register your business and get started as a consultant.

#11. Landlord/Bed and Breakfast Owner

Buy or rent a big house to become a landlord and never worry about paying your mortgage even when you are retired.

A bed and breakfast can help you pay your monthly EMI.

You will need a 4 room house at least to be furnished and rent rooms on a daily or weekly basis after getting licenses.

It can be lucrative but be prepared to work hard to provide breakfast in the morning even if you can’t get an employee.

All the rooms should be provided with clean bed sheets and pillow covers to be washed and ironed.

Business license is required as you will be providing food.

Register a business address so the health inspector come any time to see if there are any cockroaches. Make sure you keep the premises clean and tidy and nothing illegal is done or they can close it down.

#12. Pet Sitting

Do you like pets?

Many people need you when they go away on vacation to take care of their pets.

You get to live rent free in their homes and get paid for taking care of their dogs and cats.

Feed them and clean up. Take the dogs for walks and give them a bath providing medical care when it is needed.

No training is necessary but people prefer you to be experienced and have good references to trust you with their homes.

#13. Become a Franchisee

Running a business like McDonald’s can be sure success but you will need to pay them and work under their guidelines.

It is pretty easy to run a Pizza Hut or Starbucks even if you don’t know how to run a business as they will help you set up the business and run it if you have the money to invest.

You will have to pay a handsome amount to get the franchise in the beginning itself apart from what you have to pay every month.