Like millions of other hard-working Americans who’ve been toiling in the workforce for decades, you’re probably looking forward to that day you turn 62 and can finally retire. You’re not just retiring from your long-time job, mind you, but from the exhausting rat race. Now you can relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor. You can travel!
But despite the best intentions, too many people were so busy working and raising families that they forgot to save enough money for retirement. When this happens, you’re usually looking at two choices. Either stay at your old job (until they politely ask you to leave) or find another job altogether. While neither of these options feels appealing to you, there is one fully legitimate financial option for making up for a less than stellar retirement account.
It’s called a reverse mortgage. If you’ve owned your family home for decades and have religiously paid your monthly mortgage payments, a reverse mortgage will allow you to tap into all that equity you’ve been building up for years.
You can take your proceeds in one lump sum, or you can take monthly disbursements. The best part is you never need to pay another mortgage payment again. You can see how much you’ll be able to qualify for by using a reverse mortgage calculator: https://reverse.mortgage/calculator.
But what if you haven’t lived in your home for very long or have been living in an apartment? While getting another full or part-time job outside the home is a non-starter, you might want to take a look at freelance writing.
It turns out that many retired people who have a knack for putting words, sentences, and paragraphs together are not only turning to freelance writing as a part-time and even full-time gig, they are making good money from it. What’s more, they can do it from anywhere in the world.
If you’ve been dreaming of becoming a freelance writer, your retirement years could be the perfect time to begin. If you happen to be new to freelance life, however, you might have a whole bunch of questions about how professional writing works. Here are the top 5 questions you need to ask yourself before you type your first word.
Am I a Good Enough Writer?
Whether or not you are a good enough writer to get paid for your words is the most “common question” newbie freelance writers ask. The answer is said to lie in improvement. In other words, as long as you are willing to learn and improve your craft, there’s no reason why you can’t expect to be a professional.
Even Hemingway (a one-time freelance reporter) wasn’t born a great writer, and neither were you. You just have to be willing to learn.
What Kinds of Jobs Should I go After?
You should plan on writing whatever you like. That said, if you’re new to the writing game, you might want to stick to topics you’re knowledgeable about. If you were a construction project manager in a previous career, you might want to write about building and design topics for a while.
Sooner than later, you will want to learn how to write about new topics. Eventually, you should possess the talent to write about anything, no matter how dull. The trick is making a mundane object, such as a teabag, appear interesting with your words.
How Often Will I Be Writing?
If you plan on being a serious writer in retirement, you can expect to write every day. Full stop. Writing is a craft that must be learned. You only get better with practice. Even if you haven’t been handed an assignment, you should be developing your own story ideas.
The best idea is to get up in the morning, sit down at your laptop with a cup of coffee, and “put in the word count.”
How do I get Noticed?
When you’re a newbie, you will all too often feel that nobody is giving your work a chance, much less paying attention to it. But there are online tools out there to help you gain much-needed visibility.
For instance, you can start a WordPress blog or a Medium account and write free content on a daily basis. After a time, your work will be good enough that you will gain a decent-sized following. You can share your content via social media links like Facebook and Twitter.
But keep in mind, you’re in this to make money. That means writing for free will eventually become just one of the tools in your freelance writer’s toolbox for marketing yourself and your writing.
Set up a profile and take advantage of online platforms like LinkedIn to show off your talents and land paying gigs. If you’re planning on writing fiction, you can take advantage of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Platform. You can even make a lot of money writing erotica if you so choose. Which begs the question.
How Much Money Will I Make?
In a word, it depends. A few factors come into play such as how much experience you have, the kind of writing you are doing, plus the amount of time (and energy) you’re willing to put into it.
Experts say that when you’re just starting out, you will want to consider freelance writing as a way to supplement your retirement account. However, as you progress and get more experience under your belt, you will begin to see lucrative paydays. This is especially true if you expand your talents to writing journalism, nonfiction, and fiction.
You might make small amounts with each publication, but by the end of the month, those small amounts add up to a very nice payday. What’s more, you can write from any destination in the world, be it a sandy beach in Tulum, or at a coffeehouse in Istanbul.
Jason is the Marketing Manager at a local advertising company in Australia. He moved to Australia 10 years back for his passion for advertising. Jason recently joined BFA as a volunteer writer and contributes by sharing his valuable experience and knowledge.
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