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ASD-friendly semi-retirement ideas?

I'm done with Christmas Cards

Just wondering, as I expect many here are in a similar position (decades of professional career behind you, but totally fatigued and wanting out)?

I would dearly love to retire from the big corporate world that I'm currently in. In about 3 years I'll have the option of taking my company pension, but it won't be much compared to my salary (maybe 1/4?) so I'll need to find a source of income. If I could re-engineer my life, downsize, take my pension, and do something else, I wonder if I could make it work?

The question I want to ask here is: what jobs would be good for ASD people wanting to slip quietly into retirement? I've thought of the ones below....

  • Delivery driver (+ most of the day alone, - having to knock on doors, go to dodgy places, get time & targets pressure from management, long hours)
  • Driving instructor (+ work alone with one other person, - the admin side & negotiating with customers when it goes wrong)
  • Consultant (+ keeps brain alive, - being "owned" by the company you contract with, travel)
  • Work in a café (+ chance for "nice" interactions, - grumpy customers, probably won't pay enough)
  • Something working from home? (You'd think by now WFH consultancy would be a thing? Coding for game developers for e.g.?)

What are your thoughts? What are your own plans?

:-)

  • in reply to DaveAsperg

    I don't see any risks - I'm an engineer and I do everything myself so the labour costs are minimal.   I can build very nice glamping pods for a couple of thousand.   There's an awful lot of slop in the plan so even if I do nothing at all, we can still easily survive.

  • in reply to Senor

    Thanks Senior Moment, proof reading sounds like something that could be a thread in the mix.......

  • in reply to Plastic

    Sounds ambitious. Make sure you do your business plan, working out the costs, tax, income variations, maintenance etc. It could all be a big worry as it sounds quite an ambitious project

  • Some good ideas there. If I were in the UK and retired I think I would probably try to get some sort of outdoor work, perhaps of a voluntary nature. but things don't work like that where I live.

    I have done a lot of different jobs in my time; some of which I was very unsuited to. I was diagnosed over 60 years old, having spent about 25 years working abroad teaching English. I actually self-realised my diagnosis about two years before I retired, and decided at that point I was totally fed up with teaching and wanted to do something more physical.

    I have now been diagnosed about two years, and have been doing a mixture of proof-reading and DIY at home. That actually seems to suit me quite well, but I live abroad in a country where expats are only allowed to engage in a very limited list of occupations. It occurs to me that I would like to pick up more work from other countries to get around this limitation, but I am very wary of getting involved in gig economy work, which I believe is very exploitative. It seems that even if I do online work, I would really prefer to work with an organisation with which I have some contact, as I realise that I have a very lonely existence and need to have more of a social relationship with the people for/with whom I work.

  • I live in a high-cost area so I'm adding value to the house with a view to downsizing.  

    We're probably going to the Welsh borders where we can buy about an acre of land so we can build some glamping or holiday pods in the ground and with the money left over from the house sale we can buy some rental property.  This all runs itself with minor input from us - pay for a cleaner to clean the pods and get them ready for the next people and I can sort any issues in the rental houses (if I can be bothered) or pay for a builder to sort any issues.

    I don't want to have to 'work' at anything and this plan gives us money for pension supplements along with disposable assets to capitalise in the future if we need to.

    I also don't want to have to work to someone else's timescale or be forced to interact with people.

    We want to be able to engage in village life - helping out at the village fete, doing a load of Meetup groups, maybe joining the pub darts team - who knows - lots of possibilities.

    I'd like to build a studio in the garden so I can do sculpture and art in a nice well-lit environment and I'll be having a toy car to tinker with.

    The trick about retiring is that you don't have to rush around to fit in with the 9-5.  Every trip out can be an adventure that can include extras along the way - trips to museums, lunch out, cinema, evening meal, maybe stay in a B&B and something fun the next day - and as you're always 'off-peak', it can all be very affordable.