The wife and I are getting older. We have been working for decades at this point. But we are too young to retire, and we had kids late. But one of us could totally switch over to a lower stress second career. Ideally something with benefits, maybe even a chance to get a pension. And since we still have kids, needs to be flexible. One of our kids has autism, so lots of random doctors appointment and stuff.
We both work with computers all day. What are some good options for a second career that doesn’t need to have long term growth potential. We have 8 years where ideally both of us are working so we can cover each other with benefits if something happens. After that, the kids are out of high school at least. So it isn’t like it would be a “short” term career/job. Just not a 30 year thing. And ideally, something that could at least partially be done at home.
Real-talk, pensions don’t exist anymore.
Best bet for getting benefits and flexibility is working for the government.
If you have a government job, pensions are still very much a thing. Something like 1/3 of jobs are in the public sector and the majority of them offer a pension, and they’re pretty rare but there are still some private sector jobs offering pensions as well, though I wouldn’t hold my breath trying to get one of those.
It takes a whole lot of people to keep the local, state, and federal governments running, pull up your county job listings sometimes, they’re probably hiring for a few different jobs at any given time, some require very specific skills, training, or education, others are going to be basic janitorial work, office clerks, etc. and everything in between that pretty much anyone could manage, and everything in between, and almost all of them will qualify for a pension plan.
Source- am 911 dispatcher, vested in my pension, still another 15-20ish years before I can collect on it