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Great advice. Middle age is not the time to start a physical job. Everyone I know doing it is wiped out, their body is shot. They're looking to do less physically.
Even being on your feet for a shift at Sam's kills my 65 year old hub still. He's been at it 2 years next month.
I work with contractors and my job requires occassionally being outside and physical work.
The guys who want to quit, their body is worn out from doing it 30 years.
She hasn't done it yet so she's not in that boat.
I mean, mid 50s is not that old and she has money.
She has flexibility.
Getting and keeping a cushy office job isn't a reality for everybody. REAL office jobs are difficult. Owners work you ragged. And people get burnt out.
Mental burnout versus physical...
That's why most people angle to get themselves into positions where they get high pay for not doing a lot (owners) or telling other people to work later in life. So I respect OP in that sense.
I should have clarified that too. My plan is to stay where I am. Maybe it will be okay. I’ll give it a shot because I don’t want to leave. But I want to start preparing now for something else. Just in case. It’s a plan B of sorts because I like to have plans for different contingencies. I suppose that’s part of the reason I am looking into trades. I like fixing things and taking, say, electrician classes or plumbing classes would be useful skills even if I don’t end up moving somewhere else. Same with nursing classes (especially since I’m going to be caretaker to my mother).
I admire you, OP, for wanting to make such a change.
If you like nursery/garden work, have you thought about getting a landscape design certification? Those designers seem to be in great demand here, at any rate.
What about combining a couple of part-time jobs, like school bus driver with working at a nursery/garden center?
I had a couple of friends who did something similar years ago. One worked part time at a museum while also taking the occasional art teacher gig and another worked part-time at a bakery and would substitute teach at the elementary school level when the mood struck her.
Of course, if benefits are a concern, then this is probably not the way to go.
I admire you, OP, for wanting to make such a change.
If you like nursery/garden work, have you thought about getting a landscape design certification? Those designers seem to be in great demand here, at any rate.
What about combining a couple of part-time jobs, like school bus driver with working at a nursery/garden center?
I had a couple of friends who did something similar years ago. One worked part time at a museum while also taking the occasional art teacher gig and another worked part-time at a bakery and would substitute teach at the elementary school level when the mood struck her.
Of course, if benefits are a concern, then this is probably not the way to go.
Good luck to you.
Plant nursery/ garden center are young people jobs. I was fairly young in my early 30's working at a plant grower, injured my back picking up a case of soda to load the coke machine. I then was counting plants in a muddy green house, slipped, twisted my body to not fall. Blew out my back. Worked at a garden center next, work is just as hard on a body with having to lift potted plants, bags of soil. I have not worked since, I barely have a life due to injuring my back.
Working at the plant grower, I was hired to clean. They needed help elsewhere, I was it. Fork lift, driving a kubota with 3 boat trailers to order pick, doing irrigation which you could get soaked from. Some days you're cold and miserable. Also potted plants, pruned.
The majority of back breaking work is done by foreigners with green cards, employees can be called at any point to do whatever they need. Some do not like working with women especially if they have to take orders from you.
I generally agree with your statement that nursery/garden center jobs are for young people, Roselvr. I just figured since OP brought it up, it meant she was an outlier; someone who is in good physical condition, even in her 50's, to be able to handle such a job, even if only for a few years.
I saw it recently at a local nursery just last month, where there were a couple of women aged 50+ doing the "heavy lifting". That's not to discount the risk of injury, but as I've seen and known a few personally, there are folks out there who carry on with such work without incurring harm. Again, these are definitely outliers and not the norm.
They amaze me as much as the 62-year-old woman I saw doing handstands in a yoga class a few years ago!
At the end of the day, everyone just needs to know their limits.
OP, are you any closer to figuring out what you want to do?
Having lots of options is great. But at some point -- I'd think -- you have to narrow the options a bit.
You don't want to be tied to a desk inside. OK. But, I didn't get the impression that you definitely want to work in the trades, either.
How much education are you willing to pay for? How long of a re-training timeframe are you willing to submit to?
What is your degree in?
Bank examiners travel for work, or at least go from place to place.
(I also have thought about getting a job a a plant nursery. But that would be a part-time or seasonal job for retirement. NOT a job I had to actually live off off.)
Would you want a gov't job? fed, state or local?
Do you have an interest you want to explore?
Don't know what you want TO do? How about at least ruling out what you are NOT interested in.
I'd like to be more helpful. But you're just too all over the place for me to think of anything else.
I think I was in a similar position of thought-wandering, in my late 40s and early 50s. Wondered about trades. Went through a college automechanic program (at 47-49). The best of that was the knowledge itself: learned and fell in love with welding, got to know the "insides" of cars, various body recovery techniques, etc. The hardest was to be in groups of 19yo males, and later on, during "internships", in male-dominated shops.
While at college, observed the parallel stream of heavy-duty mechanics: rosy-cheek but burly kids, crawling around some Carhartts. That profession seemed as having a thicker glass ceiling than my automechanic program.
I should have dropped out of that program early on when feeling uncomfortable in the process... it was just my own ambition of "finishing whatever I started". My discomfort was related to gender and age, especially in real-life shops. I could have persisted, but I was still in doubt (thought-wandering) even after graduating.
To make long story short, - I had had math/physics/IT background, though veeeery rusty. Got back in college (again ) into a speedy program in AI for such rusty adults like myself, at 52. The rest is history. It feels like I did the full circle. My education/background/inclinations proved to be correct, in the end: an intellectual space where learning never stops. Finally, I am at peace inside.
It's hard: to be looking for contentment, for your own peace. Sometimes, only trying helps.
IRS is looking for workers,just to circle some numbers on a tax return and pass them on to the keypunch operator.
Restaurants are losing workers,if you like dealing with people,apply for a job with them.
At your age,health insurance is important.
Be a driver for wholesale distributor ,delivering fresh produce,bread etc to retail stores,
repairing cracked screen for iphones,good money there
If you're considering a career change in your early 50s, it's important to explore all your options. While finding a new job in the same field could be one path, have you also thought about branching out into something entirely different?
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) into a speedy program in AI for such rusty adults like myself, at 52. The rest is history. It feels like I did the full circle. My education/background/inclinations proved to be correct, in the end: an intellectual space where learning never stops. Finally, I am at peace inside.