Semi-Retirement

My semi-retirement is going well enough, I suppose. It’s rather difficult to adjust my spending habits, since I’m used to having an actual paycheck coming in that is reliable and predictable. But as long as I keep myself in check, I seem to be doing okay. I haven’t started pulling money from my investment account yet – still working on the severance payout from my previous job, supplemented with income from various part-time jobs.

The DoorDash thing is going surprisingly well. I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I do. Thankfully, I can go whenever I want to – and if I don’t feel like going, it’s perfectly okay to NOT go. I have been dashing the lunch crowd for the most part, as I would rather be at home in the evenings. A typical day of dashing is from about 11:00 to around 1:20 or 2:00, depending on how many people are ordering food. In that time period, I can usually fit in anywhere from 4 to 7 runs and end up earning an average of about $37 a day. It’s not much, but it helps.

My account with Rover.com is still up and running, but I have not had a single inquiry. I did have a nice 2-month gig through a friend who went outside for their spring camping trip, though. I helped take care of 2 cats and 3 chickens! Two months is a long time to take care of somebody else’s animals, but I had 3 other people helping me, so it wasn’t quite so bad. I fixed the schedule so that I stopped by their house on M/T/W/T and had the others alternating weekends. As an added bonus, we all got to keep the eggs the chickens provided. I had forgotten how much I love chickens and am now seriously considering getting some for my own backyard!

The big news is that I have been hired on at The Musk Ox Farm here in Palmer as a part-time Tour Guide! They have 72 musk ox on 75 acres of land, and my job is to take groups of people out to meet the animals and talk about them. It’s pretty fun, I have to say. I know a lot about musk ox from my days at The Alaska Zoo, but it will take some time to learn all these individual animals & all their stories. The job is, as I mentioned earlier, just part time and right now is only for the summer season. I can extend my employment out through the wintertime, if I find that I enjoy it that much. Or I can hire on again next summer if I prefer. Or it could just be a one-and-done thing. Time will tell.