For most of your life, your key financial goal is saving for retirement. So once you’ve retired, it can feel like you’ve hit the end of the line when it comes to improving your financial situation.
However, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.
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If you retired middle class and you want to become rich — or at least feel richer — here are five things you can do to try to make that happen.
1. Keep earning income
The most obvious way to become richer in your later years is to keep working even after you’ve “retired.”
There are many different ways to do that. You could take on a part-time role in the industry you retired from. If you’ve acquired a lot of knowledge or skills throughout your career, you could also look into consulting positions, which can be quite lucrative but require relatively little hands-on time.
You could also start your own business, opt for a low-pressure side gig like dog walking, or try to turn your hobby into a business — such as by selling crafts on Etsy or using your long-honed thrifter’s eye to become an eBay reseller.
Whatever approach you take, if you keep earning more, you’ll have more to spend —- which means more legacy to leave behind.
2. Invest wisely
Investing can help your money earn money for you. You can choose safe investments, like certificates of deposit (CDs) or bonds, but you won’t earn as high of a return. You can also put money into the stock market, or even consider alternative investments such as cryptocurrencies.
Keep in mind, though, that the higher the potential returns, the greater the risk you typically must take on. At this stage of life, you don’t have as much time to recover if an investment goes wrong. You can’t take on too many risks in the pursuit of wealth. As a rule of thumb, you should only invest in speculative — or volatile — investments if you can afford to lose everything you put in.
Read more: Cost-of-living in America is still out of control — use these 3 'real assets' to protect your wealth today
3. Live on less
There are different definitions of what it means to be rich. If your goal is to have a lot of wealth invested so you feel more secure or leave a legacy, then one way to do this is by reducing your expenses.