You have undoubtedly spent much of your working life saving money and putting some aside in tax-efficient retirement plans to ensure a comfortable retirement once you’ve stopped working for a living. It’s a great feeling knowing you’re free to do what you want with your time instead of working each day.

The thing is, the money you’ve amassed during your career for your retirement is finite. What happens if you spend more than you had planned, especially if you didn’t consider factors like inflation and increased living costs as you got older?

For those reasons and more, many people who retire want to make their savings and investments go further. With that in mind, here’s what to consider doing once you’ve retired to increase your net worth.

Plan Who Gets Your Wealth When You Die

Before you start taking measures to increase your net worth once you’ve retired, you need to ensure that your affairs are in order during your retirement. After all: no one can predict what happens in the future, and you want to ensure your assets go to the right people or organizations.

Make sure you talk to an estate planning attorney as they can ensure that your wealth distribution gets split according to your wishes, irrespective of whether you’ve got more wealth than you do now.

8 Practical Ways to Boost Your Net Worth

Once you’ve got the future of your assets sorted out, the next stage is considering the various ways of boosting your savings and investments during your retirement.

You’ve likely got enough money to lead a comfortable lifestyle, but it might not be enough to cover things like extravagant purchases or certain types of vacations. The following are some ideas you can follow to increase your net worth once you’ve retired:

#1: Downsize

You’ve probably got a large family home that you’ve lived in for several generations and one where you raised your family and watched your kids grow up and eventually leave to start independent lives.

Your family home is probably somewhat quieter than it used to be without so many family members in it. One common way to increase your net worth is by downsizing to a smaller and more manageable home.

When you make such a decision, you’ll have extra money available for your savings or to invest elsewhere. Plus, you won’t have to spend so much time cleaning or taking care of your home if you only live alone or with your spouse.

#2: Rent Out a Spare Room

Some retired people might prefer to keep their family homes and perhaps pass them onto future generations, especially if their homes got left in a loved one’s will.

You can still raise money from your property without having to sell, and one of the most practical ways to do that is by renting out a spare room.

More retired people enjoy renting out spare rooms in their homes for several reasons. Firstly, if they live alone, it means they can enjoy having activity in their homes once again.

Secondly, it’s a consistent source of passive income. Lastly, it’s also a chance to make new friends with like-minded tenants.

#3: Sell Anything Valuable That You Don’t Want

Most people acquire valuable possessions throughout their lives, and it’s not uncommon for some of those items to end up hidden away in a garage or attic, forgotten about for many years, and gathering dust.

The truth is, some of those assets can be extremely valuable, especially if they are certain items that have appreciated in value in recent years. With that thought in mind, it can make sense to sell those assets if you aren’t going to do anything with them.

You may discover that some long forgotten-about items are worth an absolute fortune today and can boost your net worth significantly, perhaps even to the point where you are leading a more than comfortable retirement.

#4: Start a Business

Just because you’ve retired doesn’t mean you can’t do things like running a business. Starting a new enterprise once you’ve retired can be the perfect way to both boost your net worth and keep yourself busy.

For example, you can launch a new business and provide overall direction while leaving the day-to-day operations to other people. You may even decide you’d like to have a more hands-on role, especially if you’ve got some technical expertise you’d like to offer.

The business you start could be with your grown-up children, and when you no longer feel like having an active role in the company, you can hand over the reins to your offspring.

#5: Offer Your Services to Inspire Young Minds

Another way to generate money once you’ve retired is by offering your services to inspire young minds. For example, if you’re fluent in one or more foreign languages, you could provide language tuition to college students or even adults hoping to improve their command of another language.

You could also offer services like business mentorship to people hoping to become successful entrepreneurs. There is literally a raft of ideas you could pursue to share your lifelong knowledge with others.

There are plenty of opportunities out there to earn a semi-passive income at your own pace.

#6: Consider New Investment Options

Retirement doesn’t mean you have to sit back and do nothing. It’s always a good idea to keep yourself busy, and one way you can do that while potentially boosting your net worth is by looking for new investment opportunities.

For example, you may decide to invest some of your savings into stocks and shares, or you could even invest in yourself by turning a passion or hobby into a potential business idea.

Some retirees even decide to indulge in Forex day trading, following price movements and buying and selling currency pairs when the markets move in their favor.

#7: Delay Taking Social Security Benefits (If Possible)

Are you lucky enough to have built up a reserve of money during your career? If so, you’re likely relying on that rather than anything else to support yourself financially during retirement.

It would help if you also took out social security benefits once you retire, as they can be an excellent way to increase your net worth. It’s possible to start taking social security benefits once you turn 62.

However, the downside with that approach is you end up with less money than if you had waited until you turned 70. Irrespective of when you’re eligible for social security benefits, it’s worth taking them to ensure your financial freedom during your golden years.

#8: Invest in Real Estate

Last but not least, if you have a sizeable amount of retirement savings, one popular way to make your money work is by purchasing one or more properties. Doing so will help you generate real estate rental income that you can use to boost your net worth.

What’s more, you could use the profit from your rental income to purchase other properties and keep following such an approach until you have an extensive property portfolio.

Another idea involving property investment that might interest you involves flipping – buying cheap properties, remodeling and fixing them, and then selling them for a healthy profit.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you’ll have taken away some practical suggestions and ideas to follow once you’ve retired, as they will help you boost your net worth and ensure you won’t have to worry about money when you’re no longer working.