A Retiree in Florida Started This 'Fun' Remote Side Hustle Out of Boredom. Now She Makes Up to $3,000 a Week. When Chanda Torrey retired, she looked around for an enjoyable hobby that might also bring in some income. Now she's offering up her playbook to others.
By Frances Dodds •
Key Takeaways
- She turned her hobby into a profitable venture.
- At one point, she was "crying on the floor," but she learned how to channel that frustration into a business.
- She currently has products from well over 300 different websites.
If you're retired and looking for a remote side hustle — or you're still working, and want to make some extra cash — flexibility is probably a key component of what you're looking for. But also, spare time is too precious to spend your hours doing things you don't enjoy. All of those pieces clicked for Chanda Torrey, who retired in 2019 and now lives with her husband in Palm Beach, Florida. Torrey's side hustle started as a hobby, but it's become quite a profitable business. And she has a blast doing it. "I love that I can work anywhere in the world and I can take off any time I want," she says. "If I want to travel the world for a month, it's no problem."
Torrey was never one to sit around and twiddle her thumbs. Before retiring, she was the Chief Development Officer for the Red Cross, and an executive in the nonprofit space for almost two decades. She worked with the Peace Corps in Belize for over four years, living in a hatched hut in a rural village. So once Torrey stopped working, she needed something to keep her busy. "I was incredibly bored," she says, "so I started a blog of unique gifts for those who have everything." She called it Gifter World. "At first, I did it as a hobby to prevent myself from going crazy," she says. "But now I normally make about $1500 per week with Gifter World, and during the holidays, it goes up to around $3,000 or more per week."
Related: Retirees Are Earning Up to $20,000 Per Month With One Fully Remote Side Hustle
