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One option would be to see if you can find items to sell on Amazon or EBay.
The pet sitter and house sitter were good ideas especially if you live in an area with a lot of snow birds.
Shopping for those that can not shop for themselves.
Driving to the airport or port if you are in a good location for that. Be sure to check out your insurance.
Driving to doctor appointments etc.
In the long past I think I came across a site that linked independent contractors with people that needed their services. In effect you are working from home part time. You would need a skill like programing or maybe writing.
You can try market research firms that do telephone interviewing(not selling). Some will let you work from home if you have the internet.
Look for a telemarketing firm - selling.
I think some customer service functions are being done by work at home individuals. Airlines might be one of the Co's
I had an online shop on Etsy for several years mid-retirement, selling vintage items (I'm not the artisan/craftsy type) but of course that requires at least an initial investment to acquire things to sell.
I would not recommend ebay unless you've been through that experience before (and if so, you're probably either already selling there or wouldn't touch it again with a 10-foot pole, lol). Etsy is not an auction venue.
I know people who make a tidy bit of change selling on Etsy but they devote a lot of time to it. One of my friends has been selling vintage costume jewelry there for 10 years. At about the five-year mark she also opened a standalone website of her own, separate from her Etsy shop, so she has a revenue stream from that also.
My own experience was not as successful but that was partly because I'm not particularly fond of getting up at 7 a.m. on a wintry Saturday morning to stand in line for the opening of a 9 a.m. tag sale in hopes that there might be something there that was both suitable and profit-margin-affordable to acquire for my online shop. But my shop was fairly narrow in focus, compared to other sellers who were offering anything and everything and dealing in larger quantities (much of which was junk, IMHO) rather than aiming at a niche market like I was.
I have a retired friend who makes money by proofreading and editing papers for college students (she lives next to a college town and was a journalist in her younger days.)
OP, what are some of the things you enjoy doing and what are some things that you dislike? That's a good jumping-off point.
For example I could never do anything that involved cold-calling or any kind of in-person selling but I enjoy writing and photography and research and attention to detail, so the online shop was a good fit for me in some (but not all) respects.
Do you have a garage or attic full of stuff at home? If so, start sorting through it. Anything you have not needed or used in the past year becomes a possible item to sell. Sell on craigslist or ebay. For example, I had a 44 year old stereo receiver and turntable in excellent condition, both high quality. I don't use them anymore, I just listen to digital format music off my laptop or streaming. I found similar items selling for over $200 on ebay. I sold each of mine for about $200 each, in less than a couple of days. I have an old roll film, large format negative camera that I am going to sell next for about $200. You would be surprised what a market there is for certain items.
Do you have a garage or attic full of stuff at home? If so, start sorting through it. Anything you have not needed or used in the past year becomes a possible item to sell. Sell on craigslist or ebay. .... You would be surprised what a market there is for certain items.
I second that. I did sell on eBay for a couple of years under exactly those circumstances (it was in the late 1990s when things were not quite as crazy competitive there as they are today, lol) and one of the items was a saxophone that I initially listed for $75 after doing a cursory ebay search and finding most going for $100 or less. I immediately began getting messages from sellers offering me $150 to $200 to end the auction early and sell to them directly. Then I got a message from another ebayer tipping me off to the fact that this particular saxophone is very sought after by collectors and in pristine condition and original case (which it was) was currently worth at least $500 if not more. This person already had one so was correctly assuming that I didn't know what I had. I ended the auction, re-listed it with a $400 starting bid and detailed description, and it ultimately went for $750.
That experience taught me the value of always taking the time to thoroughly research whatever you have before you offer it for sale, because you never know.
In addition to stuff you may already own, you can ask family members and friends if there are things they'd like you to sell on their behalf. That can be a little tricky depending on how you agree to structure who gets how much of the resulting 'net', though.
OP, if you have a particular expertise in or knowledge of certain things, that's a good foundation to build on also.
I've had an Etsy shop for over 10 years. I love it and I make handcrafted signs ....my husband cuts the wood for me & I paint them. It's been a nice supplemental income.
I'm going to be doing transcribing from home. Have done this before while working my "real" job as an RN.
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