Tuesday, February 11, 2014 was a perfect weather day … sunny and about 78 degrees in Tampa, Florida.
I visited Busch Gardens in Tampa and had a chance to chat briefly with 76-year old Paul Revere of the late 1960’s American rock band “Paul Revere & The Raiders”. Paul is still working and he appears to be having lots of fun in the process. Paul says he is collecting social security. Paul’s left arm was in a sling as he recently had surgery on a shoulder rotating cuff. He was playing the keyboard with only his right hand while sitting most of the time on stage on a stool. His base guitar player (Ron Foos) has had two knee replacements. The band members are aging, but they can still move around pretty good. Their next stop is Cactus Pete’s Resort Casino in Jackpot, Nevada.
Field services is a good part-time career for seniors. The idea is to stay close to home and work on a flexible schedule. Pick the best fun inspections provided by the higher quality firms that pay the higher fees and make some extra money to pay bills or buy some new toys. Perform inspections, but leave some time to also have some fun in your senior years. They are more inspectors over 65 years than inspectors under 25 years.
SOFIBlog.com ... 352-324-6042 Florida 
I wish I could find those “higher quality firms that pay higher fees” you always talk about. A $40 to $50 fee to do an insurance inspection that takes thirty minutes to drive to the location, thirty minutes to an hour to do the inspection, take 10 to 20 or more photo’s, upload them to the computer and then complete six or more pages of reports and write a narrative to be uploaded on a web site does not result in a very good income per hour.
I perform a business verification. Ten minutes onsite and 3 digital photographs with a one-page check-the-box form. It paid $35. I was on my way to Lowes … the inspection was on the way. I performed some other inspections on my way home. I saved 10% on my purchase at Lowes. Organized inspecting has it rewards. Life is an experiment. You look for the good while you avoid the bad.
I have been doing insurance, business verifications, credit report verifications and a few other types of inspections for two years in a large metropolitan area. Seldom are locations close by. I always route them as efficiently as possible to reduce drive time but at the end of the day inspections just don’t pay much when reduced to an hourly basis. I did three inspections today and drove a total of 95 miles. I did four inspections yesterday and drove 78 miles. The best jobs I’ve found are door knock jobs to leave a letter for a past due loan customer. They pay $25 and require delivering the letter, a photo of the house or apartment and a very short less than one page report. Only problem is those jobs are very few and far between. All the inspections are erratic and I never know if or when the next one will come in. My largest customer when I started was sending me four or five insurance inspections a day but last year the volume started to dwindle toward then end of the year and now I’m lucky if I get one order per month from them. They just aren’t getting requests for inspections from their customers this area for some reason.