Everyone Says to Go Into the Trades to Make Good Money. This 48-Year-Old Auto Mechanic With Worn-Out Knees Is Looking for a Way Out

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Young people worried about college debt, a difficult job market and AI replacing white-collar jobs are increasingly being told to skip the four-year degree and learn a trade . But what happens after you've spent nearly 30 years doing that trade and your body doesn't want to cooperate anymore?

That's the problem facing a 48-year-old Massachusetts man who spent most of his working life as an auto mechanic. In a recent post on Reddit , he said the job gave him valuable skills, but also "did no favors" for his knees. He's now looking for a realistic path to $80,000 to $120,000 a year without going back to school for four years or destroying what's left of his knees.

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Thirty Years of Experience, but Where Does It Go?

After leaving automotive work, the poster spent about six years driving for Uber (NYSE: UBER ) and Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT ), with employment gaps partly caused by family responsibilities. He later explained that he had moved back to Cambridge from Las Vegas because his mother and sister needed his help.

"I just was stuck in a loop for a few years," he wrote.

Today, he buys undervalued items at estate sales and auctions and resells them online. He has also built a 30-plus-page WordPress website focused on New England events. Neither provides reliable full-time income, although reselling is something he clearly enjoys.

"The reselling from estate sales I thoroughly enjoy," he wrote, adding that he'd eventually love to own enough land to store inventory and hold barn sales.

His bigger goal is to buy a modest home with several acres in New Hampshire, Vermont or Maine while also catching up on retirement savings. He doesn't want commission sales, delivery driving or another physically demanding trade, and he isn't interested in borrowing heavily for a degree.

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That combination of needing more income, wanting to build retirement savings and hoping to eventually own property can make real estate seem especially out of reach. But owning an entire rental isn't the only way to invest in it.

Arrived lets you buy fractional shares of professionally selected rental properties starting with as little as $100. The company handles tenants, maintenance and the other work that comes with being a landlord, while you can receive monthly dividends from rental income and potentially benefit if properties grow in value over time. For someone who has already spent decades earning money with his hands, it offers a way to add real estate to a portfolio without taking on another hands-on job.