House Sitting Secrets To Save More Money For Retirement

House sitting to save money for retirement is not usually one of the ways we are encouraged to prepare for our golden years. Initially, I thought the only way to save for retirement was in traditional retirement accounts. Saving vehicles like defined benefit plans or 401(k) plans through an employer. Oh, and also Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA).

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However, when you are behind in saving for retirement, you must look for creative ways to increase the size of your nest egg. That is exactly what I had to do, as I did not start saving for retirement until my 50s. You might think that aggressively saving to catch up retirement accounts will leave little room for fun. Not true! You can have a great time traveling, while spending very little.

This is where house sitting comes in. My husband and I have completed over 15 house sits in five states since 2021. House sitting gave us the freedom to travel without having to pay for hotels, saving us over $13,000. We then redirected those savings to retirement accounts. Yes, you can still travel while saving more for retirement, and house sitting can help you do it! 

Insider Secrets For Boosting Retirement Savings Through House Sitting

House Sitting Allows You To Dial In On Value-Based Spending

One of the strategies of the Financially Independent Retire Early (FIRE) crowd is the use of value-based spending. The idea behind this is to consciously choose to spend money only on the things that are important to you.

When you slash spending on things you don’t really care about, it frees up money to invest. This is how you find more money to add to your retirement savings. It’s a powerful tool if you are trying to catch up retirement savings after a late start.

In the words of Paula Pant, host of the Afford Anything podcast, “You can afford anything, but not everything.”

When we were behind in saving for retirement, we still wanted to travel, but knew we couldn’t do it all. We could not afford to save for retirement, travel, AND stay in the most luxurious hotels. Instead, we spent our limited travel dollars getting to destinations and then doing house sits in exchange for free places to stay.

Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich and host of the Netflix documentary series How To Get Rich agrees. “Frugality, quite simply, is about choosing the things you love enough to spend extravagantly on – and then cutting costs mercilessly on the things you don’t love.”

Travel Hacking Can Help Redirect Money To Savings

House sitting to save money for retirement is a unique way to enjoy traveling while freeing up extra cash to invest. You can travel for less and redirect the money you save to your retirement accounts.

House sitting is a travel hack, but it’s not the only one. Racking up credit card points for free travel is another. My husband and I swore off credit cards for years after getting out of debt. However, if you pay off your credit card bills in full each month, it’s an option. Collecting points can help you score free flights and hotel stays, too.  

Travel programs that rely on volunteers often provide a free place to stay, as well. In fact, there are many ways to save money on travel expenses and/or travel for free.

The point is you can still travel and save money for retirement. Just make sure you remember to invest all that extra money you saved in your retirement accounts!

House Sitters Are Masters Of Geoarbitrage

Another strategy of the Financially Independent Retire Early (FIRE) movement is “geoarbitrage” which refers to geographic arbitrage. It takes advantage of the low cost of living in various places around the United States and even the world. Basically, by visiting or living in a more affordable place, you can get more bang for your buck.

It’s not uncommon to find house sits lasting several months or more, in areas that are beautiful to visit yet less expensive. A lengthier house sit will allow you to immerse yourself in the local community. This gives a richer experience of the places you visit. Longer house sits work well for anyone who has the option to work remotely.

If your job is not remote, house sitting can still be an option for weekend trips and vacations. I have found house and pet sitting gigs help make travel quite affordable, especially in lower cost of living areas. Save even more by making some of your own meals and exploring free things to do.

For those who are still working to catch up retirement savings, house sitting is the perfect way to save extra money for investing, while enjoying the benefits of travel. Choosing a house sit in a lower cost of living area helps you continue to travel while spending less on food and entertainment. Plus, you get a free place to stay!

What Is House Sitting?

House sitting is becoming more popular, but you still might not have heard of it. My husband and I regularly run into people who are surprised to learn that we are house sitters. We travel around the country, sleeping in other people’s beds and watching their pets.

We do this through an organization called Trusted Housesitters. It allows us to connect with home owners in need of someone to care for their home and pets while they are away. We don’t earn any money with house sitting. I think it’s quite nice to trade pet care for a free place to stay, however.

What Do House Sitters Do?

Although it’s called house sitting, 99% of all house sitting arrangements typically require animal care. Your responsibility as a house sitter is to make sure the pets are well cared for in the home owner’s absence.

That includes providing all animals with their usual food, water, and treats (if allowed) on schedule. Sitters are expected to clean up after pets. Yes, I’m talking about cleaning litter boxes and picking up poop in the yard.

Other tasks may include brushing fluffy kitties or cleaning muddy dog paws. Or if you’re doing a sit with farm animals, possibly mucking out barn stalls. You’ll definitely spend time exercising and playing with a variety of cute animals.

Best of all, you get to give loving care and enjoy the companionship of adorable pets sure to steal your heart!

Home Owner Expectations And Responsibilities

It’s important to understand a home owner’s top priority when looking for a suitable house sitter. It is always going to be ensuring the comfort and safety of their precious pets. That is why they are looking for a house sitter in the first place. Their pets will be less stressed and happier in their own environment, rather than being boarded at a kennel.

Of course, the home owner will also expect you to leave their home in the same condition you found it in when you arrived. Clean up after yourself! Some home owners might ask you to take out trash cans on garbage pick up day or water their plants.

All pet food and supplies are provided by the home owner. They will also usually have an account set up with a local vet in case of a pet emergency. Home owners are responsible for sharing all the important information about their pets and home with the house sitter. Most home owners create a Welcome Guide with detailed home and pet information, as well as emergency contacts.

Why You Should Consider House Sitting To Save Money For Retirement

If you’re a visitor to this site, there’s a pretty good chance you found it because you were looking for ways to catch up your retirement savings after a late start. 

As late savers ourselves, my husband and I could not afford to travel without finding a way to make it less expensive. Most of my income was going right to retirement savings, which left little money for travel.

However, by taking care of homes and pets while their owners are away, we’ve been able to travel far and wide without the expense of accommodations. While we also enjoy trying new restaurants, we save money by making most meals ourselves during a house sit.

Not only does house sitting save money by eliminating the cost of lodging, but you can save a ton by preparing your own meals and snacks. You are staying in someone’s home and will usually have access to their kitchen. Many of the house sits we’ve done have featured gourmet kitchens with every tool imaginable for whipping up delicious culinary delights!

Pro Tip: We also only accept house sits that have working washers and dryers so we can do our laundry for free before leaving. Although it’s often not required, we like to wash all the bed linens and towels we’ve used, too. That way the homeowner isn’t burdened with extra laundry chores when they return.       

How To Get Started As A House Sitter

Getting started as a house sitter is as simple as signing up for a membership with a house sitting platform like Trusted Housesitters. Next step is to create your sitter profile, and begin applying for house sits!

It takes a minimal amount of time to set up your profile. However, be aware that you may need a little time to complete a background check and gather personal references. Taking a few updated photos to include on your profile, especially of you with animals, is a nice touch. Overall, though, it’s relatively easy to get started with house sitting.

Basic Vs. Premium Membership

A basic membership with a detailed sitter profile that highlights your pet experience, along with a few good personal references will take you far in securing sits.

Premium memberships offer more services and perks, such as access to live video calls with a veterinarian, sit cancellation insurance, or airport lounge passes. A premium membership plan might give you an extra sense of security when traveling to other countries.

However, you don’t need to pay extra for a premium membership to secure pet sits. Home owners care more about how you are with animals. They get a feel for that from reading your references and reviews.

Top House Sitting Platforms

Although there are numerous house and pet sitting platforms, a few long established companies include House Carers, Mind My House, Nomador, and Trusted HouseSitters. My only experience is with Trusted Housesitters. So, that is the one I will talk about here.

By the way, it can help to pick one house sitting site to use exclusively. This will help you quickly build up an impressive list of positive reviews in one place. Having 15 positive reviews on one platform is better than a couple of reviews scattered over several sites.

Trusted Housesitters

Since 2010, Trusted HouseSitters has been helping home owners gain peace of mind knowing their precious pets are in good hands. Sitters exchange their time and care for a temporary place to stay. With 180k+ members, Trusted Housesitters is the largest site, offering worldwide house sitting opportunities.

By design, no money exchanges hands between home owners and sitters. Both parties pay a yearly membership fee to Trusted Housesitters, however. There are three membership levels: Basic, Standard, and Premium.

The Basic membership is $129 per year, while the Standard membership is $169 per year. A Premium membership will cost you $259 per year. We joined with a basic membership and that has worked just fine for us.

House Sitting To Save Money For Retirement: Our Experience With Trusted Housesitters

As I shared in the introduction, house sitting gave my husband and I the freedom to travel without having to pay for hotels. In the four years we’ve been house sitting, we saved over $13,000 on travel accommodations. That almost covered the maximum IRA contributions for both of us, for one year!

We started out with Trusted Housesitters and never looked back. It has been a terrific experience! Every single one of our house sits has been very positive. We get accepted for most of the sits we apply to. In fact, we have to turn down some of the sits we’re invited to. We get invited to more sits than we can do!

One reason we’ve been successful with Trusted Housesitters is because we try to go above and beyond for our house sits. We leave every house cleaner than we found it, with happy animals. Plus, we have created a stellar house sitter profile.

Create A Sparkling House Sitter Profile

Your sitter profile is one of the most important tools you have for securing a great house sit. It’s your calling card, a chance to make a good impression. It acts as your pet care resume, detailing your expertise and reliability in caring for pets and homes. Your profile even lets you share fun pictures of yourself with animals!

Fill In The Blanks To Help Home Owners Get To Know You

When using a platform like Trusted Housesitters, creating a sitter profile is as easy as filling in the blanks. Write about your experience caring for pets and homes. Tell a little bit about yourself, including why you want to house sit. It helps potential home owners get to know you.

Gather References

Ideally, you want to include some personal references who can speak glowingly about your experience with animals. Maybe you have watched a friend’s or family member’s pet while they went on vacation. If so, have them write a reference for you! Aim to get 3 or 4 personal references if you can.

Include Photos

There is no doubt about it, pictures tell a story! What story do you want your photos to convey to prospective home and pet owners? A smiling face conveys your friendliness. Photos of you playing with cats or dogs indicate you are an animal lover, with the energy to keep the home owner’s pets entertained.

Pro Tip: Take photos of yourself in natural light, preferably outside. Include pictures of yourself interacting with animals. Keep the background clean and simple, free from clutter or distractions.

Include as many photos as the platform will let you! Trusted Housesitters allows you to upload twelve photos, so be sure to take advantage and use all twelve spots.

How To Avoid Problems

When I’m looking for a potential house and pet sit, I consider the look of the home (in photos provided in the listing). I pass on listings with photos of dirty, cluttered rooms. In addition, I like to check reviews of previous sitters. It helps me determine if the sit is likely to be a good fit before I apply.  

Once a home owner expresses interest in response to my application, we’ll set up a video interview. This gives me a chance to ask any questions. Open, positive communication before and during the house sit are key elements to a good experience.

Be self-sufficient, with a can-do attitude. If you find yourself in a less than stellar house sit environment, just remember, it’s temporary. You’ll soon be on your way to a much better sit.

Also, be prepared for the unexpected! Things can happen to turn travel upside down, such as a global pandemic. Or a tech outage like the CrowdStrike update which caused worldwide disruptions. Have a back up plan when traveling to and from house sits.

Embrace The Adventure Of House Sitting To Save Money For Retirement

House sitting can be a great strategy for affordable travel as you work on catching up retirement savings. You won’t feel deprived because house sitting allows you to cut expenses without reducing the joy of travel.

As a late starter on the road to retirement, I’ve found house sitting offers a unique way to free up money. More money for investing! It’s allowed me to travel and explore places I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford. At the same time, I could continue working on catching up my retirement savings.

Whether you’re looking for a way to catch up savings after a late start, too, or you just want to save money, house sitting and pet sitting can serve as your golden ticket. Explore new places and enjoy adventures with adorable animal companions . All while continuing to save for retirement.

Got $9? Get the guide and start house sitting to save money for retirement!

Ready to get started with house and pet sitting? Get my Quick Start Guide To House Sitting for just $9, coming out in September (delayed slightly by my trip to Alaska)!