According to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, the median amount of retirement savings for someone in their 60s is $172,000 (median means that half have more than this, and half have less).

Using the standard 4 percent withdrawal rate advocated by many financial planners, that means a retiree with $172,000 could take out about $6,880 a year, or $573 a month

But an unexpected expense — medical bill or an unexpected car repair — could blow a retiree's financial plan to pieces.

It's no wonder that many retirees and soon-to-be retirees are considering a side hustle to navigate the financial hurdles.

Carmen Bianco, 60, of Connoquenessing plans to retire in two years from his job producing local programming for the Armstrong Cable Channels 10 and 100.

But before he does, he hopes to get his leather-working business profitable.

“I took up leather working about a year ago,” he said. “I was looking for a wallet and couldn't find one I liked.

“So I made my own. My son wanted a sheath for his knife. I was getting more and more requests from friends,” Bianco said, which gave him the idea leather work could become an alternate source of income when he did pull the plug on his working career.

Startup costs were minimal. He watched lessons and instruction videos on YouTube and on the Internet.

His tools included a box-cutter type knife, edge bevelers, pricking irons to make holes in the leather and needle and thread.

He's even created a niche market for his wares: wallets made out of old baseball mitts.

“I really enjoy working with old baseball gloves. I make wallets out of the leather from the palms of the gloves,” Bianco said.

He said the leather is smooth and supple from use and easy to work with.

He got started on this particular specialty when Seneca Valley High School alumnus Matt Smith, a pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers minor league affiliate the Carolina Mudcats, asked Bianco to make a wallet out of Smith's first baseball glove.

“You can take a wallet from a glove and pass it down to your children,” he said.

Now, he looks through flea markets and secondhand stores for old baseball glove that he can convert into wallets.

When he's not getting his raw material from Rawlings and Wilson, Bianco gets his leather from Tuscany, Italy.

In addition to wallets, Bianco converts leather into sheaths and journal and notebook covers.

He estimates it takes him six hours to complete an item; eight to 10 hours if he's making it from an old baseball glove.

The extra time for a glove is spent defacing and pulling it apart.

After the future item's pattern is laid out, it's cut out, stitched and given a finishing rub with a leather conditioner.

Then the almost-finished product is stitched together.

“I can do that watching television or listening to music,” he said.

He says he can devote five or six hours a week to his leather-working side business.

“I hope to generate a little extra income. I don't know how much an opportunity it will be,” he said. “I'm trying to break even. I'm nowhere near making a profit.”

But he has hope and some time before retirement to build up his clientele.

He's got an Instagram page, “Bianco Leather,” that he thinks is generating some buzz.

“The more that people see it, people give it a lot of interest,” Bianco said.