Fast, cheap career changes that pay off
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Once they finish training, students may qualify for membership to Interior Redesign Industry Specialists, a home-staging association based in Chicago that lists members online and hosts training workshops nationwide.

In addition to training costs, home stagers usually invest a couple thousand dollars in basic household items like lamps, rugs and artwork that are available to lease to clients while their property is being staged.

"There's a system to this and almost anyone can learn," Dixon adds. "And the beauty of this job is that it can be done full time, part time or added to an existing career."

Personal chef
Plenty of wannabe restaurant chefs have discovered a less taxing but still satisfying alternative -- being a personal chef.

Personal chefs make roughly $50 to $60 an hour to cook, according to a study commissioned by American Personal & Private Chef Association, or APPCA. Rather than cooking for rich celebrities, they often prepare up to a week's worth of meals in a single session that busy families can heat up and eat later.

"We have a lot of recovering physicians and attorneys who became personal chefs," says Candy Wallace, executive director of APPCA. "Line cooking in a restaurant is a young person's game because of the crushing physicality of it. Being a personal chef is a way they can control their destiny and won't get killed in a commercial kitchen."

Food lovers who tend to become personal chefs "are already really, really adept in the kitchen," Wallace says. Skilled amateur cooks can transition into the profession without enduring years of training.

Potential personal chefs need to take a safe food-handling course and need to become certified by National Restaurant Association, since they could be liable if they make clients sick, says Wallace. Other highly recommended courses include knife skills and soups and sauces classes, both of which are offered by many community colleges.

"They're learning the same techniques as those taught by Culinary Institute of America but they're not taking them in a converted cloister or paying $20,000 to do it," says Wallace.

The American Personal Chef Association has an at-home training kit and workshops where newcomers can learn the business side of running and marketing personal chef services.

Jim Davis, 70, joined the ranks of personal chefs five years ago. A former international health care administrator, Davis is a lifelong amateur cook who adores food.

When his son, Bryan, signed up for cooking classes at a local community college, Davis tagged along.

Soon, he began to consider cooking for a living.

"I was having lunch with friends, and I told them about our plans and they said, 'Can you cook for us next week?'"

Within four months, Davis and his son had a steady stream of clients. Meals are prepared in their own commercial kitchen, where Davis and his son have since opened a small culinary school.

In most cases, however, personal chefs work in a client's home, bringing knives, ingredients and other utensils with them. Davis estimates he spent roughly $3,000 to fully stock his "portable" kitchen with top-of-the-line cookware and to join the APPCA.

For Davis, the career change has been a recipe made in heaven.

"People ask when I'm going to retire, but why would I?" he says.