How Long Did You Save to Go Cruising?

[Southern Star]

Stillraining, perhaps your should change your moniker to 'stillsunny.' It is so refreshing to hear from a dreamer who recognizes that there is also joy in providing for the needs of those who matter most - even if it means some self-sacrifice.

You will get to your 'blue lagoons' - and when you do, you will have done so on your own terms. Not on the backs of, or to the detriment of your wife and family. You will be embarking of a voyage to another place, rather than escaping from one. And I can't help but think that the prospects are better for a cruiser who has proven that he can cope with what life dishes out, rather than one who has chosen to run away from it.

Brad

[anotherT34C]

Originally Posted by mesquaukee

Perhaps instead of saving so we can go cruising in our old age we should find something we could do in our old age so we can go cruising when we are young.

Which is more valuable at 85, wealth or memories.

The first line holds quite a bit of wisdom, I think.

Not ever having been 85, I can't comment on the second.

[barnakiel]

I think the greatest investment into cruising life is getting oneself a job that can support this way of life throughout time and across continents. Then one can start cruising early and keep on going as long as they like it.

The second best thing is probably making, or inheriting, the first million, early.

b.

[hummingway]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

The second best thing is probably making, or inheriting, the first million, early.

b.

Damn, why didn't I think of that when I was young!

[blueayes]

Never too late. I turn 64 this year, bought the boat last year, the Admiral finishes med school next spring and I retire in 2011. We then start heading out. Being older has its advantages in that some things that bothered me don't anymore. Older is better. Life is good.

[hummingway]

Except for the aches and pains I'm with you on that Steve.

[delmarrey]

I spent most of my years and fortune on pretty boats and fast woman, or was that fast boats and pretty woman. Anyway, the rest I just wasted.
And I'd probably do it all over again, just different boats.

[Doodles]

Get this book and read it. Its a classic and your answer is in it, and it may not be what you think.

Amazon.com: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century (9780143115762): Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, Monique Tilford: Books

[barnakiel]

No, better get this one:

Amazon.com: Your Money or Your Boat: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with the Sea and Achieving Cruising Independence: Revised and updated for the 22nd Century and Beyond (78568736876): Lippy Barnakiel, Chio Hiu Fung and Joshua Slocum: Books

b.

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by hummingway

Except for the aches and pains I'm with you on that Steve.

is why god invented warmer water and boats ..LOL...just keep sailing....sailing keeps ye young--

[Stillraining]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

No, better get this one:

Amazon.com: Your Money or Your Boat: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with the Sea and Achieving Cruising Independence: Revised and updated for the 22nd Century and Beyond (78568736876): Lippy Barnakiel, Chio Hiu Fung and Joshua Slocum: Books

b.

LOL.....Cant wait till its on the store shelves!..get cracking Lippy..


Thanks SothernStar..

[ViribusUnitis]

Originally Posted by anotherT34C

Hope you make it. Back of the envelope, you'll need to sock away about 160K/yr to make it happen... and that's to give you the ~25K/yr you think you'll need. I hope you don't get discouraged if things take longer than you hope.

You remind me a bit of a dude, Sean (sully) who used to post pretty often around here. He might be useful to look up and gather advice from. As I remember it, he seemed pretty adept at doing what you're planning. Maybe someone here knows where he went off to?

I'm probably working the math a little diffrently than you are. While I might have enough money to buy a new production yacht, I have no desire for a new production yacht. I'm not particulay fond of the look of them, and I'm REALLY not fond of the price tag. Expecally if I'm going to have to spend sigificant amounts of cash to get them ready for crusing.

I am rather handy with the rest of my life, so I see no reason why this should be diffrent. I've always had used cars, always done a bit of mechenic work, and I can weld. I'm not looking for a "fixer up-er" but a reasonably used vessel seems to offer many advantages to me. Anything in steel, fiberglass, or ferrocement I'm comfertable with. About the only thing I REALLY dislike is a wood hull. I just don't trust it. To each his own I guess. At least for me, I think that works the math much better in my favor.

I'm in no hurry, so I'm working under the assumption that between now and the time I want to make this happen, I'll get ahold of a used boat. I won't even be in the market for at least another year, so I've got plenty of time to look, test, and think. I honestly have no intention of buying the boat untill about the time I'm ready to stop working. I see no point is having a huge pile of cash sitting on the water, sucking up more cash in maintance and morring fees, when I can't enjoy it. Again, I think that works the math in my favor.

I also like to think of myself as a savy investor. It could be just my ego talking, but I lost nothing in the 2008 stock market crash. I didn't have the guts to short stuff on the way down. I made a bit in the 2009 stock market rebound. Not as much as some did, but enough to put a smile on my face. I did lose some money in my house, but no worse than what it would have been if I'd have rented. (rents were rather high and housing prices were LOW where I was.) If I can repeat what I've done for the last 3 years over the next 3 years, I'll be REALLY good, but I'm not counting on that though. Again, I like to think that puts things in my favor.

Goinsail makes a very good point about "what happens when you come back."

Honestly I don't know. I've thought about it, but I've never had a plan more than 5 years into the future. It's just to dang hard to figure out what might happen, and what I might want at that time. I know a few things. I will take care of my wife. I will always put food on the table, and a roof over our heads, and do my best to keep us together. When we have kids, I will take care of them. I will keep in touch with my family, and hers. But how to know when we've had "enough"? I don't know. I don't intend to really "go" anywhere special. Circumnavigation? I don't think I want to do that, but it might be diffrent when I actualy get on the water. I know I want to go to the Carabean Islands for a while. I'd also like to see Europe by boat. At some point my wife and I will want to go "home". I don't have a CLUE where "home" is for us. She was an airforce brat, and has no "hometown". I had a small home town, but in the last 8 years since I really left home it's changed so much, it's not really home anymore. The city grew out to meet it, and changed everything. When I go "home" I don't think I'll go there.

I know one reason to call it quits is when the money runs out. When I do go curising I will have a fund for "retirement" when I'm 60. That fund will remain fully funded, with no exceptions. I know I WILL have health problems when I'm old. I have at least one genetic based dease that WILL catch up to me when I'm in my 60s. I KNOW I can not depend on working much past that point. My great great grandad and my great aunt died of it. My grandmother has it, as do my dad, and all of my brothers. Sometime it complete wrecks your health, sometimes it does almost nothing. I have to expect it will try to wreck my health, and preper for that. If it doesn't, then myself, my wife, and my children (hopefuly) will be better off for it. If it does, at least I'll be roughly ready.

As far as finding a way to work while on a boat, it's a great idea but I'm not sure how to do it. I know people do charter work, but that looks miserable to me. I've thought about being a writer, but my writen language skills are rough. (notice my spelling here!) Maybe I could work on that. Some people trade stock, bonds, and foreign exchange and make money at it. I don't think I have the skills to really be able to count on that. I might find "light" work as a yacht mechanic, or something. There are too many horror stories of sorry mechenics on the forum, so I figure I could be at least as good as most of them. However, I don't want to depend on that for more than light spending money. I guess many things are possible, but you don't know what will work untill you try it.

In anycase, I thank you for the information and the perspective. This is the way I look at it all. To each his own.

[captain58sailin]

I started cruising early as a young man. I then went to work to be able to afford another vessel to take me to my dreams. While working in Florida, I met a number of senior citizens that remarked "When I was young I wanted to go to Alaska, then I got married, then I got children, then I got too old." this was after they found out I was from Alaska. Those people had worked all of their lives providing for their families and producing a retirement for themselves and they ended up walking corpses waiting to fall over, they had nothing left. I vowed that I would never become one of those people. I was also running charter boats in Alaska, and I had chance to observe a man in his late sixties, who was obviously down on his luck trying to cage a job as a deck hand on one of the boats, and I vowed that I would never allow myself to be in that position as well. I have also watched the good folks at Enron and other places put in 40 years of their lives and had it all snatched away by the greed heads. I have tried to strike a happy medium, I hate to trade my life for little bits of green paper. I think there is much to be said for finding a warm spot on the beach and watching the sun go up & down and let the rest of it flow. I am now in my 50s and in the next 2 to 3 years, I will be stepping off, with a retirement income and the vessel that I will retire & die on, happily. And if the occasion arises that I need to cage a deck hand job, then I will, with head held high. It's not what you do, it's how you do it.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by anotherT34C

"Do it now, because you might get hit by a bus tomorrow" isn't an argument that I find all that persuasive. When you're dead, there are no 'coulda, shoulda' regrets because... well... you're dead. If I die a month after retirement, I won't regret it... I won't anything it.

What I know I would regret, is if I found myself 85 years old and realizing that I hadn't planned properly to live that long, back whan I was 35.

Every time I see the age "85" mentioned in a discussion like this, I remember this quote that was given to me at the end of an Outbound course:

If I Had My Life to Live Over (by Nadine Stair - at age 85)

"If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies."

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Doodles

If I Had My Life to Live Over (by Nadine Stair - at age 85)

"If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies."

Kinda reminds me of a conversation I had with me Father 20 years ago (and which he still likes to retell at 75).....I told him that he should start spending the money enjoying himself, cos' I intended to be p#ssing it up against a wall A pretty safe encouragement on my part given hard to shake off a frugal nature - but he is now very glad he took my advice in part given he spent much of that time with my (now late) brother as crew around the ports of Northern France. (they did that anyway, but they did a lot more). A good life, for both

Old Age? Not everyone gets one of those...........