After meeting Dani and decided that we would embark on some sort of cruising sabbatical, it became apparent that our land anchored lives would have to change in many ways to facilitate our burgeoning dream.
On the top of the list were two main things. What will we do about our jobs? And what will I do about my house?
Dani didn't own a home but I had purchased my second house and settled in. At the time I thought the idea of cruising was out of reach because I didn't want to
cruise alone and the caliber of woman I was
hunting courting would NEVER agree to the cruising lifestyle. But the unthinkable happened and I found myself in the position that allowed me to have a mate and to
head off to sea. But now I was saddled with a beautiful home.
Rent or Sell?
The eternal question. For me personally the answer was to try to sell. I come from a long line of
family members that attempted rental properties over the years and every one of them had been burned. The idea of a tenant destroying my home while I'm in some far off place haunted me. The alternative was to put my home up
for sale in a hostile market.
Dreams are never easy. I did put my house up
for sale. It sat on the market for upwards of four months with not even an offer. I did have some nuns come and try to rent it. It was tempting. What better tenant could one ask for than retired nuns? (I didn't know they retired.)
Dani and I budgeted diligently and decided on a maximum loss that we could sustain and still comfortably meet our time table for casting off. Finally, 5 months after hitting the market I got an offer and signed a
purchase agreement that would end with me taking a hit of around 10k.
I found the 10k loss acceptable to make my dream a reality. What are you willing or able to sacrifice to adopt the cruising lifestyle?
In some ways, the time it takes to
refit the
boat we are working on could be said to have more value than the loss on the house. It could also be said that the time we spend away from
work in our prime earning years would also be much MUCH more valuable. But in the end the loss on the
sale of my home hurts me more than those two combined. Why is this? What part of our psyche makes that determination. I believe it must be because I have fun working on our old
boat and the dream of leaving appeals to me so greatly the sacrifice of working time doesn't bother me.
On some level, a couple our age with solid and upwardly mobile career paths would need to be irrational to leave. But on some level I also find it liberating to take that path regardless of the faulty logic.
What has been your hardest sacrifice in the monetary arena? Are you settled with it? How did you cope with the reality of that sacrifice?
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions