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Old 30-01-2015, 05:50   #1
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What Pays The Bills?

I'm and engineer for a power company with aspirations of investing in real estate to supplement my income enough to purchase a cruising catamaran and eventually move aboard full time.

I'd love to know what you all do or did for a career that allowed you to live your sailing dream.

Tom
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Old 30-01-2015, 06:04   #2
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

E.g.

- a handful of bungalows for rent in Thailand,
- a handful of apartments for rent in London,
- freelance consultancy,
- online trading,
- writing,
- fly-in boat repair and building,
- software development,

etc.

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Old 30-01-2015, 06:07   #3
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tscott8201 View Post
I'm and engineer for a power company with aspirations of investing in real estate to supplement my income enough to purchase a cruising catamaran and eventually move aboard full time.

I'd love to know what you all do or did for a career that allowed you to live your sailing dream.

Tom
Work hard and don't blow your money on the latest model car, expensive vacations, dining in fine restaurants, etc. Or as a friend of mine puts it, "live below your means."

I can't say I have a sailing dream because I have a powerboat and a land based home. Yet I can set off in my boat for cruises when I want to.

So to answer your question directly, I was an electronic technician for a large public school system and a few years before retirement I moved to IT in one of the large schools. My school system retirement plan plus additional retirement investment left me with an annual income equal to what I had when I was working but without the expenses of going to work.
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Old 30-01-2015, 06:24   #4
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Get a job then buy the boat you can afford, or the one you will actually use enough to get your money's worth.

Check the marinas before buying. There are lots of very nice "cruising" boats that are only used for daysailing.

Some actually live on their boats and that is their "house" payment. If your money situation is that tight though, you better hope boating/sailing works for you.
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Old 30-01-2015, 06:37   #5
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

I should clarify, I am well on the way to reaching my goals. I have a plan and I'm working it. I'd like to know what you all do for a career currently, or what you did before setting off to the sea. I think it's interesting to see the paths that different folks take to get to where they want to be.

Tom
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Old 30-01-2015, 07:22   #6
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

I planned my early retirement out a long time ago. I worked as a federal agent and retired at 51. My annuity and my IRA (TSP) savings fund (and my wife's private annuity and IRA savings), bought our boat and fund our cruising. And, I have a law degree, so I do some free lance legal work for people between cruises.

We are scheduled to leave on our next one, May 1st. The good thing about having plenty of cruising cash is that we can keep our house so we have a place to go back to when we are done.
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Old 30-01-2015, 07:25   #7
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

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I planned my early retirement out a long time ago. I worked as a federal agent and retired at 51. My annuity and my IRA (TSP) savings fund (and my wife's private annuity and IRA savings), bought our boat and fund our cruising.

We are scheduled to leave on our next one, May 1st. The good thing about having plenty of cruising cash is that we can keep our house so we have a place to go back to when we are done.

I agree with you on keeping the house. I don't mind the idea of selling everything and sailing off into the sunset, but with kids and family on the mainland I can't imagine doing it until they are well grown. Besides, I am a country boy at heart and like having grass under my feet on occasion.

Tom
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Old 30-01-2015, 07:34   #8
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Lived with in our means during the child rearing years. Began working for the government for lower comparable wages but better pension. Always maxed 401K or equivalent. Retired at 55 moved to Florida to a canal home and began teaching high school (television productions) for 8 years saving every cent we could.
I was in television production for the government and started my own business on the side which made a few extra bucks
Wife was a teacher and gets a pension from our hime state and taught in Florida for 9 years.

Between 2 pensions Social Security, and money we have invested we will be OK because we can always cut back. That's something we practiced all of our married lives and seems to be the big secret.
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Old 30-01-2015, 07:42   #9
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Made a deal with the kids that I brought them into my pawnbrokering business, taught them how to run it they would support me the rest of my life. Its worked for over ten years now. They just keep sending money! Bless their hearts.
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Old 30-01-2015, 08:08   #10
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Have always lived below my means...old cars, eat in, etc.
Federal public servant with 30+ years..will work for another few yrs for a comfortable indexed pension. Five years ago I calculated my pension income, have been living on that amount and banking the difference since. I'm acclimatized to retirement income and have a nice nest egg.
Also renovated and flipped several properties in 20 years-mostly waterfront. Not even a recent divorce will torpedo my plans...
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Old 30-01-2015, 08:36   #11
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Traded a house for boat and continue to work from the boat for a software company. Not yet ready to retire or take off since we still have kids to get through college and boat to pay off but my office space is much improved! Hoping to take off by early to mid-50s but cannot predict the future. So we enjoy what we can now.
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Old 30-01-2015, 08:53   #12
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

My wife and I are in our mid 20's with pretty nice corporate gigs where we are rising pretty quickly with no debt other than basic mortgage. We are following in the foot steps of our family members and some of the people that posted here by taking advantage of company 401K match, maxing our Roth IRA, investing the rest of our "play" money in single or multi-unit rental properties that have cap rates between 6-13%, and being conservative in our life style. Even if our retirement portfolios only provide marginal returns, we expect to have around 15-20 properties by our mid-40's that will be producing approximately $4-7K of conservative NPAT that will partially fund our kids college with the rest financing our monthly cruising.
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Old 30-01-2015, 09:06   #13
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Engineer. Work hard, get promoted, buy real estate, sell and buy more. Luck.
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Old 30-01-2015, 09:08   #14
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

I began serious sailing on big boats when I was 24 and immediately made a commitment to do whatever was necessary to retire by age 50 and go sailing on a full time basis.

When I started my first well paying job at age 26 an older engineer spent a lot of time beating four things into my head:

1) buy real estate cheaply and sell it for a big profit (During the next 15 years I turned a borrowed $5,000 into a real $125,000)

2) invest in our company stock because the company would match my purchase up to 7% of my gross salary. I did that for seven years and then continued when I owned my own company.

3) don't spend much money on toys and vacations until I had fully funded my retirement account for the year. I knew how much money I needed to have in 1998 when I wanted to retire. So - it was easy to figure out how much to invest each year.

4) Marry a woman with a good solid job and income. I did marry my grad-school sweetheart who planned to be an elementary school teacher but was recruited into a far more lucrative career that she stayed in for 35 years.

I started my own consulting company in 1984 and was able to charge a very high daily rate for my rather esoteric skills. My wife also had a job that paid very well and we structured our lives to use only her income for our living expenses including mortgages and car loans.

Because I owned my company I was able to create a SEP (Simple Employee Pension) Plan and put up to 25% of my gross income into each year without paying tax on that income.

During the 1974 - 1999 timeframe we actively saved about 30% of our annual gross income every year.

I actively managed both my SEP and my wife's 457(c) deferred comp plan. We were very aggressive in our choices of investments we made. Those two accounts averaged about a 12% return (net after inflation) on investment each year - which means the accounts doubled about every six-years. Some years were scary in their losses, e.g. 1987, but we stayed the aggressive course and the accounts grew nicely.

The other MAJOR life choice we made was to not have children. That was an easy choice for my wife when she was 20-years old but became harder to stick by 15-years later.

My international consultancy allowed us to travel to many exotic locales on my clients dime so we seldom paid for vacations.

Make a plan
Commit to the plan
Stick with the plan
Take to heart that the future will be worth the short term limitations
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Old 30-01-2015, 09:10   #15
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Re: What Pays The Bills?

Real Estate (residental/office space) and Square Groupers (for pocket change)
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