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View Poll Results: How much is enough (before you feel you can stop working and retire and go sailing)?
$1000 to $100,000 73 21.92%
$100,000 to $500,000 81 24.32%
$500,000 to $1,000,000 76 22.82%
$1,000,000 to $100,000,000,000,000,000s 103 30.93%
Voters: 333. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 01-02-2007, 06:50   #16
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Well, if you stuck half that amount bonds or GIC's you'll probably end up with about $40K over the 2 year period. And, unless your tastes run to the extravagent, $20K per year should be pretty comfortable. The Bumfuzzles record their expenses on their website, which I think average around $3K per month. But if you look into it, they've lived it up fairly well and forgoing a few of their discretionary expenses (hotels, travel etc.) would pretty much net out at your budget.

You've got your 'housing' paid for, and your income is actually savings (ergo not taxed & purely disposable income), so you're probably as well off as someone earning $45-50K or so who's working & paying a mortgage. And you'll not be running the biggest money spunker known to mankind - a car!
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Old 01-02-2007, 08:20   #17
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Wow! Look at those results so far. Incredible wealth distribution. Are there no "middle class" types that have voted, or is that segement of the population gone? Seems we have people just winging it, and millionaires on the forum. I'm winging it... lol
Sean - the original question was very specific "How much do you think is enough to call working a day and head off and never need to turn back???" In other words, how much would you need saved to go sailing and never have to work again? If you take it literaly, the results are not suprising. Many cruisers (current or hopeful) have some form of going back to work built in to their thinking.

I could be wrong but my guess is that the people who answered at the low end weren't answering the question literally.
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Old 01-02-2007, 09:41   #18
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Wow! Look at those results so far. Incredible wealth distribution. Are there no "middle class" types that have voted, or is that segement of the population gone? Seems we have people just winging it, and millionaires on the forum. I'm winging it... lol
I voted for a $1,000,000 plus category. That doesn’t mean I am a millionaire. I did an excel spreadsheet calculating cost over a 20, 15, and 10 year cruising period (I know, I am a dork).



For the 20 year plan, with savings growing at a rate of 6% net of inflation (3%), and a $15,000 budget per year (taking inflation into account), and purchasing a boat for $400k, I would need about $1.2m. I calculated maintenance costs to be 3% the first 5 years and 7% after that. Also, this leaves me with enough to survive on, should I need to go back to the mainland permanently for some reason.

If anyone wants this spreadsheet, I would love to get feedback on it to see if my “guesstimations” are reasonable.
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Old 01-02-2007, 10:00   #19
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It all depends. If you want to be in a marina every nite instead of laying out on a hook, you can spend more. If you just coastal cruise, you are going to spend more just by gunkholing at the local hotspots than you would if you are doing an ocean passage.

Now the hard part is what are going to do when you realize that you are just too dang old to go out on the water? Then what?
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Old 01-02-2007, 10:09   #20
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Originally Posted by Temporarily Landlocked
I voted for a $1,000,000 plus category. That doesn’t mean I am a millionaire. I did an excel spreadsheet calculating cost over a 20, 15, and 10 year cruising period (I know, I am a dork).



For the 20 year plan, with savings growing at a rate of 6% net of inflation (3%), and a $15,000 budget per year (taking inflation into account), and purchasing a boat for $400k, I would need about $1.2m. I calculated maintenance costs to be 3% the first 5 years and 7% after that. Also, this leaves me with enough to survive on, should I need to go back to the mainland permanently for some reason.

If anyone wants this spreadsheet, I would love to get feedback on it to see if my “guesstimations” are reasonable.
Ahhh... your spreadsheet makes sense to me. Don't feel like a dork... I do one every time I am trying to make any decision or evaluate something like this.

Your $15K annual expense budget seems right on point.

I guess the big variable here is how long sailing off into the sunset "never to return" means to different people. If you are young, you might have 40 or 50 years ahead of you. If you are old, you might have 10 or less.

Not surprisingly, I think we have yet another of boatings infinite tradeoffs going on here:

1) You can go early and have a tiny cruising kitty, having to work for the majority of the 40 or more years you are at sea.

2) You can go later and have a big $1,000,000+ cruising kitty, but only get 5 or 10 years out there before you are too feeble to do any more.

Seems we might have more people on each end of *those* statistics queering the pitch than the distribution of wealth I thought I saw in the data on first glance.
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Old 01-02-2007, 11:29   #21
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I believe I misunderstood the poll, the $38K that I listed was actually money that we have saved and set aside just for this 2 year cruise. If the poll is looking for all of my investments, house, 401K etc. that would be considerable more. And depending how the first two years go we may well liquadate and use this to cruise for whatever time we have left, I am 52. But with all of this said, I am a pretty determined and capable person, as long as I have enough just to get going I will figure the rest out as I go... That may sound irresponsible, or even arrogant, but I lived my whole live that way and done very well for myself.
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Old 01-02-2007, 11:32   #22
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Sounds about right to me, Mike... good for you for getting out and doing it. Many don't. You're just on a "phased approach", which is better than risking all and then not liking it anyway. We're playing by the same rules you are, even if our "kitty" is still non-existant.
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Old 01-02-2007, 12:08   #23
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And you'll not be running the biggest money spunker known to mankind - a car!
dont you mean a boat????
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Old 01-02-2007, 12:14   #24
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Retirement Calculator - Questions

this is a link to a pretty good calculater that takes into account tax, inflation and interest rate returns and tells you how much you will need.
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Old 01-02-2007, 12:22   #25
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Without Spouse - Less than $100,000
With Spouse - More than $10,000,000
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Old 01-02-2007, 13:25   #26
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And you'll not be running the biggest money spunker known to mankind
"Spunker" that's ruuuuuuuuuuude
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Old 01-02-2007, 16:42   #27
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We will have about $1200/week coming in from investment's when we retire in 3 years at Caro, 45 and me 43.

Not touching principle and compounding at a historic 11.5%


But only figure on spending around $500 per week or $26000 per year in Aus. and half of that in Asia.

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Old 01-02-2007, 18:38   #28
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"Spunker" that's ruuuuuuuuuuude
Ahhh, the Atlantic language divide again. I don't think it's considered quite so rude in North America. I recall my English nieces giggling years ago as we set out on a hike and I grabbed my 'fanny pack'.
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Old 01-02-2007, 20:45   #29
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Not touching principle and compounding at a historic 11.5%
Very nice!!
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Old 01-02-2007, 21:17   #30
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Assuming all goes well with the 401k and the IRAs (>10% return) we should be able to manage a very nice kitty by the time we are 55/51. If the housing market continues at the 4.5% appreciation we will be even better off. Now let's get really crazy and ASSume that Social Security is around when we reach the benefit age and we will cruise like kings. Unfortunately there is alot of assuming. We'll see. Maybe we should invest heavily in the Chinese market........
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