Retirement in My Early 40s ?

[JordanRHughes]

Originally Posted by Intoxicat

LOL. I wish you were right. I'm a land surveyor. In the office two or three days a week and in the woods the other two or three. The good thing is its not too much like work. I'm essentially a professional hiker that has to keep meticulous notes.
Enjoy

What did your dad do?

[LuvToSail]

I can't believe no one has suggested getting a small boat to get experience on. One of my primary interests with sailing is the continuous learning curve.

You will save a lot and be more knowledgeable if you gain experience in the mean time. I would recommend not buying the boat you plan to retire on yet.

[LeaRig]

ZuiQuan, i like your plan and there is some good advice given here. without getting too deep i would advise to get a property as you need somewhere to live and interest on a property or a boat is still interest in the end and as you are in the finance industry i dont need to tell you about good debt & bad debt ...
a property always goes up in value and will provide income forever - especially in 20 yrs with your labradour, wife and 3 kids ;o)
boat chartering was an investment option in Australia once and then the tax system changed and it wasn't any longer. different countires have different laws so it could be better for you, but boats wont appreciate in capital gain and the income will reduce with the boat age. will you still want that same boat in 18yrs?
i hear stories of couples who retire and spend the house money on a boat, but when they want to return to land that boat money no longer buys the same house ...
what about a property and a small boat locally. Myself with my lady friend spent 5 months on a 26' folkboat with no headroom and it was a blast.
Having that far off plan is good but dont get too extreme, life is now. Look how many projects there are that the owner died before completion...work hard for 11 months/yr and take your smaller, cheaper boat out in Finland in the summers months - i reckon there must be some good sailing that a way...
i read on a t-shirt somewhere "to be rich, want less"

[ronocnikral]

Originally Posted by LeaRig

i read on a t-shirt somewhere "to be rich, want less"

i read a book once about a guy tracking all his expenses at a pond. he said...

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

[hellosailor]

"a property always goes up in value"
ROFLMAO! That logic is exactly why the US is in a mortgage crisis right now. In the past 50 years "property" even in the best markets has only jut kept up with the rate of inflation or bank insterest or the market, pick as you will.
And then it has only kept up because of arbitrary income tax policies that allow school tax, property tax, mportgage interest, and other major expenses to be deducted. And capital gains tax creativity and exemptions.
"Porperty always goes up" has been the mantra of every huckster selling investment seminars, and it stoked the rampant flipping and overpricing that has, in the last ten years, finally destroyed the value of most property in the US, pushing it back 50% and more in many oversold markets.

Property may or may not be a better investmet, or a lesser expense, than a boat. But whatever it is, is the result of a highly regulated and manipulated artificial market and price structure, and that makes it outright dangerous to anyone who isn't really knowledgeable about all the details.

At least with a boat you know that the value won't increase OR decrease by 50% in any one year, simply because some yo-yo down the block went underwater on his mortgage, or Congress changed a tax benny.

[Madwand]

Unless law school is free where you live, why not just spend the money you would waste on school on a boat instead, and retire now?

Law school could cost close to the $600,000 you plan on spending for retirement. Just go now and live on $2000 a year.

Easy.

[ZuiQuan]

Originally Posted by Madwand

Unless law school is free where you live, why not just spend the money you would waste on school on a boat instead, and retire now?

Law school could cost close to the $600,000 you plan on spending for retirement. Just go now and live on $2000 a year.

Easy.

In Finland all education is free (quite reasonable as the taxes are high) and in England its £3300 a year in all courses in all universities.

[Madwand]

Oh well, so much for that plan...at least you won't be racking up half a million in student loans like my friend who just got out of veterinary school at 43 years old...

I suppose if college were free in America, I might have been a lawyer and retired at 40 too...

[kevin7500]

Originally Posted by ZuiQuan

If I am able to find a job there, I will get a work permit as well. The Cayman Islands is not an independent state but a Brtitish overseas territory so immigration is not as difficult as it can be with some other island nations.

The Grand Cayman website has extensive information regarding this. It isn't quite as easy as moving there and getting a work permit. And, you most certainly won't be able to stay for fifteen years. Planning to save money by not paying taxes isn't any help on the Cayman Islands either. They don't pay property or income taxes. However, to account for that everything else is heavily taxed.

On the other hand, I envy your dream! I have every intention of retiring in my early 40s (5 years from now) with much less than 600K.

[Augusto]

Hello CFR, I would like to ask for your help on something that has nothing to do with this thread. I am looking at a German Flagged boat thats selling in Spain. I was thinking in keeping the German Flag, my wife is German, but she never lived in Germany, nor does she speak German.(Her father was German, married to a Brazilian, you know)
Well to cut to the chase, I was wondering what are the procedures to license a German Flagged sailboat, do we need special skipper licenses, insurance etc?
Also would like to know how to get a German Radio Station License and call sign in order to get Sailmail.
Thank you for your help.

[andreas.mehlin]

There is nothing wrong about day dreaming. It's a good thing to do and often when life is tough it's a way to escape the reality for a while.

I graduated my university studies at the age of 23 (sweden). Tried to get a job but didn't get any I wanted to have. Rad about a swedish couple who sailed around the world. Til that time I had never been into sailing and didn't know anything about it. BUT...I got really fascinated and kept reading about more similar adventures. After one or two days of reading I was convinced to do it - yeah! To really do it. I said to my girlfriend (who at that time was 21 years old) that we would sail around the world and she didn't really had anything against it. I did some calculations and came up with a saving plan.

The plan was I had to move to Norway where it was easy japanese to get a well paid job. I moved a couple of months later. My girlfriend had 2 years left on her studies so she stayed. Along her studies she worked extra in her home town. When she came to visit me in Oslo she had got a job there too. So she studied full time, worked in her home town and she worked in Oslo when she came to visit me.

We were very convinced and purposeful. Out first plan was to save money in six years. The plan was to move to Australia after that to build us a 42 ft catamaran. The time went on. After a 3-4 months we started to realize that 6 years is a long time and maybe a little bit "too good" building our own boat.

Every evening I sat i front of my computer looking a budgets and calculations to see what to do. I played with all figures and came up with different ideas.

To summaries it a little bit. We went from 6 years and 42 ft cat to 4 years and 52 ft steel mono..to 3 years steel 42 ft....to 3 years fiberglass mono...to 2 years 32 ft fiberglass...to 2 years 27 ft fiberglass...to 30 ft catamaran

So yes, we ended up with a 30 ft catamaran (Endeavourcat 30). From the day I first rad about the sailing adventures til the day we sat on the airplane down to Panama (where the boat was located) was about 20 months.

In 20 months we had worked hard and saved all we could. We had some money before we started to save. But about 2/3 we saved during the 20 months.

We had a lovely and rememberable time and will never forget. We had at that time planned to sail the boat for about 2-3 years. We ended up having the boat for a total time of 14 months. During that time we had time to discover Panama in 6 months and to explore the south pacific during 8 months. The boat was then sold in Australia with profit. Then we started backpacking for another 6 months.

We have now been home in Sweden about 15 months. It's often I day dream to leave this (sometimes) regular life (including stress and expectations etc) to just go cruising. I don't need a lot of money and gadgets - I just want to feel happy. The good thing about cruising is I feel so free.

So what do I want to say? It's hard to plan for a life time. Who knows if you are alive in 15 years? So much can change. Shorten your plans and do something while you still are young.

Check out
http://7hav.se (blog about our adventure in english)

[rourkeh]

Two bits of advice
1. The use of the words boat and investment in the same sentence are pure folly

2. The only thing in life that is permanent is change

In order to retire in your 40's you will need to work harder than 95% of the rest of the world, be smarter than 95% of the rest of the world, and be EXTREMELY LUCKY. I know I retired in 2006 at 45.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by rourkeh

Two bits of advice
1. The use of the words boat and investment in the same sentence are pure folly

2. The only thing in life that is permanent is change

In order to retire in your 40's you will need to work harder than 95% of the rest of the world, be smarter than 95% of the rest of the world, and be EXTREMELY LUCKY. I know I retired in 2006 at 45.

I'd say it more depends on the lifestyle you chose. The $500/month thread shows what's possible and that you don't need a big nest egg to retire early.

[morrobay]

You've gotten some golden advice in this thread. If I could begin retirement planning again at 22, I'd plan on putting away as much money per month in a tax-sheltered investment fund of some kind with around 6 - 7 % return. You'll retire well no matter what you do for a living if you put at least 150 - 200 away per month.

[zax1150]

I wouldn't bank on such a thing in the long term as most countries battle rampant debt & are finding inventive ways to tax your savings out of existance, the vast majority of pension funds are a joke, the ideal of saving for a comfortable retirement went out the window a few years back,

Adding insult to injury, if you do manage to invest properly then you're taxed on that income

Ok that being said the simplest way these days is to invest in a term/bond with a monthly return, as a non-resident you pay 10% tax on interest earned, & as you don't bring the money pyhsically into the country it doesn't add to your income for taxation purposes, I've become a big fan of australia for that, (that & 6.85% )

That's what I'm doing atm so I can eventually afford the cruising life.

Remember its better to just bend the laws not break'em