Make Money While Cruising - List

[Certeza]

Originally Posted by osirissail

And how it relates to "Making money while cruising . . . " is beyond me. It would seem that somebody involved in this "trading" would require full time, high speed internet access. Unless you are willing to spend megabucks and have the room for a huge antenna like the mega-yachts and cruise ships have - you will most likely be like the rest of us with hit and miss access and slow internet service.

And who is sailing the boat while all this "trading" is going on? Or more properly, if your time is consumed by sitting in front of your computer doing these "trades" - what is the point in sailing to great locations which you will only get a chance to see out the porthole.

Or maybe they are talking about "trading" as a income source prior to leaving on their cruising lifestyle.

That's sort of the point. Several times during this thread, trading was mentioned casually as a way to make a living while cruising. I was suggesting that it isn't as easy as it was made out to be. Much of the discussion was to point out that retail (do it yourself) traders are capable of long term returns but many times don't properly understand the risks.

In the end, I was suggesting that anyone right now can get 9-12% annual with only occasional internet access, and statistically limited risk.

There are certain slightly more complex DIY strategies that will be able to return 20-30% annual return. These would require up to about 5 hours a week of reliable high speed internet and involve considerably higher risk than the option above.

Finally there are those of us who offer these trading services professionally. Some of us offer very nice returns while still effectively containing risk, and the cruiser checks in as often or as rarely as he wants.

In the end, for those who have some savings, investment income is the ideal cruiser income and it can be setup to require as much or as little time as the cruiser wants to devote to it.

[Certeza]

Originally Posted by Reinhardt

Talk about same world different planets! I have no idea what any of the preceding posts mean, but it did make for interesting reading!!

Sorry. There was a fair amount of knowledge compression there. Entire textbook have been devoted to that topic and I tried to summarize it in a few posts.

[Reinhardt]

Carrying on from my previous posts, I think it boils down to the concept that there are two ways to make money cruising:

1. You have a service or skill that you can sell (preferably)for cash when you are in a Marina

2. You have a skill or talent that you can articulate whilst at sea, and monetise when you pull in at a Marina.

In regards to the former, the skills I often hear inquired about at Marina's (as in skills in demand) are:
- Marine electrician
- Sailmaker
- Mechanic
- Diver
- Cook (!!)

But I've also seen the following people make nice money as well:
- Massage therapists
- Physiotherapists
- Marine upholsterers

In regards to my former recommendations, there have been some 'reasons against' posted, which is pretty good, as trying to make a living from writing, photography and sound recording always involves a bit of work (all freelancing is hard work). But if you have to make money whilst cruising, for some it may be worth it. A couple of additional points to help people along:

1. iStockphoto doesn't require a portfolio of thousands to sign up with them, they only require a small sample of your work: their reviewers look for quality of product and that you have formatted the images to their requirements (RAW, for you photo guru's out there). The way to make money with iStockphoto is to build up your portfolio to several thousand images, and make a few bucks in royalties every time one is purchased. Colleagues of mine don't have 20 - 50k worth of gear: they use a Leica D-Lux 5 (RRP about $1000), and do all the magic with Photoshop (more on that pricing in a 'tic). For them, they had a very steep learning curve not only in terms of taking good photos, but using photoshop. It took them several months to get competent in both, but over about a year they uploaded a solid portfolio, and the beauty of that is, they haven't uploaded for nearly 18 months now, but still get a solid (but small) royalty income every month from sales, and have to do nothing to market their work. They make enough to pay for their food every month on those Royalties.

IStockphoto often publish "In demand" lists of photos that are in high demand but have a poor supply every month or so, but a really good guide to Microstock photography is Yuri Arcurs website: he's a pro micro stocker that provides endless free advice (I have no affiliations with him). Google his name.

Remember, the more generic the photo, the more likely it is to sell.

As I mentioned before, the highest in demand photos are very old people of any nationality, but you must get a signed model release from any person you include in a shot.

2. IStockphoto are also the biggest guyer of micro stock sound. You don't need an expensive kit to do this either. A sound recorder/field mixer will set you back between $600 and $2000 (much less if you but in Asia), a decent boom mike will cost around $600, and you can remove all the wind noises and artefact and heighten the sound quality using Adobe Audition.

All the Adobe programs can be purchased using an annual subscription now, so instead of paying $4000 for the creative suite, you pay around $600, download all their programs, and renew annually. I purchased the whole suite as a standalone about a year ago and kicked myself, as the upgrades cost $699. If I had subscribed, all updates are included in the subscription price.

3. I stand by all my original comments about the amount of money you can make blogging. Even good bloggers only make a couple of hundred a months from affiliate sales and Google Ads, the ones that make really good money use the blog to convert visitors to buying eBook or subscribing to some kind of online seminar. Blogs all take hard work. One of the administrators of this forum mentioned once that she spends six hours a day managing this forum. With blogs, it's all about relentless marketing.

Someone mentioned in a subsequent post that writing or doing photography for a living is fraught with consequence as it involves taking something you love as a hobby, and then turning it into a money making venture. This is true, largely because your turning from doing something to please yourself, to something that pleases a paying audience, so you have a bit less control over it, which can be a bit draining, and a bit less fun. And, ironically, if you achieve the nirvana of making decent money, you'll become slave to deadlines and market demands, and lose a bit of that freedom most of us sail to attain.

It's about balance!

I see that someone took my advice about eLance and ODesk and are starting to make regular money (unless they were doing it before they read my post of course).

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by Reinhardt

I see that someone took my advice about eLance and ODesk and are starting to make regular money (unless they were doing it before they read my post of course).

Hi Reinhart - that's me and yes, I am making some regular money. I have found a couple of clients that are willing to pay for quality work that meets deadlines. Many themes the deadlines are short.

But I guess I'm pulling down a couple of hundred per week.

[Reinhardt]

Good on you. That money should get better as you pick up more reviews, get the odd bonus and build up a rep.

I use eLance for all the stuff I would normally outsource locally (it's just way too expensive here in Oz to get graphics and such done by local firms).

I recently put out three jobs for tender. One was a logo, I paid someone $100 for that, basically an overnighter, and two concept posters for video games, and a an animated series concept poster. The guy (in Serbia I believe) that I chose for the first concept poster was already producing material that had the 'feel' I was looking for, his bid for the job was midrange, with quotes coming i between $100 and $2000. I think I paid about $600, and it was worth every penny. he came in three weeks ahead of schedule, and understood exactly what I was after in my revisions. I just made a beeline for him for the next two jobs: he really proved himself.

I sent about $1900 his way in two weeks.

I don't know what kind of freelancing you do, but if it's graphics, then you can also earn very good money in the same bid/offer format on 99Designs.com, with most of the work being graphics, and book cover design.

Cheers!

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by osirissail

And how it relates to "Making money while cruising . . . " is beyond me. It would seem that somebody involved in this "trading" would require full time, high speed internet access. Unless you are willing to spend megabucks and have the room for a huge antenna like the mega-yachts and cruise ships have - you will most likely be like the rest of us with hit and miss access and slow internet service.

And who is sailing the boat while all this "trading" is going on? Or more properly, if your time is consumed by sitting in front of your computer doing these "trades" - what is the point in sailing to great locations which you will only get a chance to see out the porthole.

Or maybe they are talking about "trading" as a income source prior to leaving on their cruising lifestyle.

Trading can take on many, many flavours and really depends on the time you have available to apply to it.

The authors of "Live on the Margin" are full time cruisers who make the bulk of their money trading. They say they trade a few days a month. They're trading stock options and they've been doing it long enough to be good at it (one was a pit trader before going sailing). They basically close their trades when at sea and only trade when they're in port with a decent internet connection. It works well for them.

I've come to believe that the most practical way for me to make money while cruising will be to do a similar thing. It's also the best way for me to grow my nest egg enough while I'm working that I can go cruising half to full time in the not to distant future.

That said, it's a very difficult thing to learn! I've been working on it for about 8 months pretty hard and I feel like I'm just starting to get the hang of it. I think it would take at least a couple years to get really good at it.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

Trading can take on many, many flavours and really depends on the time you have available to apply to it.

The authors of "Live on the Margin" are full time cruisers who make the bulk of their money trading. They say they trade a few days a month. They're trading stock options and they've been doing it long enough to be good at it (one was a pit trader before going sailing). They basically close their trades when at sea and only trade when they're in port with a decent internet connection. It works well for them.

I've come to believe that the most practical way for me to make money while cruising will be to do a similar thing. It's also the best way for me to grow my nest egg enough while I'm working that I can go cruising half to full time in the not to distant future.

That said, it's a very difficult thing to learn! I've been working on it for about 8 months pretty hard and I feel like I'm just starting to get the hang of it. I think it would take at least a couple years to get really good at it.

The minimum time I have spent managing a spread trade portfolio is no time for about 2 weeks, since all trades can be set up in advance to execute on autopilot. Since I can't trigger spread stop losses, I have exposure to that, but experience over time confirms that using stop losses on spreads doesn't change the eventual returns. This was confirmed by the service I use, who told me they have modeled both with and without and see no difference.

When I have Internet access, I like to check in daily to see what's doing, but the actual amount of time required is around 2 to 3 hours a week, max.

I used to use a broker, who, if you want to pay an extra $20 or so per trade, or around $4,000 per year will do it all for you, but stopped because I felt there was no point. Attached is the graph of theoretical returns, which I would discount around 10% to actual to account for slippage and fees for the very long period of time this system has been used. Note that for the first few years, they didn't do much better than just churn money while perfecting their modeling, but after the initial period were quite consistent, as long as you had some capital to hold to the process through the rough patches. I've labeled these in red where a year would have had negative returns, and blue where you would have endured a draw down of capital from the start of the year at some point before recovering. The reason for noting that is because if you had started trading in one of those years, you'd have been really nervous. If you had started in any year but those, your capital buildup would have been such that the draw downs would be house money at that point.

The lesson from this, I think, should be that this is not for the squeamish, but since it is simply following directions on when to place and take off trades, it is hardly rocket science requiring a professional adviser. Just my opinion.

[Delfin]

Well, that image seems hosed, so let's try this one.

Nope, can't get it to post, so the quickie summary is that with around $40k, trading a single spread pair as recommended, and starting from 1995, you would have averaged a return of $37k each year. Not sure why image posting isn't working.....

[Certeza]

Easier to embed the photo like this.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Delfin

Well, that image seems hosed, so let's try this one.

Nope, can't get it to post, so the quickie summary is that with around $40k, trading a single spread pair as recommended, and starting from 1995, you would have averaged a return of $37k each year. Not sure why image posting isn't working.....

And this is just by following what Moore says?

The new CF picture posting software is just horrible. All you see is "rotate image" and you fall for clicking to see what is wrong and hoping to see your image it rotates it and you don't see that either. Then when you post, it is sideways. And clicking on it to see it larger often results in only half of the image showing. It sucks.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by Therapy

And this is just by following what Moore says?

The new CF picture posting software is just horrible. All you see is "rotate image" and you fall for clicking to see what is wrong and hoping to see your image it rotates it and you don't see that either. Then when you post, it is sideways. And clicking on it to see it larger often results in only half of the image showing. It sucks.

Well, now it appeared, so maybe there is some latency in posting. And yes, those theoretical results presume you place each trade when they tell you and close it out when they tell you, and take the stop loss when they tell you at end of day. Since it presumes opening price for the buy and closing price for the sell, and you will pay a little more and sell for a little less due to the bid/ask spread you should discount by around 10% for that and commissions. It isn't that much, but better safe than sorry.

Moore offers a commentary by Jerry Toepke, which is cheap - $15/mo???, that provides the rationale for the spreads being put on. He also makes his own professional recommendations based on looking at the market, which seem to always return less than the computer driven programmatic results.

p.s. now the image has disappeared again, so I have no clue what's going on with their software. Maybe it will be there at some point, maybe not....

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Delfin

Well, now it appeared, so maybe there is some latency in posting. And yes, those theoretical results presume you place each trade when they tell you and close it out when they tell you, and take the stop loss when they tell you at end of day. Since it presumes opening price for the buy and closing price for the sell, and you will pay a little more and sell for a little less due to the bid/ask spread you should discount by around 10% for that and commissions. It isn't that much, but better safe than sorry.

Moore offers a commentary by Jerry Toepke, which is cheap - $15/mo???, that provides the rationale for the spreads being put on. He also makes his own professional recommendations based on looking at the market, which seem to always return less than the computer driven programmatic results.

p.s. now the image has disappeared again, so I have no clue what's going on with their software. Maybe it will be there at some point, maybe not....

How does that work while cruising?

[Certeza]

Delfin, why is the one I pulled off their website and posted, different than the one you posted? Are they not the same strategy?

Edit: Nevermind, I didn't realize he offered two programs. Here is the embedded version of the pic you attached.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by Certeza

Delfin, why is the one I pulled off their website and posted, different than the one you posted? Are they not the same strategy?

As I noted in the above post, Jerry Toepke makes his own recommendations, which are different than the programmatic results they publish. I don't follow Toepke's recommendations so I have no idea whether his results are less because he makes fewer trades or because a professional can't beat the algorithm used by Moore to make their recommendations. Without confidence it will post as a jpeg, I attach 2012 theoretical results for Toepke and Moore computer modeled trades. In 2012, he came close.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by Therapy

How does that work while cruising?

Since you can map out the trades for about a month ahead, it works fine. Like I said, if you don't have internet access then the one thing you could do each day is check to see if a spread reached the stop loss isn't possible. My observation is that when I reach a stop loss and close a position, half the time it recovers, and reverses some or all of the loss. Not always, but it supports what Moore told me years ago when I asked the question that with or without stops you get about the same results.