If you had a million dollars.....

[Nightcrawler]

No one told us we needed a million dollars - but we did the rest. Never looked back.

[denverd0n]

Personally, I would invest the money in a diversified portfolio of index mutual funds that would provide me with an adequate income stream to live the rest of my life in relative comfort. Then, I would live within my means on that money, including buying a boat that was within my means, and enjoy traveling, spending time with friends and family, and living out my life peacefully and happily.

Oh, wait! I already did that!

I know. Sounds a lot more boring than splurging on your "ideal" boat and sailing off over the horizon. But whether I live to be 65 or 95 I know that I won't end up destitute, living on beans and rice in a cardboard box. Nor have I had to cancel my dreams. A few have been slightly delayed, or slightly modified to fit the money available at the time, but mostly I have enjoyed living well, doing what I want to do, and look forward to more of the same in the future.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." -- Mr. Micawber, from Charles Dickens "David Copperfield"

[Taichungman]

Money won't be the problem and the kids won't be the problem; the kids will love it. It's the wife who will be a problem, for you that is, if she is not on board with your dream and plans. If mommy is not happy, no one is happy.
Leave yourself a fallback plan for sure.

[td0tz]

Originally Posted by Mattbastard

Ok, throw me a bone here. Without turning this thread into a real estate chat, how do some of you even get started in rental properties?

I've done the math and it seems impossible without actually owning a house outright first so you have somewhere to live without paying rent or a mortgage/taxes. Especially out here in SoCal. My rent is 50% of my take-home income. How is it possible?

You're in SoCal, a very distorted RE market - and has been since I was in the biz in the 70's. Here rental single family RE is totally for capital appreciation; you can't make an investment return on the rent, astronomical as rents are. (spare me the ''oh, grampa's house he bought for $59K is renting for $5K a month stories. Be real - that house would sell for $1M+, so gramps is really getting only a 6% return, and that's before expenses. )

In other parts of the US residential rentals will actually cash flow (amazing!). You can even save your nickles and start with a duplex, live in one, rent the other. Of course, you'll never get there paying 50% of your take home in rent to someone else. Sorry, true fact.

Actually, if you can't leave SoCal, this is a pretty good argument for becoming a liveaboard right now.

[Fence Man]

Originally Posted by Taichungman

Money won't be the problem and the kids won't be the problem; the kids will love it. It's the wife who will be a problem, for you that is, if she is not on board with your dream and plans. If mommy is not happy, no one is happy.
Leave yourself a fallback plan for sure.

I'll reiterate.....She's packed. I'm the "sensible" holdout. The first houseboat was her idea. The second one was her idea. I won't give her all the credit for this idea, but she gets most of it. They aren't my dreams and plans, they are our dreams and plans. We party as a family.

[Taichungman]

Originally Posted by Fence Man

I'll reiterate.....She's packed. I'm the "sensible" holdout. The first houseboat was her idea. The second one was her idea. I won't give her all the credit for this idea, but she gets most of it. They aren't my dreams and plans, they are our dreams and plans. We party as a family.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Great !!! That you both have the same dream and plans.
Then I would just answer ...NO...to your original question.
Take little steps to make sure it's what you want. Good luck.

[Phisher]

Fence Man,
I hear where you are coming from. Life is short and there are no guarantees. I too was fed up with my business, all the hours, good employees nonexistent and overall stress. I sold the business, took 1/2 down and financed the balance for 10 years @ 6.5%. I own 4 rentals free and clear. I used my down payment from the biz to buy our cat.. Leopard 38 for 150k. We are currently upgrading. New sails, hardtop and enclosure ,tramps, all upholstery,solar and all rigging. My wife is a seamstress and I am pretty handy, we are having someone do the sails, standing rigging and hardtop everything else we are doing ourselves. We will have around $190k total in the boat.

Having the passive income of the rentals and sale of the business is awesome. We have budgeted 4k a month to cruise and will still be putting $4.5k a month away.
Go for it!!! We are 5 months into the refit and cant wait to leave the dock.

Good Luck,
Brian

[dwedeking2]

One thing I wish I had done when I sold my first business was take a week completely off. I was so tired and burned out I'm sure I could have made a better exit plan with a fresh outlook.

[Fence Man]

Originally Posted by Phisher

Fence Man,
I hear where you are coming from. Life is short and there are no guarantees. I too was fed up with my business, all the hours, good employees nonexistent and overall stress. I sold the business, took 1/2 down and financed the balance for 10 years @ 6.5%. I own 4 rentals free and clear. I used my down payment from the biz to buy our cat.. Leopard 38 for 150k. We are currently upgrading. New sails, hardtop and enclosure ,tramps, all upholstery,solar and all rigging. My wife is a seamstress and I am pretty handy, we are having someone do the sails, standing rigging and hardtop everything else we are doing ourselves. We will have around $190k total in the boat.

Having the passive income of the rentals and sale of the business is awesome. We have budgeted 4k a month to cruise and will still be putting $4.5k a month away.
Go for it!!! We are 5 months into the refit and cant wait to leave the dock.

Good Luck,
Brian

Now that sounds like about as close to my situation as anyone yet! I think we have figured out a few things we can adjust to make everyone a little happier. The one thing that we all agree on is keeping our home place. We have a nice chunk of land on a dead end gravel road. We are the only place on the road, and the closest neighbors are better than a mile across the bottoms. Some pasture, some woods, some tillable, and a couple of stocked ponds. As far as being on land goes, it's hard to beat.
I think we are going to sell another farm that we own free and clear, and possibly sell the contracting side of our business if we can find a buyer. We will likely have to finance whoever buys it, but that's just fine. That will give us the cash to ease the stress, and really ramp up the rental business and put more focus on wire sales. I will be taking a month or two off to spend on the boat just as soon as the first bit sells. I think we will sell most of the cows and cash rent the tillable and pasture ground, as bad as I hate to. I don't know why I hate the thought....Must be some deep rooted wire on the frame kind of dead short. I think this plan will still put us on a cat in less than the 5 years we still have planned, without giving up the one thing we all want to be able to come back to. AND, I bought a Powerball ticket on the way home tonight.....just in case.

[Wckoek]

With rising inflation and uncertainly in a lot of things in the economy 1 million isn't enough for me to walk away, a minimum of 3 million is ok for me when I am single, but I would think you need 5 million if you have a family and on the states.
Say you spend around 10% per year on maintenance of your $200k boat, in 10 years time you already spend $400k out of 1 million, not accounting for fuel, berthing costs, living expenses, insurance and other factors as well as inflation cost to everything.
A $200k boat isn't a lot of boat nowadays for one to walk away with either.

[Phisher]

We love living on the boat. My wife often talks about how she is now off her blood pressure medication and we are still at the dock. Having mechanical skills really helps with the day to day details of cruising. I wish you luck and if you ever have a need for some one to sling a few arrows at nuisance deer let me know!
Cheers,
Brian

[a64pilot]

I don't get the 10% of the cost of the boat per year in maintenance, that is just nonsensical.
Buy an old wore out boat for 30 K, it will only cost 3 K per year to keep up, but a new 300K boat will cost 30 K a year in upkeep?
I don't see more 3 or 4 K a year on average for a well fitted out average cruising boat.
Will someone show me a breakdown of 30 K a year in maintenance?

[Fence Man]

Originally Posted by Phisher

We love living on the boat. My wife often talks about how she is now off her blood pressure medication and we are still at the dock. Having mechanical skills really helps with the day to day details of cruising. I wish you luck and if you ever have a need for some one to sling a few arrows at nuisance deer let me know!
Cheers,
Brian

You are welcome anytime you want to come fling arrows. We have plenty of good hunting ground, and pretty well sling arrows at invasive fish(and a few gar and cats for the table) year round. I'll give you fair warning, my little girl will likely hustle you for a few bucks in some sort of an archery challenge. [ATTACH][ATTACH][ATTACH][ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH]

[a64pilot]

1 mil will gross on a 4% return which I believe is average planning 40K a yr, 3 mil 120K.
You have to have $10,000 a month to live by yourself, assuming you have no debt?

[Fence Man]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I don't get the 10% of the cost of the boat per year in maintenance, that is just nonsensical.
Buy an old wore out boat for 30 K, it will only cost 3 K per year to keep up, but a new 300K boat will cost 30 K a year in upkeep?
I don't see more 3 or 4 K a year on average for a well fitted out average cruising boat.
Will someone show me a breakdown of 30 K a year in maintenance?

I've often thought the same thing. I chalked it up to folks that have the cash to hire absolutely everything done instead of keeping up with maintenance their selves? For example, I saw that the couple on the cat "Happy Together" had the boat delivered to San Fran. Seems to me they paid $25k for someone else to take care of the fun part, but that's just my 2 cents.