49 Year Old Planning Low Orbit Escape

[Going Sailing]

49 years old. Married. 16 year old son.

Glad to be here. A place where I can confess to having accumulated a net worth just north of 1 million and it doesn't amount to bragging. It includes 650k of mostly equity based retirement funds and a house. We are on track to retire and maintain current lifestyle somewhere in our mid sixties. Household income something $160ish.

Which is interesting. Because I haven't met anybody who can guarantee that I won't have an ologist in my sixties explaining life's limitations with no reset.

So why wait?

Don't mind our current lifestyle, but our ideal lifestyle would involve floating around on a sailboat somewhere in the Med and Caribbean until the South Pacific beckons. Best done while young. Tested this lifestyle sailing to Mexico for a year. It works.

And the wonderful thing is there is another forum somewhere where there are two threads where people discuss subsistence living on $500 / month in modest boats and living like kings on $5000 / month in comfort. We managed to live well on about $1500 / month. So we have a decent chance.

Having had the experience of packing up all our possessions and moving into a space the size of our bathroom and always walking for a half hour in 35 degree heat to avoid a $2 cab fares, we are emotionally equipped to sell the house and throw away the iPhones. Our experience is that our friends with bare concrete floors seemed just as happy as our friends with million dollar yachts.

Biggests retirement risks: 1) Son fails to find his way in life and we are somehow obligated to hang out here, provide housing and support till he is 30 - small chance. 2) 86 year old inlaws in frail health somehow live to be a 100 and need our care to the point where we are too old to cross oceans 3) We attempt a hybrid lifestyle maintaining expensive cars/housing/communications/insurance here while boating part time and end up burning cash having to go back to work.

So looking at pulling the plug in 5 or 6 years and making an exit at sea level. Next boat is named Escape Velocity...

[racy]

Hi Sailing,
Welcome! You've identified some risks but there are many more predicaments that could happen. Lest you forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfR7qxtgCgY

[Senator]

Welcome Aboard!

Quote:

Son fails to find his way in life and we are somehow obligated to hang out here

That is what the military is for, assuming he can get in. maybe the Navy.

[Fermion]

Going Sailing, you may one day meet us on the open sea as we have similar plans. We are going to travel the USA for a few years first to get used to living in a small space (homebuilt RV camper) but we will be pulling our 17 foot Montgomery sailboat around with us.

It will be sad selling the Montgomery to buy a blue water boat. Do you have a specific brand/type/length sailboat in mind?

[nash031]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Senator Welcome Aboard! That is what the military is for, assuming he can get in. maybe the Navy.

Yeah, thanks for that. Bring us your wayward sons!

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion Going Sailing, you may one day meet us on the open sea as we have similar plans.

You guys don't know how lucky you are to have a spouse that's willing to go along with plans like this. Maybe they are even pulling YOU in that direction.

[heeyy_joe]

Hope your anchors don't slow you down.

[Onward]

"Low Orbit Escape." I like that!

[Going Sailing]

Thanks guys. Current boat is a 34 Catalina. Perfect for a coastal cruise down the west coast to Mexico, but not so good for crossing oceans. Next boat is probably a used boat out of the Med, Jeanneau or Beneteau 40 isn or a Lagoon 38 Cat, totally market return dependent. But I have no problem refitting something a few years old. Don't need shiny and new.

Tested my spouse tonight at dinner. "I will do anything you want to do: RV around the continent, condo in Costa Rica, boat in the Med - anything." She says we need to go sailing. I am fortunate. This is the dream. Might as well live it.

Had a lifestyle accident a few years back that set us back about 500K and then burned at least another 100k on forgone wages licking our wounds in Mexico. So probably could have been set for true escape at 55, but if we have to go low and slow better to do that early than to plan on some higher orbit at a later date...

[Fermion]

Sounds like my wife. She really wants to go sailing and loves roughing it.

I have to be the voice of reason sometimes as she saw the Quadski the other day and said we should get one. I had to talk her out of it.

[daylatedollarshort]

Welcome. We're not into sailing but otherwise we are looking forward to downsizing and traveling, too, and an RV may be in our future.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Going Sailing Tested my spouse tonight at dinner. "I will do anything you want to do: RV around the continent, condo in Costa Rica, boat in the Med - anything." She says we need to go sailing. I am fortunate. This is the dream. Might as well live it.

I shed a tear of envy reading that

[Huston55]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational I shed a tear of envy reading that

+1


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[obgyn65]

Welcome to the forum, from another 49 year old. Still working here, dreaming of FIREing.


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