New member with unique form of retirement

[walleye]

Florida in the summer and up to North cottage country in the winter...
... a no stress way of generating some income, assuming you are not relying on this, keeping as busy as you want, maybe generating some income or not, and having a card to give out at social events and to have an identity.

I kinda fancy myself as a yacht broker ; - )

Do you really deal in yahts? I admit to being a gullible guy.

I like your choices, Ottawa and Ft Myers. I could get used to that. We spend the schoolyear in Virginia and summers mostly in New York State. In the future we're going to spend more of it in your beautiful Ontario.

I realized over lunch that I was seeking exactly what you said, a no stress way of generating some income. It could vary widely, from 10K/yr to 100K/yr depending on what I choose and how successful it is. In any event, no more rat race, and no more measly 3 weeks off a year.

In any event, real estate is becoming less appealing as a choice, since it could bring serious stress if I end up dealing with some bad people. Kind of defeats the purpose of semi retirement if I'm more stressed than during my 20 year engineering gig.

 

[Kroeran]

Do you really deal in yahts? I admit to being a gullible guy.

I like your choices, Ottawa and Ft Myers. I could get used to that. We spend the schoolyear in Virginia and summers mostly in New York State. In the future we're going to spend more of it in your beautiful Ontario.

I realized over lunch that I was seeking exactly what you said, a no stress way of generating some income. It could vary widely, from 10K/yr to 100K/yr depending on what I choose and how successful it is. In any event, no more rat race, and no more measly 3 weeks off a year.

In any event, real estate is becoming less appealing as a choice, since it could bring serious stress if I end up dealing with some bad people. Kind of defeats the purpose of semi retirement if I'm more stressed than during my 20 year engineering gig.

Still in the race, but have a great boss who is trying to figure out how I can work from Florida once DW retires (which may come next week...she just got notice that her section is being privatized) ...so no need to pull the ripcord yet

I see the yacht broker thing as something down the road and more as a lark...I also could do commercial lending brokering which I have some background in...but that does not sound like as much fun

the thing is...you have to fill your day somehow...and my belief is that a bossless form of activity that gets you off the couch for a few hours a day is ideal, and better than complete FIRE, assuming you are not relying on it for income, and you may actually find you are good at it and get rich - I see a lot of that....big success in the second commission driven career

Have you checked out Alexandria Bay NY...thats my idea of cottage life...I think you recently could pick up a run down century home in the village for 30K there....and lots of action and restaurants to walk to, beauty of thousand islands. It would get old though when the weather turns, and it ain't Saratoga

 

[Kroeran]

another money saving idea, if you have security system monitoring, switch to self monitoring which is offered at some websites, or switch to after market monitoring, $10 instead of $35 per month, and still qualifies for insurance discount.

 

[Milton]

I'm going to search to see if there are any threads that do talk about unique ways to semi-retirement (do you call it SR?). It should be a good topic of discussion

This is becoming increasingly attractive to people (especially for those whose retirement portfolios took a big hit from the recession), and you can find a lot of related threads (and books at the library).

Full time RVing is another common method, like I will probably do in 15 years or so. That actually won't save me any money, but selling the house is a nice chunk 'o cash to spend on beer.

That is very unappealling to me, but we are all different. You'll find many people on this board who share your dream or are actively pursing it. See for example http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/planning-to-rv-full-time-this-spring-45788.html. And watch Lost in America!