I want to open one of the most intriguing topics - where does the money come from?
Honestly, it's something everyone wants to know, including us, on other sailors and nomads.
So, I'll talk about in a few posts: Did we win the lottery? (Hint... no), how does remote work work? And how much does it cost us?
Did we win the lottery?
No. We didn't win the lottery, and we didn't retire either.
The moment we decided this was the dream we wanted to follow, we navigated our apartment savings, which we never bought, towards buying a sailboat.
In essence, we divided our savings into three parts: the sailboat, the travel fund, and savings for the return.
The budget for the boat defined the type, size, and year of the vessel we could buy.
The travel fund limits the journey to a specific period.
And the savings for the return are a deep breath for when we decide to finish the journey and stop.
The plan was to combine work in our day-to-day lives to avoid spending the savings too quickly, giving us more time to fulfill our dreams.
To our delight, we manage to do that to an extent that satisfies us at the moment (I promise a separate post about it!).
In principle, ignoring the boat's operation cost (which runs from costly to very expensive), I think living on a yacht helps with frugality because things aren't available. And even if they are, physically, there's no space on the boat.
The interesting part happens when suddenly things become available...
For example, now we are in Puerto Rico (America, baby), and we're wandering around like addicts who haven't received their urban fix for a year - playgrounds of all kinds, skate parks, attractions, rented cars, malls, Amazon Prime (!!), and all possible junk food.
It has been almost a year since I entered a store and tried on something in a fitting room that had a small bench, flattering lighting, and front and rear mirrors.
How obvious. How fun. I honestly missed it.
But I was also shocked.
I wanted to leave, but I wanted to stay and try on a dress or two or three.
How lucky we were that the kids were with us and spared us the calculation if we had money to buy a candle that we would never light on the boat or an unnecessary sweatshirt in the Caribbean weather.
How easy it is to forget when there's no temptation, and how easy it is to fall back into comfort.
As much as I enjoy the luxuries, I look forward to leaving here and returning to managing a tighter budget. Return to the peace that the sea and beaches give me, to the disconnect and the unavailability of things.
I think a lot about what we'll do when we finish the journey -
I'd like to say that we will forever cherish the awareness that nothing we have is granted: not the availability and ability to buy things, not the variety, and not even water and electricity.
I'd like to say that we'll try to live simpler and keep a sustainable life.
But I'm a realistic person.
In the meantime, we try to maximize our time on the boat by generating income to enable it.
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