

The Let's-Sell-Our-House-And-See-the-World Retirement - victorology
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443720204578004131575356160.html

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jasonkester
Excellent plan. I did this when I was 30.

Or at least a slightly modified version, where you fly back to the US to do a
short on-site contract gig from time to time, or (more recently) just work
remotely when you need to.

Naturally, if you do this 40 years earlier than the folks in the article, you
have a much higher tolerance for cheap living. I notice the article mentions
nothing about living in a little hut on the beach in some random backpacker
paradise for months on end to stretch out the finances. Or of hitching across
the sketchier parts of those countries the State department advises you not to
go to (though if they did, they'd probably get a lot fewer worried emails from
their parents, so maybe that's an upside).

But yeah, as tech folk, we get the ridiculous three-fold advantage of being
able to do 100% of our job remotely, being able to deliver measurable results
from short (ie., sub-3-month) engagements, and commanding a somewhat higher
rate (ie., 3-10x) than pretty much anybody else with the same amount of
flexibility.

I find myself dangerously close to slowing down in my old age. (I actually
bought a couch yesterday.) Hopefully some of the rest of you lot will get out
there and take my place!

~~~
mcdowall
I do very much the same as you alluded to here, the only difference being that
I am in tech project management (cue a gasp!) so remote pm roles really don't
appear that often so I tend to do 3-6months contracting then head off
somewhere cool for month or so.

This year I've managed to hit Australia's East Coast for a month, do central
America for a month and take the best part of a month off for the Olympics. I
call it itchy feet syndrome!

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stevenwei
My girlfriend and I decided to do this last year. We didn't have a house to
sell, but we sold our cars, put everything else in storage, and left to see
the world. We've been on the road for about 18 months now, and it's been quite
a blast.

Being able to remotely work from anywhere with an internet connection really
opens up the travel opportunities. It also means that you can start traveling
_now_ , as opposed to waiting until retirement age when you have a bunch of
cash saved up. This also lets you travel more cheaply, and do more physically
challenging activities, like say, climbing mountains, scuba diving, running
marathons, or whatever.

On the flip side, being in the software industry (with relatively high levels
of income) also means that you're not _forced_ to travel cheaply when you
don't want to, and you can splurge on interesting once-in-a-lifetime
experiences, or spend time in more expensive countries, without wrecking your
travel budget.

We're very fortunate to be in an era (and industry) where this kind of travel
is possible, and I hope more folks decide to take advantage of it,
particularly while they're young.

~~~
highace
Did you already have the clients before you decided to do this or have you
been looking for work as you go along?

~~~
stevenwei
We're not doing freelance work, rather, we sell software. But we did wait
until our sales were sustainable before deciding to travel.

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drpancake
You can have the best of both worlds. I started working (iOS consulting) and
travelling two months ago and I save more of my earnings here than I did
living in San Francisco. Today I signed a lease to rent a shared house in
northern Thailand and my rent is $160/month for a place that would cost a
small fortune at home.

I found that constantly being on the move is difficult to keep up for weeks at
a time. So now I have a base from which to explore the surrounding countries.

There's a surprising number of expat tech workers in the city (Chiang Mai) but
now I can sit in a cafe without overhearing social-local-mobile startup
pitches.

~~~
flog
I'd think the big problem would be this sort of stuff: finding places willing
to let medium-term to tourists.

Have you had any issues? Do you pay cash up front rather than arrears?

~~~
drpancake
Most landlords here will let you lease a place for 6 months as a minimum. Most
have no problem with renting to foreigners. I had to pay a deposit of two
months rent and one month rent in advance.

If possible try to avoid English-speaking property agents as they charge a
premium. The best approach, at least in this country, is to drive around with
a native speaker and spot 'For rent' signs.

~~~
stevenwei
Are you on a tourist visa? How are you managing to stay for 6 months?

~~~
drpancake
Yep, a double entry tourist visa. It's probably the largest drawback of being
here as I have to leave the country after three months and come back; this
literally involves taking a bus to the Burma/Laos border, walking across a
bridge then walking straight back to the bus.

There are ways round it though. If you take a 'Learn Thai' course at an
accredited institution you get a year long visa. A little more expensive
though.

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josscrowcroft
Some nice stuff in here, especially that about "trans-Atlantic repositioning
voyages" which I'd never considered. I'm assuming they have investments
totaling over US $2m to be pulling that kind of monthly interest?

It's astonishing that they could spend as much as they do (the picture has
details) but I suppose requirements for a retired couple in their 60s is
different to a 20-something serial relocator!

~~~
indiecore
I'd actually like to know more about these "repositioning voyages". I did some
googling but it seems like it's a travel agent thing which makes me wonder if
there's a decent website that I can get a look at prices on.

~~~
bradleyjg
Here's a for example:
[http://www2.ncl.com/vacations?key=EPIC17CIVLIVMRSPMIBCNFNCST...](http://www2.ncl.com/vacations?key=EPIC17CIVLIVMRSPMIBCNFNCSTTMIA#.UI62gkvC_t0.favorites)

17 days from Rome to Miami in October, with stops in Florence, Provence,
Palma, Barcelona, Funchal, & St. Thomas, for $2738(balcony room).

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jtbigwoo
I was just talking to my parents about this. They're in their second decade of
"retirement" (really just working a little less and volunteering a lot more in
their case.) Many of their friends fulfilled lifelong plans to sell their
homes and move to the lake or someplace warm or travel the world. Most of
these friends are now back in town having missed the connections that they
built over a lifetime. One couple even bought the house next to their old
house so they could reconnect with their neighborhood. God bless people like
the author and her husband, but most of us are sustained not by where we live
but by lifelong connections to others.

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reneherse
Anyone here experimented with a working-nomadic lifestyle? It seems an
intriguing possibility for anyone without a house or family.

~~~
gr366
Writing this from Sevilla, Spain, where my wife and I have been living for
about 2 weeks.

We've just completed 2 years of a digital nomad lifestyle, having previously
spent between 1 to 11 months each in Madrid, Buenos Aires, Tulum (Mexico),
Portland (Oregon) and Edinburgh. Of course those are bases from which we've
also visited Mallorca, Granada, Lisbon, Uruguay, Santiago (Chile), Mendoza,
Mérida, Dublin and Paris. This is done while working on average 7-8 billable
hours, 5-6 days a week, with some gaps in between for "touristy stuff."

All of the advice in the article about settling in to a new place rings true,
particularly the internet connectivity situation. We've had difficulties in
about half the places we've lived, but have also had the good fortune of
incredibly considerate locals who have bent over backwards to assist.

Because we're both working, we decided to keep our house in Los Angeles and
rent it out. We started with my friend acting as a property manager, but have
since found that as long as we have a handyman, plumber and various other
maintenance and repair people, the middleman only causes delays in
communication. It's pretty amazing what can be done from the other side of the
world.

We'll be in Europe until the end of January (as Americans, the Schengen
agreement is a continual thorn in our plans), and haven't yet determined where
we'll head next. Financially, the expensive part is hopping from place to
place. If you can find somewhere whose tourist visas allow 6 months (UK,
Mexico) or where you can pop across the border for a day and get it renewed
(Argentina), you can cut down on a lot of expenses (and stress) by planting
yourself for longer.

All that said, I highly recommend it. The opportunity to experience other
cultures, learn a new language, and gain a different perspective on life is
invaluable. Even for the process of winnowing your "stuff" down to what you're
willing to carry with you while traveling for months on end.

It also has the side benefit of making you one of the more interesting people
at any gathering you attend.

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boothead
Interesting article. I'd love to hear from anyone who does this with kids (I
would guess at a slightly lower moving frequency)? I grew up in several places
as a kid (my Dad's an engineer) and I'd love to find a way to give my children
some of the same experiences.

Also I'd really appreciate if those of you who work remotely at a good level
of income could share how you go about finding gigs. Repeat customers?
Retainers? Short term project to short term project?

TIA

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joelrunyon
I'd be interested in hearing alternative takes on retirement in general.

It'd be interesting to see if the idea of "retirement" gets disrupted and the
economy moves from a primarily labor intensive (and physical ability oriented)
to knowledge intensive (and mental ability oriented).

We're already seeing people work longer, but I wonder if the notion of
retiring will go away or if people will keep working as long as they can keep
thinking clearly & feel they can create something of value.

~~~
michaelochurch
White-collar work has even more age discrimination for reasons that have
little to do with mental ability. Blue-collar workers can keep going into
their 60s. White-collar workers peak in earnings around 45 to 50.

For a variety of perverse sociological reasons, companies measure people on
their decline curves and bad-case performance. Investment banking analyst
programs exemplify this. You don't have to be smart or socially suave to
succeed. You have to be average-- after a double all-nighter (and most people
aren't).

This is twisted because if a company's well-managed, no one sees the right
side of the decline curve. Ever.

Older people retain their general capability, and have a lot more insight and
experience, so normal-case capacity doesn't decline for most, but they lose
the ability and desire to participate in shared suffering for 14 hours per
day.

Sixty-year-old blue collar workers can still keep going. It gets increasingly
painful to do the work, but no one fires them until their bodies can't handle
it any more (on average, around 70). On the other hand, sixty-year-old white
collar workers who haven't played the game well will have to deal with younger
bosses (a sign of career failure) and mounting age discrimination.

~~~
joelrunyon
What about for developers/hackers/entrepreneurs.

I don't see someone giving up coding just because they hit an age limit.

I can see how typical older white collar workers might run into issues, but
I'm wondering if engineers would still fall into that category.

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galactus
Yet another article about the adventurous kind of retirement. Is it me, or do
all personal finances magazines seem to have one of those these days?

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smutticus
The only thing keeping my wife and I from full nomad is pets. You can't keep
critters if you move all the time.

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michaelochurch
Millennial version, circa 2055. "The Airfare-Is-Too-Expensive-When-You-Still-
Have-Fucking-Student-Loans Retirement".

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carsongross
How long do you think those $6000 checks are gonna keep showing up for?

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rorrr
> _Our financial adviser sends us about $6,000 a month, generated from
> investments. We also collect Social Security and a small pension._

Why would you even need to sell a house when you get so much money monthly?

~~~
benjaminwootton
I assume this is partly generated from the sale of the house.

You would need huge investments to generate that per month though without
drawing down on the capital.

