To-Do List
Our To-Do List While We Wait
Sailing and Boat Related
- Learn how (duh) on our MacGregor 25
- Tour more catamarans and monohulls, probably under the guise of buyers
- Attend the Annapolis boat show (necessary? no. cool? absolutely.)
- Meet and talk with as many current cruisers as possible
- Learn more about weather forecasting and diesel engine mechanics
Family and Health Related
- Tell our family. Dan’s brother Kyle and his wife Becca are planning on coming with us, but the rest of the family (namely our parents) don’t have a clue.
- Get LASIK eye surgery. Again, we know this isn’t technically necessary, but our insurance will be paying for most of it, and it should save us some serious glasses related hassles in the future. Plus, we just want it.
- Potty-train Carter. While we know cruisers survive with cloth diapers, Michele is just not interested in hand washing poopy ones. Thanks but no thanks.
- Learn how to cook (better and more). This includes learning how to make foods from scratch and not just pasta roni and boxed cakes. This also includes training our habit away from eating out for every single meal.
Scuba Related (the most fun)
- Buy scuba gear for Dan.
- Get advanced and rescue certified. Michele got her advanced scuba certification and Dan got advanced and rescue certified on our Bull Shoals scuba trip.
- Dan get dive master certified. This one is a minimum for us, since that puts him in official pay-scale range for dive shops.
- Buy scuba gear for Michele. Probably will purchase this slower than Dan because he will need it sooner for his classes.
- Dan get instructor certified. The eventual goal and our fallback plan for money on the boat. PADI instructors are certified to teach PADI classes anywhere in the world, which is a bonus since that’s where we’ll be.
Money (the reason for the wait)
- Pay off car loans. Sold!
- Pay off student loans.
- Build equity in our house.
- Have at least a year’s worth of cruising expenses to start our “cruising kitty”.
- Secure at least $1000/mo income from rental properties. We currently have three single family homes. (We average about $200 profit per month per house after accounting for vacancies and subtracting 10% for a property manager… we don’t pay a property manager yet, but we will when we are cruising.)
- Have at least 6 months reserves for each rental property. Currently 3 out of an estimated 5.
- Purchase and outfit a boat.
- Save at least $50,000 in cash. This is the big one that we are waiting on, along with Dan’s scuba certifications. (This is no longer our plan… once we hit $50,000 we decided to buy rentals and investments in order to support us for a much longer time.)
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.