Always the first thought, albeit not the first voiced, in anyone’s mind when I tell them I’m planning to go sailing to Tahiti on a catamaran is, “Where the hell did this idiot get the money??” Well, make no mistake, I am an idiot. My brothers got the brains, all I have is balls. Got your attention yet? Good. I can say balls, it’s my blog.
SO… Money. It’s always about money. Before I go on a two paragraph diatribe against the menacing greenback I have to say, I worked my butt off for that money. I will say this though, you can manifest anything you want in your life, you just need know how. I recommend starting with the Law of Attraction by Esther Hicks.
And, here’s how I did it …
First of all, I’m a mechanic. Pretty much a glorified car mechanic. I’ve been a tinkerer all my life, and I enjoy working with my hands and figuring out how things work. I managed to parlay those skills into a 17 year career fixing broken crap. Yep. That’s it. I fix things. I’m pretty good at it now, but when I started I had no idea what I was doing. It was fake it till you make it. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s second rule of success is: Break some Rules. Well… that includes s t r e t c h i n g the truth on your resume’. Guilty. I had no idea how to do some of the jobs I’ve landed in my life. No. Clue. But I knew I’d learn as I went.
So I’m a mechanic. I make roughly $20/hr ($33 by the time I actually quit my job). I lived on my sailboats. For 4 years I paid no rent, only slip fees, and I whole-heartedly recommend everyone do that for at least 6 months of their life. It puts into perspective what really matters, especially materialistically.
I flipped cars and motorcycles, because I know how to fix them. I fixed up my boats and made a bit of profit on them (though it wasn’t really profit, as I spent money to upgrade them). I did side jobs on the weekends, sometimes working 16 hours on Saturday to put a little money in the boat fund. I busted my ass and saved. A huge chunk of it was from overtime. $33/h X 1.5 X 10hr/wk X 3/yrs… you do the math.
So I saved a bunch of cash, and got an education about boats along the way. I had a boat burn down, spent a year refitting a 44′ monster monohull, spent a year living in the quarter birth of a Catalina 27′, and learned to sail my engineless Islander in and out of the slip…. but that’s quite a few more posts. 🙂
The boat cost me $65k. Two months of refit with upgrades including:
- Hard top
- Solar controller/panels
- New tri-color light
- Windlass/Anchor/Swivel
- Lewmar 50ST winches
- VHF
- Delorme
- EPIRB
- IPAD for Navigation
- Engine spares
- New exhaust elbows/hoses
- Auto bildge switches
- LED lights
- Cockpit cushions
- Windex
- Paint nonskid
- Rebuild heads
- Repaired deck as needed
- 12v chargers for everything
- Speargun/fishing rod holders
- Third reef point in Mainsail
= Just over $12k.
Those refit costs are for me doing everything myself. The only thing I paid for was a fiberglass expert to come lay up the glass on the hard top, as I had never done anything that big before and it was very expensive material. Everything else I handled myself.
Till next time, fair wind and following seas!
