Frugal Retirement Living
how we do it

We decided to retire in 1990...we were standing atop a cruise ship in St Thomas, United States Virgin Islands...my bride and I had spent our afternoon with 4 other people on a 36 foot sailboat.

We had never been on a sailboat before...we looked down at the boat we had been on, along with a hundred other boats in the harbor and saw couples in their cockpits having cocktails looking at us leaving for Miami and back to the rat race...we wanted to do what they were doing.

5 years later, in St Thomas, on our own boat, we toasted the cruise ships as they left for Miami. You can do this too.

Not interested in a home that floats?

The Five Year Plan

We decided to retire in 5 years, I was a commercial real estate broker in Houston. My wife worked for a development company in the suburb we lived in, The Woodlands, Texas. We had been married for 19 years, no children, and figured the worse that could happen to us would be going back to work.

We ended up cheating a year and retired in 4 years, it is now 15 years later and we are still retired. Looking for the cheapest places to retire?

We had and still have a great marriage and a strong desire to enjoy retirement and be together.

We sat down one evening to name the boat. We got some stickys and started rattling off all the cliches...WaveDancer, SeaDream, etc...When Julie said we always call our vacation "shadow time", because on vacation we are together 24/7...we had our boat name.

At this time I should warn you that the number one requirement IMHO to enjoy frugal retirement living, is to get along well with your husband or wife.

The options we have experienced and will tell you about boating; rving; living overseas; relocation; all involve living in small spaces. Try finding some personal space on a 35 foot sailboat which has curved walls...get the picture...same in an RV although the walls are straight (whoopee), or living abroad.

It's best to really get along and enjoy each others company. Can frugal retirement living be enjoyed by couples that argue, etc...sure, they exist in a non-frugal lifestyle. Enough, you get the picture.

What do you give up with frugal retirement living ?

You are asking what do you give up when you start frugal retirement living? Good and fair question.

I prefer to look at it this way...you don't give up anything, you replace it with something else.

For instance I played golf several times a week before we went on the boat...Julie enjoyed the shopping Houston had to offer.

We both enjoyed our work, had nice cars, wore nice clothes...We both enjoyed our friends, dining out, going to the Astrodome to watch the Astros, etc...

After about a week on the boat it seemed our old lifestyle was a distant memory...we have never looked back because it is much more important to us to be retired...and once you are retired a lot of your old spending habits seem really wasteful.

I realize a sailboat is an extreme change from a 1800 square foot 2 story house but...you only need a swimsuit instead of a suit, tie, polished shoes...Julie realized that she only needed a good pair of sandals instead of choosing from 40 pair of shoes she wore to work...deciding what to wear on a boat in the Caribbean does not require a lot of thought.

For all of the tricks we use daily go to our guide to living cheap.

Your mindset changes

If you commuted you were concerned about traffic. Aboard the boat you are happiest when your fresh water tanks are full and your batteries are fully charged. It's a different set of concerns.

By practicing frugal retirement living, do we miss golf, the Astros, shopping, dining out?...Not at all, they were replaced by other activities, new friends, and new vistas...all seen from our backyard...the Caribbean.

We sold our boat in September 2002...for exactly what we paid for it in 1994, RVed from 1998 to 2005..It's now 2009, we are in the midst of an economic mess and this is written to encourage people that you can still retire, but frugal retirement living is more important than ever.

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