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What if your job allowed you to go fully remote for a year? And what if you and your spouse sold everything you owned, bought a boat, and cruised around the Americas for 5 years while building an online business?
Literally the dream life for many FIRE-rs.
Today’s guest is none other than Melody from Saving to Sail, who has done exactly that. She teaches boaters how to live their dreams and make money while sailing the word.
#digitalnomad #life.
Melody chats about:
- How she got into boating, how she prepared, and what sailing life is really like.
- The surprisingly *uncomplicated* saving method Melody used to create this lifestyle. (goooood motivation)
- Her online business in freelance writing, web design, and teaching others how to blog.
- Pirate names (see below)
This episode is fantastic for anyone considering replacing a full-time job lifestyle with online business and full-time travel. Enjoy!
Show notes and links from today’s episode
- Melody’s blog! – Saving to Sail
- Chesapeake Bay – Beautiful part of the country, and Melody’s top city to learn sailing.
- FinCon – Huge financial blogging conference
- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – Online income course by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner
Key takeaways from our chat with Melody at Saving to Sail
1 – Full-time travel isn’t always Instaglam Pinterest-glamorous
For those of us into travel, we’ve likely read numerous blog posts on the subject, seen 1,000+ beautiful images on Instagram and Pinterest from our favorite travel bloggers and friends, etc…
And it’s easy to forget this: It’s not always glamorous.
(The same could be said about most good things in life, right?)
Melody and her husband had frustrating issues with their dog when they first began sailing full-time. (Specifically, the dog wouldn’t use the doggy-restroom for 3-4 days).
You don’t see many full-time travel dog-poop stories on Pinterest.
Full-time digital nomad, travel, retired early life, etc…will never be 100% hassle-free living. Awesome in several ways, sure, but not perfect, and not without it’s frustrations and problems. Kinda like normal life 🙂
2 – It’s insane how attached to “things” we are.
Decluttering can be stressful enough…but getting rid of 95% of your earthly possessions?
Forget about it.
It’s only when we start discarding everything do we realize the insane attachment we have to “stuff.” And not even “hand-me-downs from our sweet Great-Grandmother” type of stuff….but even little things we could replace easily and cheaply.
A DVD collection. A small figurine that reminds us of something. Clothing we might “wear one day!”
Breaking this attachment can be tough, and we really enjoyed Melody’s “gamification” of the process. They made it a game to take objects they previously loved, and find a way to donate/sell/give away the item to someone else who will continue to love it.
This made the declutter process much easier.
3 – Sometimes your spouse is not the best person to learn from.
🙂
4 – There’s no secret sauce to saving.
We loved, loved, loved this point.
Upon diving into the finances behind leaving the “real world” to sail full-time…Melody’s analysis was dead simple.
“We just saved as much as we possibly could.”
Wait, what? There’s no magic formula for financial independence? There’s no secret sauce Melody knows about…but the rest of us don’t know about yet…that she could share with us?
Sometimes there’s no secret sauce. Saving is hard. Saving takes work, motivation, and patience.
There’s no way around it. You want to save for XYZ? Start saving wherever and whenever you can.
5 – Let’s take a second and be thankful for the internet
This might seem a bit odd, but none of us would be communicating today without modern technology.
There’d be no world-wide discussions about FIRE. Most of us probably wouldn’t know early retirement was a possibility if it weren’t for the internet.
30 years ago, if you wanted to sail full-time, you either needed to be:
- Full-on retired at 65
- Independently wealthy
No online business. No blog. No remote work.
Let’s be grateful for a second.
Ok. Moment’s passed. Now let’s get to work on our dreams 🙂
Ok, if you land on this page….what is your pirate name? Comment below 🙂
Here’s the formula:
- Name of your pet (don’t have a pet? Well what WOULD you name it?)
- Color of your boat (don’t have a boat? Well, come on just play the game)
- Arrrrrrrr
Continue the discussion of this episode in our private Facebook group for Fire Drill Podcast Community members. (It’s invite only)
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