MikeCinFLA

Living on the sea is for me! Living on a boat keeps me afloat.

Visit MikeCinFLA's blog

Member for: 2 years 3 weeks
Location: Palmetto, FL
Homepage: Nautical Nomad

Hi I’m Michael, I’m now a 49 year old frugalist (Frugalist: A follower of the Frugalism movement, opposite of a Consumerist: follower of the Consumerism movement). I wasn’t always 49 and I wasn’t always a frugalist. Before the turn of the century I was a Mechanical Engineer living in the burbs of Boston, raising a family and killing myself to keep up with the Joneses. I was struggling everyday to get ahead in the rat race. My family, my friends, practically everyone I knew was in the race. We were all living “The American Dream” a bigger house, a bigger car, bigger stress, and monster debt that would keep us “workin for the man” until we could retire at 72. Then soon after we would conveniently pass away from diseases brought on by the stress of competing in the rat race for most of our lives. Every one of us longed for the freedom of living a simpler life, but we felt trapped on the treadmill. Today I live a very different life than I did eight years ago. I once read somewhere “You can’t control which direction the wind will blow, but you can adjust your sails.” Because of a combination of circumstances beyond my control and decisions I made in response to those circumstances I was able to reinvent my life. Today I live on the water in a tropical paradise. Living on a 30ft sailboat means I must live simply. My bills are less then 10% of my income, even though my income is half of what it was eight years ago. And in three years when I turn 52, I will never have to “work for the man” again. I’ll leave the rats to their race, sail away to new adventures, and live the simple life I could only dream about before.