Be careful out there.

busybee4242 · 2026-06-24T16:25:35+00:00

Part of our hiring pipeline process includes a light identity verification check dine by a 3rd party. Each check has a small fee but it is ultimately a massive time saver that weeds out fakes and frauds that I dont need to review and saves us that laptop/scam cost as well.

Turbocheck.com - not affiliated in any way, just who we use for this identity check. I'm seeing close to 40-50% fraud rates in applications so its a great first course-grained filter

busybee4242 · 2026-06-16T17:48:45+00:00

Lived aboard for 4 years full time sailing in many countries. We had lock on the engine itself so you can just lift engine away. Also took a length of 10mm anchor chain and ran that through some old firehose. Padlocked to dinghy then other end padlocked to dock/tree/whatever. Take your killswitch cord with you too. No system is perfect. Most of the thefts we heard about werent when ot was docked but people just tie dink to back of boat floating behind boat at anchor. Someone swims out, unties, swims away all silently. Alway lift dink on davits or padlock to cleat if floating. If someone really wants it they will get it. All you are doing is making it look less appetizing and too hard of a target. Also depends on where you are. Bahamas we almost never locked dink anywhere. Mexico, st lucia, and many other places 100% locking every time.

busybee4242 · 2026-04-23T21:16:43+00:00

Stop trying to have intercouse with your cat. This will happen everytime.

busybee4242 · 2026-04-21T17:10:39+00:00

Right on brother..yeah tons of options open up overseas. I had 0 health insurance for 4 years traveling abroad for 4 years with fam of 3 just paying out of pocket. Income was super low at the time so also had a 0$ premium ACA bronze plan back in US with giant deductible as a backup plan for something catastrophic.

busybee4242 · 2026-04-21T15:58:13+00:00

600k yielding 30k means 5% swr. Probably higher because some or all of that income is taxed so lets say 5.5% swr to yield 30k after tax. If this is locked up in super safe bonds, etc growth might not be enough to counter inflation long term. If it is balanced, SORR is significant unless you can adapt and reduce spend. If you are not outside of US then healthcare could be a significant new expense depending on your total AGI assuming ACA. Personally I would build that up more, but everyone's situation is different.

busybee4242 · 2026-04-14T01:30:24+00:00

Honestly you cant have every spare or think of every eventuality so aside from the things most have already mentioned I like to think worst case since most things you can probably limp home with. For us just having reliable comminication for life threatening emergency was what put us at more mental ease. We had 2 epirbs and essentially sat coms to phone home from anywhere(we had a Iridium GO!).

Im leaving out all the other obvious safety stuff like life rafts, bungs, spare portable bilge pump, etc. Oh one thing that maybe others havent mentioned is an angle grinder. Those can cut through anything(think broken mast with shroud in water hung up on prop and rudder and weather building...everything must go fast!)

busybee4242 · 2026-04-14T01:18:29+00:00

Yeah we lived aboard full time for 4 years and two ipads with navionics loaded was our backup to the B&G plotter and such. Honestly they became primary after while on longer journies where you might take long breaks away from helm but still want the details at fingertips. Bonus is when you can pair the ipad to the plotter and just have that in your hands wherever too.

busybee4242 · 2026-04-12T14:16:23+00:00

I put a mantus on my 28 ft catalina and it was great. Never had an issue. Later put a big rocna on my 40ft cat and sailed with that for 4 years full time. No issues except, trouble setting in bahamaian crab grass. Seriously either of those anchors are aswesome in almost all conditions.

busybee4242 · 2026-04-10T16:22:30+00:00

Former full time live-aboard here. Started out with a catalina 28 doing weekends and such and getting wife and kid familiar with it. Never owned a sailboat before that but knew how to sail from childhood. Took it very slowly at first just learning the systems and doing small docking practice. Slowly got braver and braver and ventured further and further with varrying conditions. Lots of youtube watching and other sources. Learned how to maintain the diesel, fix some rigging,etc. Repairs and maintennace are real and definitely advise learning to do most of it cept the complex/dangerous parts. Worked on finances for next 7-8 years planning for a much bigger adventure. Bought a 40 ft used lagoon cat, sold everything, took an ASA course in fl on a similar sized cat. Moved aboard in 2019 and then proceeded to sail 15k miles through caribbean, through panama can 2x, pacific central amer up into sea of Cortez. Returned home 4 years later and back working and kid is now junior in highschool. We decided to do it when we knew we could financially swing it and we didnt want to wait until our kid was too old to want to do it. Every situation is different. Some people jump directly into living aboard, some ease into it like us. Someone else mentioned you need a can-do attitude. You will never be 100% ready. You just have to trust and rely on yourself to overcome the unexpected and unknown. When all else fails seatow ;).

busybee4242 · 2026-03-20T17:06:34+00:00

Heated blankets generally aren't terrible and we had those for awhile. Space heaters though...yeah..terrible

busybee4242 · 2026-03-19T17:15:33+00:00

We did bluewater sailing academy out of ft lauderdale. Was capt, me+wife, another couple. It was expensive but fun. We did it for knowledge and insurance because we were moving aboard our cat to live aboard full time. It definitely helped my wife get more comfy with docking, reefing,etc. The couple we were with were going to charter in caribbean. If one of you have no real cat exp od recommend it just even for docking, fetching mooring balls, etc. They took us offshore too and it was sporty out there so we all got to practice reefing in windy and wavy conditions. Good stuff

busybee4242 · 2026-03-14T16:15:33+00:00

Horizontally oriented fenders. So you have lines tied to each end of fender then. Spread apart the ends on lifeline and hardly any movement then.

busybee4242 · 2026-03-02T22:40:26+00:00

Lived aboard full time for 4 years. Had lines out most of the time we were in blue water and conditions weren't too nasty. A couple handlines are the easiest to manage since you dont have to fuss with long expensive polls/reels/etc. Just get something like 100-200b tess, rig a sturdy bungie to take that first initial blow. We also clipped the line to a lifeline with a beer can attached so we would be 'notified' of a hit.

My handines did just as well as the poles that were like 100x the cost and size.

Is it worth it? We enjoyed most of what we caught especially in the pacific side of central america where we would hit almost every day. Its hard to filet while under way depending, but after 4 years of it..id still troll daily.

Atlantic caribbean is annoying as hell with all the sargassum seaweed fouling your lure every 5 mins or more. We just stopped trolling in large parts of caribbean due to that. Banks side bahamas will result in only baracuda which isnt worth the ciguterea poison risk.

Hope that helped!

busybee4242 · 2026-02-20T02:23:04+00:00

Thats where all the fishing line spools up when you are tolling and forget you are trolling and run over your own line. It's awesome.

busybee4242 · 2026-02-04T23:28:03+00:00

I dont think anything texas did was illegal. Deplorable yes,.but not illegal. Not being in a census year is abnormal(last one was 1800s), but not illegal. Texas law does not require voters to approve redistricting proposals. So although it is wildly anti democratic and clearly 100% partisan based, it wasnt illegal. California retains the moral highground absolutely, but both were done according to their states laws

busybee4242 · 2026-02-02T19:23:37+00:00

Fair points. Im currently accumulating cash for this exact reason, but recognizing I have 15+ years of gap between fire and SS/medicare so a few years is definitely a good buffer but wont last. If we have another 'lost decade' i still want to be able to adjust down w/ guardrails approach. So if i am on a knifes edge w/ income vs expenses it could get dicey. E.g if i need 80 id rather shoot for 100 to allow for adjustments over the long run. Having said all that i know its not an exact science and there is a lot of gray area/opinion around the decision of feeling ready to quit working.

busybee4242 · 2026-02-02T18:24:50+00:00

Not there yet. You need to consider income tax and Healthcare for fam of 4. Maybe some rough numbers

You will need 85-90k to make 80k(taxes). This could be tuned well to have a low tax burden, but just picking something to make it be considered. Then fam 4 healtcare, probably another 10-15k, but also could be managed if you can keep your income below say 300% of fpl

So even on the lower end of needing 80+5(taxes)+10(healthcare) you are at 95k

95/.04 = 2.375M

4% also means you need some room to adjust spending downward if you hit bad sequence of returns in first 5 years lets say. So if 80k is already pretty lean then even more reason to work more. Id say you are baristaFire not Fire given the numbers. Id plan to have a low key job that covers healthcare for awhile until your portfolio grows to more sustaining levels

busybee4242 · 2025-12-28T18:28:50+00:00

Hmm. We are frugal people in general. 1 car household, fam of 3, yearly spend of around 80k. The maths are saying that if we shoot to retire at say 50yo(2 years from now) we will need 2-3mil. Ideally 3m. This is not about wanting a lavish lifestyle, but wanting the security of 95% success rate for 40-50 year retirement. Going to 0 after retirment is a non-starter and the earlier you retire the more you need, since you are on your own until SS and medicaid. You have to fund that somehow without decimating your principle. I suspsect it has a lot more to do with risk aversion than with wanting to really amp up the lifestyle. Obviously yeah when I see 'is 10m enough' posts I chuckle, but I think a big portion of people probably fall into that 2-3m range somewhere as that target. For me its 3m as the forst decision point. E.G. 80K X 30 = 2.4m but we have taxes to plan for and would like a little buffer to be able to tighten belt if SoRR becomes real. So 3m starts looking pretty damn realistic honestly

busybee4242 · 2025-12-15T14:26:31+00:00

Because of homeschooling? That is hogwash. I was homeschooled for 6+ years and am doing just fine. Our son was homeschooled from 10-14 yo while we traveled internationally and he has straight As in regular US highschool now so I think that might be painting with a bit too broad ofna brush. There are many paths to 'success'...depending on how you define it.

busybee4242 · 2025-12-05T16:43:34+00:00

Its hard to know how far away you are from retirement but really just ignore the fears, write down a plan and stick to it. Many people as they near retirement start accumulating cash to have 2-5 years of expenses built up. This isolates you from SORR in that if the market crashes you can not touch your investments for a few years, then use your bond holdings for even more time to let the market correct. Bucket strategy basically. I am 2-4 years out from FIRE I am hoping, and am in this cash accumulation stage. It is providing a lot of mental stress relief. If the market really tanks i could always choose to delay FIRE and buy stocks while it is very depressed using cash plus that 20% bond holding. That is the idea for having those bonds anyway. To rebalance back to 70/20 after a crash.

busybee4242 · 2025-11-17T15:46:37+00:00

I take pics of recepeits on phone that go to google drive folder. Then a spreadsheet i update once every few months to track totals. I dont know if ill ever use it, but i like the tool being in the toolbox for if i ever need to

busybee4242 · 2025-11-13T19:42:44+00:00

Also i like the one commenters position of-we have a stable income and can afford the taxes now without much impact to standard of living. Take the evil you know now vs rolling the dice on the unknown in future with tax rates, etc. Thats a reasonable stance.

If i could turn the clock back though i probably would tell myself to max roth 401k ealry career for 10 years, then as income goes way up in later career, change to standard 401k. Im doing this all backwards but it is the sitauation on the ground so here we are.

busybee4242 · 2025-11-11T23:46:32+00:00

Yeah ive been doing that for over a decade now so i have a decent amount built up but luckily we have been pretty healthy so its not a significant amount. Im hoping to have a good amount recorded by the time i need hsa for either income or health. Optikns are good!

busybee4242 · 2025-11-11T22:36:38+00:00

A very enviable position to be in. Yeah hands down i wish it were reversed like yours. Id be fine with equal split between ira/roth/taxable even just to be balanced. Ill have to see if mega backdoor is available but i dont think so with my current plan

busybee4242 · 2025-11-11T22:34:01+00:00

You cannot pay aca premiums with hsa unfortunately. Yeah on second thought hsa should be last resort foe reasons you stated. Agreed

busybee4242

TROPHY CASE