well, i tried the real world...

[icelanticskier]

it's all what ya make of it. i never went to college as i had zero interest in going. i just wanted to ski and didn't need further edu to do that. i graduated hs half way through senior year and headed for the hills for 10 solid seasons of 120+ days a year from ski resorts in maine, utah, colorado, nh and road trips all over hell and back in the shoulder seasons. i chose to work nights at hotels as a bellman/valet and killed it making enough to walk away from many seasons with an extra 6-8 grand in my pocket for 5 months work which i'd put in 5-7% cd's and still got to ski every day. summers were spent working on cape cod in bike shops and part time valet at night banking more coin for shoulder season travel and long term saving.

after 10 years of that i moved back to the cape from utah as i got tired of moving every 6 months, scored a year round bike shop gig and took all that cash i had saved and started to buy rental properties in 01', good time to buy. still managed to ski 50-75 mid week days a season living on the cape and after the market shot back up in 05' sold my rentals, good time to sell. worked the cape for another coupla years till i moved to seacoast nh where i reside today. i grew up surfing on the cape and surfing is my 1st love. nh is an amazing place to be a surfer year round and in less than 2 hours i can be skinning up mt washington which holds snow from nov-july most years. in the 5 years living here i have managed to ski 80-120 days a season and surf close to 200 days a year. not bad for a 40 year old who never went to college, never had a car payment, a credit card payment........

my couple of remaining rentals i own on the cape pay all of my bills accept for food, which my 6% annuity pays for (which i don't draw from), so my 32-35 hour a week outdoor sports retail job is pretty much all gravy. retire at 45? hmmm, retire from what?!.

chose yer own adventure my friends. the math ain't hard, even for a barely high school graduate dirtbag like myself.

and yes i much prefer to live by the sea and be in striking distance to the mountains. if yer a surfer, you gotta be able to get on it at a moments notice or the wind can switch or swell drop in a second. once the mountains have snow, and you earn yer turns, finding good snow is easy daily.

rog

[buildakicker]

it's all what ya make of it. i never went to college as i had zero interest in going. i just wanted to ski and didn't need further edu to do that. i graduated hs half way through senior year and headed for the hills for 10 solid seasons of 120+ days a year from ski resorts in maine, utah, colorado, nh and road trips all over hell and back in the shoulder seasons. i chose to work nights at hotels as a bellman/valet and killed it making enough to walk away from many seasons with an extra 6-8 grand in my pocket for 5 months work which i'd put in 5-7% cd's and still got to ski every day. summers were spent working on cape cod in bike shops and part time valet at night banking more coin for shoulder season travel and long term saving.

after 10 years of that i moved back to the cape from utah as i got tired of moving every 6 months, scored a year round bike shop gig and took all that cash i had saved and started to buy rental properties in 01', good time to buy. still managed to ski 50-75 mid week days a season living on the cape and after the market shot back up in 05' sold my rentals, good time to sell. worked the cape for another coupla years till i moved to seacoast nh where i reside today. i grew up surfing on the cape and surfing is my 1st love. nh is an amazing place to be a surfer year round and in less than 2 hours i can be skinning up mt washington which holds snow from nov-july most years. in the 5 years living here i have managed to ski 80-120 days a season and surf close to 200 days a year. not bad for a 40 year old who never went to college, never had a car payment, a credit card payment........

my couple of remaining rentals i own on the cape pay all of my bills accept for food, which my 6% annuity pays for (which i don't draw from), so my 32-35 hour a week outdoor sports retail job is pretty much all gravy. retire at 45? hmmm, retire from what?!.

chose yer own adventure my friends. the math ain't hard, even for a barely high school graduate dirtbag like myself.

and yes i much prefer to live by the sea and be in striking distance to the mountains. if yer a surfer, you gotta be able to get on it at a moments notice or the wind can switch or swell drop in a second. once the mountains have snow, and you earn yer turns, finding good snow is easy daily.

rog

Good post and man, you hit it right.

[Ski to Be]

I've skied all over the world and Whistler/Blackcomb + seasons pass = owns the shit out of alpental

I love Whistler, I also love Chamonix, & Jackson. Vancouver to Whistler is quite a commute if you work there. My point was that you can have your cake economically and eat it too & I have skied 9 seasons at Alpental of at least 50 plus days and never tire of it. There are still parts of the backcountry I haven't been to. I didn't even throw in Crystal because it's an hour and a half

[mc_roon]

Fuck ya. Live the dream!!

[My Pet Powder Goat]

ROOOON!!!!!

[JRainey]

it's all what ya make of it. i never went to college as i had zero interest in going. i just wanted to ski and didn't need further edu to do that. i graduated hs half way through senior year and headed for the hills for 10 solid seasons of 120+ days a year from ski resorts in maine, utah, colorado, nh and road trips all over hell and back in the shoulder seasons. i chose to work nights at hotels as a bellman/valet and killed it making enough to walk away from many seasons with an extra 6-8 grand in my pocket for 5 months work which i'd put in 5-7% cd's and still got to ski every day. summers were spent working on cape cod in bike shops and part time valet at night banking more coin for shoulder season travel and long term saving.

after 10 years of that i moved back to the cape from utah as i got tired of moving every 6 months, scored a year round bike shop gig and took all that cash i had saved and started to buy rental properties in 01', good time to buy. still managed to ski 50-75 mid week days a season living on the cape and after the market shot back up in 05' sold my rentals, good time to sell. worked the cape for another coupla years till i moved to seacoast nh where i reside today. i grew up surfing on the cape and surfing is my 1st love. nh is an amazing place to be a surfer year round and in less than 2 hours i can be skinning up mt washington which holds snow from nov-july most years. in the 5 years living here i have managed to ski 80-120 days a season and surf close to 200 days a year. not bad for a 40 year old who never went to college, never had a car payment, a credit card payment........

my couple of remaining rentals i own on the cape pay all of my bills accept for food, which my 6% annuity pays for (which i don't draw from), so my 32-35 hour a week outdoor sports retail job is pretty much all gravy. retire at 45? hmmm, retire from what?!.

chose yer own adventure my friends. the math ain't hard, even for a barely high school graduate dirtbag like myself.

and yes i much prefer to live by the sea and be in striking distance to the mountains. if yer a surfer, you gotta be able to get on it at a moments notice or the wind can switch or swell drop in a second. once the mountains have snow, and you earn yer turns, finding good snow is easy daily.

rog

Wow, you just went from internet douche to potentially cool dude IMO. Way to make it happen.

[Slurr P]

You must not have an openminded girl that realizes there's more than one kind of faceshot that's cool.

when you find a girl who wants you to get both, THAT'S when you found a keeper.

[auvgeek]

Wow, you just went from internet douche to potentially cool dude IMO. Way to make it happen.

+1.

Rog, that was by far the best post I've ever seen from you.

[irul&ublo]

when you find a girl who wants you to get both, THAT'S when you found a keeper.

You could interpret that a couple of ways....

[Bagels]

See ya in Tram Line!

[mc_roon]

ROOOON!!!!!

Winter is coming, time to prepare for the snows. You back in ut yet?

via carrier pigeon

[My Pet Powder Goat]

Winter is coming, time to prepare for the snows. You back in ut yet?

via carrier pigeon

Not in UT yet, Mid-Nov is the launch date.
I'm two month out from a herniated L5-S1 with some serious radiculopathy, But I'm hoping to be ready to ski by thanksgiving and new years is my fallback date. It's a bummer, I was really hoping to get out there sooner this season.

what's up with you? Thought you were going doing the whole "real Job" thing? ...hope you wised up

[BDKeg]

FKNA nice! the only butthurt replies are from duders who aren't getting in 100 days a year. There's only 2 options, live the dream or dream about the dream.

[icelanticskier]

Wow, you just went from internet douche to potentially cool dude IMO. Way to make it happen.

thanx!, i think

ya, many folks don't seem to get where i'm coming from or why i roll the way i do, but whatevs. no butthurt here. just passin through anyway. it's all just an illusion

enjoy the illusion the best ya can.

rog

[Bromontana]

Rog's story almost pisses me off. It's a bit of sound finance mixed with highly aggressive asset mgmt and the single largest asset bubble in te world, ever. Switch the timing of his real estate leveraging and he'd be fresh out of Bk court. That's a shit ton of risk to take on.. I'm guessing 10-20x net leverage ratio. Survivorship bias --> applause?

The part about saving and thinking of ways to put your money to work for you- good stuff

[auvgeek]

Reminded me of this thread:

[mc_roon]

Not in UT yet, Mid-Nov is the launch date.
I'm two month out from a herniated L5-S1 with some serious radiculopathy, But I'm hoping to be ready to ski by thanksgiving and new years is my fallback date. It's a bummer, I was really hoping to get out there sooner this season.

what's up with you? Thought you were going doing the whole "real Job" thing? ...hope you wised up

hope you get better sooner rather then later. Either way we'll be the spinal injury duo working our way up the skintrack.

i am doing the 'real' job thing, but with winter right around the corner I am rethinking it. No matter what i am sure we'll get at least a few good days out the gate this season.

[icelanticskier]

Rog's story almost pisses me off. It's a bit of sound finance mixed with highly aggressive asset mgmt and the single largest asset bubble in te world, ever. Switch the timing of his real estate leveraging and he'd be fresh out of Bk court. That's a shit ton of risk to take on.. I'm guessing 10-20x net leverage ratio. Survivorship bias --> applause?

The part about saving and thinking of ways to put your money to work for you- good stuff

if the timing had been different i wouldn't have bought or sold when i did. my mortgages on each property were half of what each property was bringing in each month in rents (if the numbers hadn't been that good, i wouldn't have bought and just held on to my money at 5-7%), so if i never had sold em, it woulda been a win either way. after selling everything in 05' i waited very patiently for the market to dropt and in fall of 09' i bought again. good time to buy, again. now my properties bring in more than double my mortgage/taxes/insurance/water/lawn mowing, so another win as i wait patiently for the market to go back up so i can sell, get back the 100 grand i put down, plus profit, and boom! throw it all into my 6% annuity which will make me another grand a month tax deferred income based on another 150 grand tossed in. if the market doesn't go back up, i'll pay the properties off in cash and live on the rents. easy

rog

[wolfelot]

I like this post. I'm 33 and switching gears out of soccer forever after tearing my Acl last year. I'm 100% recovered, take care of myself and plan to get after it for a long time.

I'm 36 and weigh the same as when I was 22.

You're doing it right, getting your schedule set up. But prime can be misinterpreted and misleading. I think you have another 20-25 years of physical prime, not just ten if you keep it up. I know guys who moved to the city and let it go, though. I personally wish I still had your schedule because I'm the best skier on the mountain.

Don't forget that skis today are way easier to rip on than they were 15 years ago. We may very well be ripping big lines in our 60's if the tech also continues to excel at helping us. I finish lines these days hauling ass through deep Japow forests and think "wow, this is way too easy." whereas 15 years ago I'd have been exhausted after a couple of laps in that snow. (and let's not forget the potential medical revolution we may see in the next 20 years in regards to physical ailments.)

Now fear on the other hand may or may not be the thing that forces you to tone it down a bit. Most older guys I know just get tired of injuries and decide their risk tolerance is a bit lower.

Jimmy Chin: "When you're twenty you think you're immortal... wait that's not right. I mean, you have no concept of mortality." from here:


You can stay fit for a really long time, I'm finding. I know some ex-world cup racers from the Japan team here that are in their 50's and 60's and rip hard. It's inspiring. I just hope I can keep it that long.

[Bromontana]

if the timing had been different i wouldn't have bought or sold when i did

Cheers to you for doing well, it clearly took some hard work. I do think the degree of success you're enjoying is predicated on something that may not happen again in the next 50-100 years, however. Just want the younger ones to know a lot of people lost their ass trying to play real estate mogul (like me!).

With the current macro environment I see material home price appreciation (in real, not nominal terms) as being far from likely.

But again, congrats and I'll stop the derail.

[obscure reference]

7 pages and nobody has asked Spicymeat if he actually quit?
What happened Spicy?

[icelanticskier]

Cheers to you for doing well, it clearly took some hard work. I do think the degree of success you're enjoying is predicated on something that may not happen again in the next 50-100 years, however. Just want the younger ones to know a lot of people lost their ass trying to play real estate mogul (like me!).

may not happen for a long time. that is why investors should look at where they are putting their money from all angles. the younger need to know that just cuz they have the money, doesn't mean they need to spend it or invest in something cuz they CAN afford it. i see friends and others buying a home or investment properties all the time just cuz they can get a loan or "make it work". well making it work is a whole lot different than really knowing the market you're in and knowing when to hold em and fold em and turn that down payment into real life enhancing profit per month, not just covering yer mortgage and maybe enough profit to go drinking on a friday night. there are far better places for yer money out there than just covering yer expenses just to say you own something that may never go up in value.

With the current macro environment I see material home price appreciation (in real, not nominal terms) as being far from likely.

have to just wait patiently and see. till then, the rents keep going up as the mortgage keeps going down

anyone else refinance recently? man o man, what a time to make money right now. love this economy

rog

[thin cover]

I made the move to the mountains 2.5 years ago. Best thing I ever did. Everything I love to do is right here surrounding me. I do consulting from home, trade an account I have built over the years, have a rental property also , makes skis... Piece it together to make it work. I can throw flies or ski whenever I want pretty much. That is worth considerably more then any loss of income from leaving the NYC area. So plus 1 for following your dreams, for me sitting at a desk for defined periods of time is just is never In the cards again. But I am prepared too if it happens.

[Shorty_J]

Awesome!

[lpkdz]

Nurse. Great pay, you can live wherever you want, and work 3 days a week. I skied 100+ days last winter (yay for weekdays!), and spent most of the summer in Montana. I can take 8 days off without taking any vacation time or missing any shifts. It's radical. I'm not creative enough to make it another way... props to those that are! But I sure can't bitch about my life.