For those who cruise a LOT - how do you do it?

[RNmominLA]

Maybe this is a silly question, but I'm totally serious!

 

I've noticed that some of you have cruised many, many times, and I aspire to be like you, lol. Are you guys living on a trust fund? Hit it big in stocks and retired? Or do you work from the ships? I do have a flexible job, so do some of you have international internet plans and work from the road (err, sea)? Are you just super at cruising cheaply?

 

I truly don't ask this in jest. If there was a way to live on a ship, I'd do it!

 

Input please....

[klfrodo]

It's a choice.

I could afford to live in a nicer neighborhood. I could afford to have a house at 3 times my current mortgage. I could afford to have a newer car, plus a truck, plus a boat, plus the RV, plus the quads,,,,,

But we choose not to.

We choose to travel

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

It's a choice.

I could afford to live in a nicer neighborhood. I could afford to have a house at 3 times my current mortgage. I could afford to have a newer car, plus a truck, plus a boat, plus the RV, plus the quads,,,,,

But we choose not to.

We choose to travel

Us as well ( Are you just super at cruising cheaply) inside cabin ..

[dorisis]

Worked hard. Invested wisely. Now live frugally.

[navybankerteacher]

Worked hard. Invested wisely. Now live frugally.

 

These are the key ingredients - added, of course, to the fact that retirement allows the time to travel - and the opportunity to pick the most reasonably priced options.

[GTO-Girl]

We don't spend a lot of money on other things......we are not big shoppers, brown bag our lunches.....don't eat out a lot.......etc.

 

We did not discover cruising until we were in our 50's so we were not trying to raise a family....which I know is a huge factor for most people.

[KirkNC]

My wife and I both work, make good money, save a lot, are somewhat frugal outside of cruising and she gets five and I get six weeks of vacation.

[happy trailer]

Small apartment, no car, no cable, no fancy phones, low food bills (vegan household).

 

Our priorities have always been to make sure we aren't a burden to our kids- and travel. I've become quite adept at finding ways to fit a lot of travel into our budget.

 

It's all about choices- although others might feel we live a frugal life, we're quite content.

 

But, it's also about attitude and setting priorities. We've grown to feel life is too short to set aside the things we feel most passionate about. Once you lose a friend who died before they started going through their bucket list, you start seeing life through different eyes.

[paul929207]

Like the others, we have always watched our spending and maximized our savings. We took full advantage of the savings plans offered at work. Invested well. When necessary, we buy a 2 or 3 year old car and keep it for about 10 years.

[CruiserBruce]

Worked hard. Invested wisely. Now live frugally.

 

A little variation. Worked very hard. Saved aggressively. Invested steadily, not seeking big gains all at once. Now enjoying dividends....literally and figuratively.

[Life is Good Cruising]

Not having the expense of raising children helps us to cruise often.

[Grannycb]

If cruising is a priority then you have to make it happen. Stay in the same house, keep your gas efficient car in good running order and drive it for 10+ years, use coupons, look for sales, shop from lists, skip luxuries, invest savings wisely. When booking cruises, get the least expensive cabin that has good reviews. A very wise person once told us that the cheapest cabins have the same food, shows, and go to the same places as the most expensive cabins. (But don't get a cabin under or over a noisy area of the ship!) Look for sales, stick with a cruise line that gives loyalty rewards, ask for OBC (even if it isn't listed), might as well ask for wine too while you are at it. Invest in stock in Carnival (covers HAL, Princess, Costa, etc.) or Royal Caribbean (covers RCCL, Celebrity, and Azamara). The OBC benefit pays for the stock if you cruise enough, and it can be part of your retirement account. And on cruises, take lots of photos with your own camera. Skip buying souvenirs and ship photos. Keep alcohol consumption low. Look for DIY tours at ports. Book SouthWest if possible to avoid baggage fees, and rebook if you see lower prices. Most important, keep reading Cruise Critic daily. There are great tips and tricks to be found here.

[dsu_2003]

We save. We get sandwiches or fast food for dinners out. I pack my lunch most days. We live in very affordable housing. We save cash for cars - so no car notes. We sail mostly inside. Nothing on the credit cards that we aren't paying off with each month ( unless interest free). The number one thing that allowed more cruising was becoming empty nesters with the child out of college and the house. So we only pay for 2 to cruise and we can go off times and repo cruises.

 

When we talk about moving or big purchases, we discuss in relation to travel/cruises. I like life now, so I'm not tipping the scale to take on more that will reduce my vacations.

[Bookish Angel]

and we pay off credit cards when the bill comes and earn cash reward for many of our purchases.

 

My husband and I have been debt-free for almost 20 years . Paid cash for our modest middle class home and thus save significant money that would otherwise go to mortgage interest, mortgage insurance, etc.

 

I have a $7 a month cell phone plan and a 10-year old phone. My husband has a newer, smarter phone but is still only $20 a month or so. My car is 11 years old, hubby paid cash for his new car in 2010 after driving the previous one 15.5 years.

 

I retired from full-time work at 29 but work part-time to add more to retirement savings. Hubby works full-time at a well-paying job with very affordable insurance and other good benefits such as ample vacation.

 

We decided long ago that we did not want or need most gadgets and set our sights on traveling the whole world on our first bucket list. "Less stuff, more experiences" is our motto.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Bookish Angel

[swedish weave]

OP --- The pattern is very consistent. I see myself in all of the above posts and we cruise six or seven times per year.

 

We learned to save, invest, and buy what we need instead of what we want.

[OCruisers]

Being retired and having more time makes it easier to cruise more frequently. :)

LuLu

[Hawaiifrank]

My wife and I have done 14 or 15 cruises since 2008 when we retired. We were 56 and 51 yrs old then. We've always enjoyed traveling and even when we were working, we drove an older car or saved in many other ways so we could travel as the kids were growing up. We lived in a rather high cost area, Hawaii, and had to start each vacation with a $300 pp (or more) flight to the mainland for 5 of us.

 

With only a few exceptions, we managed some kind of mainland trip once every 2 years and a local inter-island trip on off years. We had a lot of credit card debt and interest too in order to pay for it.

 

Our first cruise was a retirement celebration of sorts in 2008 and we cruised with a family group of 14, our 4 adult children, their spouses and kids, my treat after selling our family home.

 

We now travel full-time and live in our RV, a 35' 5-wheel--except when we are cruising, 2-3 times per year. How is it affordable?

 

1. We are retired with grown kids (that does not mean they are completely self-supporting, just less expensive). This means we can cruise in the off-season and during school when prices are much lower. We can also take advantage of last minute sales.

 

2. Living in an RV means we have no mortgage, no property insurance, no property taxes and no water, electric or other bills associated with owning property. We do pay campground rent but it's much less than a house would be.

 

3. We almost always avoid paying airfare because we just pick a cruise near where we happen to be...or we move our house-on-wheels to be near where the cruise departs. We winter near Galveston and visit the East and West coasts on alternate years.

 

4. Trans-Atlantic and relocation cruises are usually an exceptional value. If you have the time for a longer cruise and can extend your trip for a few days of sightseeing before or after, a TA cruise can become a European Vacation.

 

5. As another post mentioned, the cruise itself is very cost effective providing food, lodging, transport and entertainment for a daily cost usually less than a land-based hotel alone. Your bar tab, shore excursions and the luxury items you are tempted to buy are the budget killers.

 

So, people can afford what they value. You may have to skip the new car or new furniture or a 60" screen and drive a clunker, sit on your mother-in-laws old couch and watch the 20" with the missing remote...but you can be in Belize, Cozumel and Progresso for a day each a couple of times a year.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Until we retired, we could only cruise once a year as we could not always get vacation time at the same time. Once we retired we were able to take 4 and 5 cruises a year -- nothing less than 14 days. Now health issues are making it hard for us to even get 2 cruises in a year.

Now we like the top cabins on the ship. So how do we afford them?

Simple - I just go down to our sub basement and fire up the old mint printer and run off some money. I will tell you -- each time the government makes changes to the bills, it just becomes a little more tricky to get those bills right. :D

[navybankerteacher]

Simply put- set priorities: do not fritter discretionary income away on small daily pleasures, so that you will be able to afford the not-too rare larger pleasures.

 

Symbolic of this is the "STARBUCKS EFFECT": with the exception of the very few, very wealthy, people who get coffee at Starbucks are not able to afford cruising.

 

Of course, Starbucks is not the only vacuum drawing discretionary funds out of your pocket - but it is a very clear example of the way people make small daily decisions which preclude major annual decisions.

[Donray]

When we retired 10 years ago at 63, we made sure that we could spend 25K a year on vacations/entertainment and have pretty much spent about that a year. Still have 250K more then when we retired.

[CruiserBruce]

 

Symbolic of this is the "STARBUCKS EFFECT": with the exception of the very few, very wealthy, people who get coffee at Starbucks are not able to afford cruising.

.

 

Some serious wisdom here. Starbucks, bottled water, even cigarettes... Imaginary " must haves". "Had" none of them..retired comfortably at 51 without them, and travel extensively now. Own our home...retired with no debt...no boat, truck (to tow boat)...all about priorities.

 

Some want it all now, some want it all, but understand there is a balance between having "now" and having "forever".

[Hlitner]

For DW and I, travel (and cruising) has been a lifelong love affair. We both started international travel when we were in our 20s and have never stopped. Many of our living decisions were made in order to maximize our travel opportunities. This included choosing jobs that would give us adequate time off, forging buying larger and larger houses (we have been in the same home for 38 years), investing wisely, planning for early retirement (so we could do more traveling), etc.

 

What we find interesting is that we meet lots of similarly minded folks on our trips. Much of life is about choices and most folks much carefully pick and choose how they want to live their life.

 

Hank

[dfunfar]

We saved money while working so we could enjoy our retirement

[travlnblueberries]

We don't have kids!

[floridafish]

Trust Fund:cool: