Semi retired lifestyles | Page 8 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Semi retired lifestyles

maybe a bit more

was in Tanzania in '05 with a group of mates
we went down into Ngorongoro crater

google it
it is a real-life Jurassic Park

got down into the crater and started to look around
unreal volume of stuff eating other stuff

the hyena's viciousness was only outdone
by the Germans assault on the pick-nick basket

ham sandwiches didn't stand a chance!
it was very cool

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Speaking of Africa....I used to winter in the Western Cape which is just wonderful. I'm sure some costs have gone up but still worth considering.


11 rand to 1 cdn dollar.

 
One of my pals is an expat South African now here as an engineer. His parents were Dutch/Brits that went there during the aparthid days , they lived very well. He would never live in Africa again.
Everyone's story is different.
 
I think that's great that you've done a lot of business travel. You're certainly not alone in that. I've lived out of a suitcase for decades while I was working.

Where the mindset changes is when you don't have a return ticket in your back pocket. That's when you switch from being a traveler/tourist to being an immigrant.

Then the question becomes: do you choose to live in a gated community with people who think, act and talk the same as you? Or do you integrate into the community and the larger country altogether, adopting their language and customs as your own.

There's certainly a double-standard at work when we criticize immigrants who come to Canada and don't bother to learn the language and only live in their enclosed community. Yet it's entirely okay to move to a different country and choose to live in that same kind of gated community surrounded by others of your own kind.

It's the exact same thing in my mind.
I don’t know about that. When your working with locals deploying a network, you eat sleep and play together for weeks at a time, you don’t need to be there without a return ticket to integrate.

I don’t criticize immigrants who choose to retain and preserve their culture, and language by settling into their little country communities. Thats part of what makes Canada diverse and tolerant. The Melting pot culture has limited success, in fact countries lithe the UK and USA who promote such suffer more racism and racial tension because of it.
 
One of my pals is an expat South African now here as an engineer. His parents were Dutch/Brits that went there during the aparthid days , they lived very well. He would never live in Africa again.
Everyone's story is different.
Had to be brave to relo there during the latter part of Apartheid. I spent time there in 1988, the only place I’ve ever been in constant fear.
 
Loved reading this thread and the breadth of experiences & perspectives. I've been giving a lot of thought to 'retirement' and the future. I've been semi-retired for the past 1.5-2 years now. Started out by taking a leave of absence from my job of ~10 years to pursue something I wanted to do, which for better or worse didn't work out. I spent the remainder of my leave travelling the continent. In the time I was gone attitudes of management towards me changed, I guess I wasn't considered a loyal servant anymore. I was only back for a few months when I got out for good. For the past year and a bit I've been working on an occasional basis / when I felt like it. Probably would have taken more time off for travel if it wasn't for CoVID.

Wife and I are in our early 40s with no kids. She has a great job that she can and has done entirely remotely, remains to be seen if that will stay in place post-CoVID. We own a paid-for house in the GTA suburbs. Been watching the reports of the crazy house sale prices in our area as people flee Toronto-proper and giving a lot of thought to selling and using part of our cash to move to a less populous (and cheaper) part of the province and use the rest to fund our lifestyle & travel once we decide to quit working completely, or even just working less. We aren't into fancy stuff and don't mind living on the cheap especially when we travel. Motorcycles are by far the biggest drain on expenses.

Only downside is my entire family is all currently less than a 10 minute drive away, so I'd definitely see much less of them. Not that we see them a lot, especially this past year.
 
One of my pals is an expat South African now here as an engineer. His parents were Dutch/Brits that went there during the aparthid days , they lived very well. He would never live in Africa again.
Everyone's story is different.
I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"
:)
 
I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"
:)
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from youuuuuuuu
 
Wife and I are in our early 40s with no kids.

Yeah I would just rent out the house, the housing in southern ontario aint going anywhere but up, in 10 years it might double in value.

40 is still relatively early
 
Yeah I would just rent out the house, the housing in southern ontario aint going anywhere but up, in 10 years it might double in value.

40 is still relatively early

That's definitely an option we've considered. I'm genuinely conflicted because I can't see how it can just keep going up when it's already unaffordable such a large swath of the population. Young people (Gen Z) are leaving our community in droves, I've seen it with my own eyes. I just don't see how it's sustainable.

Not to mention we'd have to go deep into debt to buy another property in order to be able to rent this one out, meaning we'd need the income to service that debt. Yes interest rates are low, for now.
 
If I was to move out of the GTA, I'd really want to be sure I was on the right trail, because you may never be able to come back. Its already unaffordable for many thousands of folks but I thought I had seen the ceiling three or four times now. Nope.
 
I know a bunch of people on here are living non traditional lifestyles, many who dont have regular traditional jobs(anymore) or are semi retired and/or spend a significant amount of time travelling around(@J_F for example) , so I thought I would create a thread where you could possibly share your experience, and what you like to do(go to florida every winter like every snowbird or something different?), how like you it etc

I personally like the idea of working and living in the summer up here in canada and spending the winter months travelling or living in the southern US or latin america once im old enough and the mortgage has been paid off ,the kid is old enough and doing their thing etc
I had similar plans in my younger days , but now baby sitting our grand children. It's good to dream
 
I had similar plans in my younger days , but now baby sitting our grand children. It's good to dream
noticing a pattern here

all the cool people are childless
 
speaking of babysitting grandchildren...must be a new thing. Noticing a couple friends parents retired only to transition into their second career of babysitting. My best friends kids spend more time at the grandparents house than his house. To the point that I question who is raising them. Talk about being taken advantage of. He's always leaving them there all day only to sleepover at night as well so he can go do whatever else he wants to do. Runs his own business and makes his own hours yet the grandparents are the ones who take them to school everyday and pick them up feed them dinner etc etc. Now the one grandparent is even sleeping over at his house so his wife can work the night shift. And that's just one side of the family, his wifes parents watch the kids just as much.

Same with the next door neighbor, elderly lady watching 4 of her grandchildren day in day out its like a revolving door at her house with one being picked up and one being dropped off at all hours. In and out Their cars on the driveway 5 times a day. No slow down from Covid either even though they now work from home and are fully capable of watching their own kids. I don't know how they get any work done when they spend more time shuttling the kids back and forth.

I saw my grandparents MAYBE once a week, on sundays for an hour or two visit when I was growing up.
 
speaking of babysitting grandchildren...must be a new thing. Noticing a couple friends parents retired only to transition into their second career of babysitting. My best friends kids spend more time at the grandparents house than his house. To the point that I question who is raising them. Talk about being taken advantage of. He's always leaving them there all day only to sleepover at night as well so he can go do whatever else he wants to do. Runs his own business and makes his own hours yet the grandparents are the ones who take them to school everyday and pick them up feed them dinner etc etc. Now the one grandparent is even sleeping over at his house so his wife can work the night shift. And that's just one side of the family, his wifes parents watch the kids just as much.

Same with the next door neighbor, elderly lady watching 4 of her grandchildren day in day out its like a revolving door at her house with one being picked up and one being dropped off at all hours. In and out Their cars on the driveway 5 times a day. No slow down from Covid either even though they now work from home and are fully capable of watching their own kids. I don't know how they get any work done when they spend more time shuttling the kids back and forth.

I saw my grandparents MAYBE once a week, on sundays for an hour or two visit when I was growing up.
depends on the culture and economics as well

baby sitting is cray expensive, housing is too, a young family is gonna have a real hard time keeping things running smoothly without an extended family or a large bank account

This is usually the norm with asian families etc

Its a weird thing to look at spending time with grandkids as being taking advantage of
 
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My grandparents had the farm next door and I saw them daily. And they ALWAYS had a chore that needed done, but you got cookies.

My mom was thrilled to be a grandma and spent a lot of time with my kids at her insistence. She put a lot of work into my kids and always volunteered .
What I did not appreciate was when she would regale them with tales of my complete stupidity and my kids would use it as leverage in conversations. But that again was largely my fault..
 
Its a weird thing to look at spending time with grandkids as being taking advantage of
It's a fine line. My parents are in their 80's and when my brother, wife, & nephews visited from out-of-town a couple of years ago and the 2 kids aged like 6 & 8 or so needed looking after for a couple of days I volunteered to look after them.

My mother thanked me later as they just don't have the energy & health to look after 2 high energy kids ... heck, I was pooped after 2 days - it's unbelievable how they can just go-go-go at 100% all the time!
 
as said above, there is a big swing in the last 30yrs for many folks, in the age of grandma, people are waiting longer to have families so the age gap just gets bigger. My mom was early fifties when she became a grandma, still lots of gas in the tank, now at 86? no bueno
 

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