The snowbird crowd is ageing

pawatt wrote:
From many of the comments here you would get the impression that only the well off or the wealthy can afford to snowbird. That is certainly is not the case with most of our snowbird friends. I would classify most as lower middle income and a few low income, they are not doing it in a $500,000.00 coach in a $1500.00 a month motor coach resort but they are having just as much or more fun than those that do. I believe that most who have a desire to snowbird could do so.

There are many options, we have known people who have purchased fixer up park models for as little as $3000.00 in RV parks with rent as low as $200.00 a month and they love it & are having a blast!!!!

Agreed. In Zephyrhills Florida it is very cheap to winter over. I know it's cheap - the population is around 13,000 in the summer and it triples in the winter. You can buy/rent a place in an older, clean park very reasonably. It's centrally located ie not where anyone else wants to be but it's only an hour away from just about anywhere you'd want to go. We keep our RV in a park there but spend the days out exploring. But if you want to sit at your picnic table, drink beer and watch tv all day, you can do that too.

You don't have to shovel sunshine!

2oldman wrote:

2gypsies wrote:
You don't have to spend a cent on a campsite if you know how to boondock.

If you're in pretty good physical condition. It can be a lot of work.

Or have good friends around you!

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

2gypsies wrote:
You don't have to spend a cent on a campsite if you know how to boondock.

If you're in pretty good physical condition. It can be a lot of work.

pawatt wrote:
From many of the comments here you would get the impression that only the well off or the wealthy can afford to snowbird. That is certainly is not the case with most of our snowbird friends. I would classify most as lower middle income and a few low income, they are not doing it in a $500,000.00 coach in a $1500.00 a month motor coach resort but they are having just as much or more fun than those that do. I believe that most who have a desire to snowbird could do so.

There are many options, we have known people who have purchased fixer up park models for as little as $3000.00 in RV parks with rent as low as $200.00 a month and they love it & are having a blast!!!!

Exactly. We winter in Arizona - the land of boondocking. You don't have to spend a cent on a campsite if you know how to boondock. If you really want to snowbird there are many ways of doing it.

pawatt wrote:

We have a great dentist in Mexico.

That made me laugh. Just my weird sense of humor.:)

John&Joey wrote:

bigdogger wrote:
... BTW, many people became wealthy during the depression. It created opportunities just like the recent recession created opportunities. People who bought real estate, stocks and made other investments at the bottom of both the depression and the recent recession did extremely well. Those who turtled up, hoarded what they had and proclaimed the sky is falling, not so well.

That is known as contrarian investing. A very good way to invest, but again it has it's problems. How do you know how low is low. The person that bought into buggy whips when the auto first came out because they never saw prices that cheap, and figured it was only a correction because who could afford an auto.

Or the guy that doubled his money in 20 years on his house an another thought he was dumb and proclaiming himself a financial guru. Never once did the second guy take into account leverage of money on that house. The buyer may have put down only 10K and reaped 100K 20 years later. Some call that a 10 bagger, almost impossible to do in stocks if he would have went that route with his original 10K.

Investing is just one more form of gambling. Just like in Blackjack you can know all the ins and outs and even count the cards, but if you're not in the hot seat, at the right time, at the right table good luck.

Just go to the book store and look at the rows and rows of wealth management books. If it was just hard work there would only be one book on the topic. Simple truth is many work hard, and still get side tracked by some unknown.

Besides our primary home, several years ago my wife and I bought three rental condos-used the power of leverage to pay off the mortgages. Today, all our properties (inc. our house) are mortgage free and gave me the privilege of retiring at age 55, since those condos all provide a rental stream. NO ONE GAVE US A RED CENT. We just worked very, very, hard.

Don't know about others, but I've enjoyed reading all eight pages of opinions etc. Let's do it again soon.....:B..oh! and just for the record, I fall into the 85% category. My parents were poor, I grew up poor, but, I was the risk taker of the family and as such learned to do tons of research to minimize those risks, made most of my money in real estate but am enjoying my retirement based on my stock market investments etc...that said, I also credit Lady Luck with smiling down on me on many occasions.....Dennis

From many of the comments here you would get the impression that only the well off or the wealthy can afford to snowbird. That is certainly is not the case with most of our snowbird friends. I would classify most as lower middle income and a few low income, they are not doing it in a $500,000.00 coach in a $1500.00 a month motor coach resort but they are having just as much or more fun than those that do. I believe that most who have a desire to snowbird could do so.

There are many options, we have known people who have purchased fixer up park models for as little as $3000.00 in RV parks with rent as low as $200.00 a month and they love it & are having a blast!!!!

bigdogger wrote:
... BTW, many people became wealthy during the depression. It created opportunities just like the recent recession created opportunities. People who bought real estate, stocks and made other investments at the bottom of both the depression and the recent recession did extremely well. Those who turtled up, hoarded what they had and proclaimed the sky is falling, not so well.

That is known as contrarian investing. A very good way to invest, but again it has it's problems. How do you know how low is low. The person that bought into buggy whips when the auto first came out because they never saw prices that cheap, and figured it was only a correction because who could afford an auto.

Or the guy that doubled his money in 20 years on his house an another thought he was dumb and proclaiming himself a financial guru. Never once did the second guy take into account leverage of money on that house. The buyer may have put down only 10K and reaped 100K 20 years later. Some call that a 10 bagger, almost impossible to do in stocks if he would have went that route with his original 10K.

Investing is just one more form of gambling. Just like in Blackjack you can know all the ins and outs and even count the cards, but if you're not in the hot seat, at the right time, at the right table good luck.

Just go to the book store and look at the rows and rows of wealth management books. If it was just hard work there would only be one book on the topic. Simple truth is many work hard, and still get side tracked by some unknown.

TomG2 wrote:

bigdogger wrote:
....snip.......... Wealth and financial security is really about choices and planning and not about luck.

I can only attest to the people I know and their wealth is as much a matter of circumstances, marriage, inheritance, or just dumb luck as it is hard work and intelligence. Look at our grandparents who lived during the depression. .

Then all I can say is you must hang out with a bunch of people who make bad choices if none of them actually made any money. Like I previously said, 85% of the millionaires in the US are FIRST generation millionaires, meaning they made their money, did not inherit it and surely they all did not just stumble into it. What they did is create that wealth. They created companies, they invested their money in other companies, they made smart decisions and lived below their means, not above them. And they didn't wallow around complaining about something that happened 80 years ago (the depression), since that has absolutely no impact on them today. BTW, many people became wealthy during the depression. It created opportunities just like the recent recession created opportunities. People who bought real estate, stocks and made other investments at the bottom of both the depression and the recent recession did extremely well. Those who turtled up, hoarded what they had and proclaimed the sky is falling, not so well.