Good career for a surfer?

OK, kid, happy to help any time. If you're interested in shaping, talk to shapers. I highly recommend having a long convo or three with Austin Saunders in VB. Absolutely great guy, very skilled shaper, gorgeous boards, good surfer & he does a lot of other stuff, too, like built his own house, restores old cars, et. al. Young guy.

He will shoot you straight: shaping is a very tough way to make a living. There's very little to no money in shaping boards. Sure, it's an act of passion & love. But, sadly, today's independent shaper is up against market realities, aka mass-produced boards.

 

Oh, and one other thing. The single largest threat to your economic independence & financial security is...wait for it...your own government.

No, no, no, I'm not donning the tin hat of a raving conspiracy maniac.

The govt is taking more & more from the working man in the form of taxes. State, local & federal. That's what I'm talking about: taxes. People don't seem to fully realize the incredibly deleterious effect that annual increases in percentage points of taxes have on their financial freedom.

You read the financial rags, they have to print stuff every month to keep subscription levels up. So they hype stuff. All they yap about is how to make 5% return on your money instead of 3%. Yet, once you cross certain lines of income, you are getting nailed with 5-10% tax increases. It's subtle but it's disastrous: you're going backwards financially if you don't keep your eyes open.

How do you beat that?

Again: work for yourself. You expense everything, you write off as much as possible, your best friend & most cherished life partner is your CPA / financial adviser. You have a pre-nup if you're blind enough to get married. You put your money in Vanguard index funds, you ignore the hype of hot stocks & you ignore the media blah blah blah of hot mutual funds. You realize that people like that talking asshat Jim Cramer are blowholes. You purchase this book: 'A Random Walk Down Wall Street' and you abide by its simple financial parameters.


Your get my drift, kid?

 

For the win.

 

Right on #suiteCaroline. Do what you love and find a way to make it economically viable. As yankee said, self-employment is the way. Not for everyone and not for most people, but if you can handle it there is nothing better.

 

Data science

 

Excellent post. Don't make recreational activities the purpose of one's life.

 

We actually agree on that.

 

lol kayak guide hVW FUN WITH THAT One you take doshbags half the time and they dont even tip.