My sublet moved out at the end of March, two months early. I returned to Colorado in mid-May.
Net worth is hovering right around the seven handle. I'm down some 12% from my all-time high in mid-February and up a percent or two YTD. My assets are mostly in oil companies, deep value and low-beta dividend payers, and this year's rally has been attributable mostly to five or six tech stocks. Great if you own lots of nvda/aapl/tsla. Okay if you own spy/vti. Horrible otherwise. That is not a weakness, that is life. I had a fantastic 2022 investment-wise. Maybe I'll get the scoreboard out and update it.
My new career of housesitting has repeatedly come up in other threads and this is the best place to update these efforts.
I had 18 housesits between when I left my summer home in October and when I returned in May, doublecounting one house I Grover Clevelanded. Since returning I have finished three sits here, will start a fourth sit nearby in a few days, and after that will travel to two sits, one in another part of Colorado and then one in Montana. Some of these summer sits were in the "so attractive I can't NOT apply for them" territory. My success rate (percentage of applied sits I'm invited to) keeps improving, and now I search for sits that have only cats (no dogs). Various observations follow, some personal, some others may find instructive:
- It needs to be about the pets first and foremost, especially when starting out. If you are not a pet person, petsitting will never be for you. If it doesn't come across in the interview that you're very interested in their pets, you will probably not get the sit. If the pets are a pain the sit will be a pain. You have to fit your touristy activities around when the pets need to be cared for. I have sat two cats who pooped outside; in every other house you want to clean the litter box, and put the poop somewhere it won't stink the house up, at least daily.
- You have to be flexible. If you focus on places where people are traveling from rather than to you will have more success. You will not find a lot of sits in South Florida in January, New Orleans during Mardi Gras, Vail in March or New York City anytime. But places such as North Carolina, metro Atlanta and Texas have tons of sits and quite mild winters. And those midsummer sits in Montana will come with enough experience and patience.
- Also in the flexibility category: Travel plans get canceled. People's flights get delayed by a whole day. The weather's bad where you are and your car breaks down and you're stuck. Not being too committed to one house/location, having gaps between sits, not sweating the occasional hotel night are all empowering. Resiliency, as always, is your friend. This also includes not relying on one web site too much for your lifestyle, and in the longer term I do want to accommodate this concern.
- I needed a lot less stuff than I packed for. My sartorial needs are little more than two changes of clothes and a couple extra layers. Anything else I can buy on demand. Most of the country has Walmart.
- Some platforms offer house and pet sits as paid work. I'm apprehensive about going in this direction. Once you put a dollar sign in front of your passions they become more about the obligations than the benefits. The sites take a cut of your pay and then 1099 you, so now you've got to pay taxes and track expenses. The amount of money wouldn't move the needle for me from a standard of living or net worth perspective anyway; I'd get richer working at Burger King. I've gained new appreciation of nonmonetary economic transactions.
- I am still fond of North Carolina and southern Appalachia. They've changed in 30 years and not always for the better, but if I had to move somewhere right now and pay retail for housing, they'd be on the shortlist.
- But I am less inclined than ever to want to "live" anywhere fulltime.
- I don't need a lot of space; I still come back to only using some 1000 square feet of a house no matter how big it is or how it's designed. A well-equipped kitchen and a relaxing living room with a big TV are nice, so is a hot tub or a whirlpool bath, maybe a patio to hang out on in warm weather, but beyond that? Nah. More space is just more places a missing cat can hide or pee in, as I have learned.
- But I would prefer a standalone house to a condo. That's due to my experience with my semi-permanent residence as much as from housesitting. I rather enjoy some maintenance and housework and the greater opportunity to make a place my own. I'd be fine with a manufactured or modular house, as long as I own the land and it's well built.
- Most interstates in the Eastern half of the country seem to need three lanes in each direction nowadays. Too busy, too many truck clots, too much stress. A few states are trying to keep up with this demand (NC, Texas). Most are not. I am usually not in a huge hurry and want to sightsee, so I am preferring divided highways that are not interstates nowadays. These typically now have 60-65 mph speed limits and you can usually do 10-15 over that.
I'm becoming... too successful at this. People whom I've sat for offer me future sits before listing them, they take me out to dinner when I'm back in town, their friends ask me for my business card. (For housesitting!) I have more money than I need for this lifestyle by a factor of two or three. I'm very close to giving up my virtual-rent-controlled apartment and doing this fulltime. I'll definitely do it another winter, probably changing my itinerary to spend more time in the Southwest or find a sit up in Chicago to see Mom. I've never trusted success, though. It's always been so fleeting.
