Some advice about working from older people

Soldato
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I'm 22. I have a choice:

Do I spend the summer working, probably earn 3-4k at the most. Would have weekends free but generally not an ideal time to do the thing I love the most (sailing) because the solent is rammed at the weekends and finding berthing is tough.

Or, I could just spend my entire summer sailing. I'd then not be able to afford a car in the US without breaking into my savings. I don't really want to start depleting my savings aged 22.

So if you are 30 or 40, would you say that money is the most important thing and I should just avoid depleting money I'm going to need for a house or something, or should I just spend my last summer as a free being before getting a job doing something I love?
 
Associate
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How about sailing during the week and working at the weekend. :)

If you want to spend the summer sailing just do it. When you're older you probably wont have the chance.
 
Man of Honour
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I'm 40. In your circumstances, I'd go sailing. It's not like you'd be in serious financial trouble if you did so. Just get a mediocre car, save yourself some dollars there.

It's much more likely that you'll be able to save money in the future than that you'll be able to spend a whole summer sailing in the future.

My main advice, though, is that you get behind whatever choice you make and forget the choice you didn't make. Regret about what you didn't do will be worse than not doing it.

Maybe a better question for people aged 30-40 here would be this one:

If you could take an entire summer off work to do something you love doing, would you?
 
Soldato
OP
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Why not do both? Work for a fair chunk of the summer but take a fair bit of time off as well.

yeah - ideally I'd love a job in September and October. By then the sailing won't be that amazing. Earn a little cash before I go away. But it is remarkably hard to find a job atm for 6 weeks. Using my skills as a graduate everyone wants me to commit to a career (understandable) and for unskilled work, there's a massive oversupply of unskilled labour atm what with the whole recession....

Other options include forgetting this pipe dream of buying a Touareg and go for an Xterra or a Grand Cherokee to save money..... or as per my other thread, finding a job that I can do at night from the marina wifi....
 
Soldato
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Do what you love while you can.

You'll be working long enough later on that you'll need some nice memories to look back on and remember when life was fun...;)

Seriously, I took a year off work in my mid-20s to do the backpacker trail around SE Asia, Oz, NZ.

It kind of borked my career to some degree at the time and it took me a year or two to get back to where I was. But would I swap that time for another year on the career treadmill? No way.
 
Associate
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Maybe a better question for people aged 30-40 here would be this one:

If you could take an entire summer off work to do something you love doing, would you?

As a 43 year old; Hell yes.

To the OP, if spending the summer sailing is within your means then go for it. Once you start working, you could wait long enough before the opportunity arises again.
 
Soldato
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I'm 26 now, on the property ladder and such, looking back... given an oppurtunity like that, I'd go for the sailing every time.

How much of an impact on your CV and career prospects would not working the summer be? Are we talking some type of awesome internship here or something more mundane?
 
Associate
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59 here and I would go sailing and screw the money. Life goes by too quickly and you will will end up with enough regrets as it is.
The poster who suggested working weekends and sailing in the week is spot on.
 
Man of Honour
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You were looking at spending a fortune on some sort of crap Volkswagen 4x4.

Ditch this idea and spend the Summer sailing. Then buy something cheap.
 
Soldato
OP
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[TW]Fox;13834364 said:
You were looking at spending a fortune on some sort of crap Volkswagen 4x4.

Ditch this idea and spend the Summer sailing. Then buy something cheap.

$16k isn't a fortune on a car, the Touareg also isn't crap! It's awesome. I'd get a lot of that back at the end of season. But yes, I'm thinking that an 05 Xterra would be good enough to get me through the snow and they can apparently be had for around $11k.
 
Soldato
OP
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Edinburgh/Southampton
I'm 26 now, on the property ladder and such, looking back... given an oppurtunity like that, I'd go for the sailing every time.

How much of an impact on your CV and career prospects would not working the summer be? Are we talking some type of awesome internship here or something more mundane?

If anything, sailing would be better for my career prospects because I'm going into the Navy, so if I sail this summer I'd have enough miles to do Yachtmaster. Having Yachtmaster basically demonstrates you have pretty much all the skills needed to be in the Navy so AIB would be easier. Working in a bar chatting up women isn't so much what the Navy look for.

It would purely be financial, I'd be 3-4k worse off forever.
 

VoG

VoG

Soldato
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should I just spend my last summer as a free being before getting a job doing something I love?

speaking as some one who's passed the big 4-0 ide say nuts to the money and bloody well enjoy your summer. this aint no rehearsal, your only on this earth just the once, so if you've got the opportunity to do some thing that truly brightens your life. grab it with both hands & enjoy yourself. they'll be plenty of time later on in life to fret about dosh. ;)
 
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