Financial Planning for Hunting

[JPbowhunter]

Worth checking out a thread I started "how do you afford Africa".

I'm in a similar boat to you, ended up a great thread in money wealth life lessons.

 

[cagkt3]

Great point that no one has mentioned !

If you're married safaris actually cost 2x what you pay for them, assuming your wife doesn't hunt. Safari, then a kitchen or bathroom remodel, safari, then the wife takes a trip to Poland to shop for plates.

This is not a hypothetical. Trust me.

Damn, they don't have plates where you live Royal??

 

[DillonG]

All legitimate advice! Keep it coming! Appreciate this type of conversation. I can make a real argument that personal finances either restricts or promotes hunters fulfilling their hunting dreams.

 

[Royal27]

Damn, they don't have plates where you live Royal??

Yes they do, but apparently paper ones aren't good enough for guests.

 

[DillonG]

Worth checking out a thread I started "how do you afford Africa".

I'm in a similar boat to you, ended up a great thread in money wealth life lessons.

Appreciate the input! I will be checking it out shortly!

 

[cagkt3]

Yes they do, but apparently paper ones aren't good enough for guests.

Wait....they make them out of something besides paper??

 

[Royal27]

Wait....they make them out of something besides paper??

Apparently in Poland they do. Who knew ?

 

[DillonG]

Worth checking out a thread I started "how do you afford Africa".

I'm in a similar boat to you, ended up a great thread in money wealth life lessons.

Can you post the link?

 

[Hogpatrol]

I had a co-worker that did the jewelry thing for his toys. Wife handed him divorce papers on their 50th wedding anniversary. Took his 401k, half his pension and their joint bank account. Left him with a home equity loan. Obviously the jewelry was only a down payment. He's now living in an apartment.

 

[LivingTheDream]

There is a lot of great advice here, and it is all dependent on the level of comfort you need and the amount of risk you are willing to carry.

One of the first keys of investing is to always bill yourself first. What this means is take out money for a 401k or other investments before you pay anything off. By treating your investments like a mandatory bill, you are much more likely to start accumulating and being able to invest. Once you are able to invest you start getting passive income. Passive income is the key to accumulating wealth.

So in your example of using funds or stocks, pick ones with dividends and have the dividends go into a savings fund. This fund becomes your hunting fund. You can also buy a rental property but the numbers are much trickery to explain in a post and there is some risk in the event that it goes without a tenant. But essentially someone else is paying for your equity. You can also buy bonds instead of stocks, the nice thing about this is even though there is a lower rate of return you dont have to worry about the ups and downs, and treasury direct will automatically collect from a checking account.

To me and this is just me, debt needs to be manageable but should not be the biggest consideration of financial freedom. If you are maxing out your 401k and have 6 months of reserves in savings, it doesn't matter if you have some credit card debt or car payments, you have the reserves to weather the storm if one should come up.

If you had old stuff you dont use, sell it, you buy new furniture, sell the old, use that money for tip money. The little things you can do add up.

You have to reward yourself, life is too short. Sounds like you are being responsible, dont be so focus on getting x amount by 50 that you miss ride. I would say pick a hunt you want to do now and do a 50/50 savings split on investing and hunt fund. You get to 75% of hunt amount, book it for 18 months out.

Also, keep in mind, hunt prices tend to go up, so picking a number now and then buying it 2 years later plan to pay more. For example, I saved 8 years for a sheep hunt, when the time came, I was still short as prices have gone up.

Also, definitely plan on the wife tax, just take 10% of safari cost and buy her something nice. She will be happy when you book a hunt.

 

[everett]

Posted this on your other thread and realized I probably should have put it here.

Don’t know what your long term plans for hunting in Africa are, but just thought I’d mention something that’s become a part of my hunting/financial plan.

I want to hunt Africa as often as I can. I plan a trip regardless of cost and start saving the money for that trip. Then I look for deals. If I can get a deal for enough saving over original planned trip, take it, and invest saved money. If I can do a trip for half of original plan and make the 8% you mentioned on the other thread, I’ll have my original savings back in 9-10 years. You get a trip now and a trip down the road for the same money.

For example, last year I got a deal with game4africa for half of what John x would have cost. Took it, and invested saved money to pay for that more expensive trip down the road. Prices may go up and may not get 8%, but could possibly get 2 trips for the price of 1.

 

[everett]

I have also made a long term plan for all the trips I’d like to take in Africa (within reason). I hope to do them all. Save the same but do the least expensive first. Put that plan in a spread sheet, and it’s amazing how much of a difference in total cost this can make over 20-30 years.

 

[Hogpatrol]

I'm going to play the devil here on hunt costs inflation. From what I've seen, at least in RSA in the last six years, animal costs are down and day rates have been stable over that time period. Also with boomer generation demographics, i.e. less hunters every year world wide, competition will intensify and prices should drop even more. Some will argue that venues have fixed costs and can't go any lower but to that I say only those game farm venues that are not in debt and are sustained by other income will survive the price cutting.

 

[TheWhitetailNut]

Hers how I did it: I got a good factory job and began maxing my 401K@19 I hunted just about everything you could in North America never really believing Africa, or Russia or any of those places was in reach. By age 30 I had mastered a trade and opened my own company. For 7 years I reinvested everything in that company. My wife and I couldn't even get a full tank of gas many times because we were so committed to the freedom the future would bring. We have a tiny mortgage on a house we bought out of foreclosure. I drove my truck for 15 years. We still don't have a personal credit card. In my opinion you cant spend enough money personally to outweigh the risk. I did realize in maybe 2015 I was giving a trip away every year by not having a CC for my company. But that's points on seven figures of annual CC spending, whole nuther animal.

Focus on INCOME. If you save 10% on $50k its still only $5 grand. Find ways to make yourself more valuable to the world.
Secure your Family: True Power comes from a solid foundation
Be disciplined: lots of people made fun of us, they aren't laughing now.

In closing I do believe in Einsteins wisdom and you are off to a great start.

 

[Countrylife]

These are all very good suggestions. Goals and the finances are a very personal matter and what works for one may not work for another, so you'll have to figure out what works for you out of all these suggestions. My thoughts:
- First, max out your 401k, especially the employer match. If the employer matches $1 for $2 of yours, that's a return on your money that is very hard to get any place else.
- Second, don't carry CC debt, that 20% will eat you alive. Do you really want to pay $120 for an advertised $100 item. And it only gets worse from there.
- Third, invest your money. Where and how will require some work on your part. Financial Planner was mentioned, but for me, after 4 different ones who turned more money into less money, I do my own investing. I'm not savvy enough to get into individual stocks so I use mutual funds. Keep in mind they do go down, but over the long term the general direction is up. Ones I've picked go down about every 3rd year but over all I'm averaging almost 8%.

And, outside of finances: I had some of my co-workers pass away. It caused me to re-evaluate my priorities. I retired shortly thereafter and am doing things I always wanted to do but "never had the time". My approach to finances above enables me to do it.

 

[WAB]

I retired the first time at 49 (working on my 3rd retirement this year). This was possible because we lived well below our means and carried no debt. I don’t care what the financial advisors say about market returns vs cost of borrowing, get out of debt as early in life as you can. The level of financial freedom you gain is well worth it.

 

[Mort Hill]

Thanks for the input! I don't even have credit cards, I had one prior to buying the house, but realized it was a pointless endeavor. Appreciate the response!

Credit cards are inherently not bad. Credit is. If you discipline yourself to pay off your card every month, and you have the right card(pts/airmiles), you can rack up some nice rewards just for buying what you would normally. I have gotten flights to Africa paid for with miles, and got a companion ticket with Southwest on another. Zero balance is key. But you must have the discipline to not abuse and get yourself in trouble.

 

[markm]

If one chooses and avoids interest, the credit card that gives miles is one option to reduce the cost of travel. Delta, United, Amex and others offer them. Round trips to Joburg from the U.S. in some instances can cost less than a hundred bucks.

Don't use Delta you can almost rent a boat cheaper than to fly with them over to s.a. lol

 

[DillonG]

Just to bring up this topic again a year and a global pandemic later. The mrs and myself were able to get our financial plan worked out and I am happy to say that we should be 100% debt free within a year. Hopefully, there are more hunters in the 20-30 year old range that can read this conversation and get busy working on their financial goals. My wife is very pleased with the progress that we have made and is looking forward to some nice, extra gifts that will come along with booking future hunts.

I agree with a lot of the main points in this post about investing, staying out of debt, and just living well below your means.

Just wanted to share my appreciation to the AH community on your advice, and let you know there is another hunter in the world using your knowledge to make his dreams a reality very soon.

 

[Fred Gunner]

It worked for me and I didn't need a sail Boat!