Cruiser's Status Symbols

New Bern, NC

According to Libby, it took me a lot of years to stop being an engineer and a project manger to start being a true cruiser.   Years or not, I'm a cruiser now and I really love it.

What is the difference between a cruiser and a retired person?  First, you don't need to retire to be a cruiser.  We've met cruisers of all ages from 19 to 91.  More important, retired people have different status symbols.  They have their condos, their golf handicaps, and maybe a polyester sports coat.  We enjoy more what some might call anti-status-symbols.

• I'm proud of the fact that a woman on the bus in Vero once said, "I can't tell the difference between you boaters and the homeless people."
  
• I'm proud of the fact that our income is so low that our tax liability is zero on federal returns or in any of the 50 states.  A tax preparing accountant advised us to stop filing tax returns altogether.  Despite that, we life a life that many consider luxurious.
  
• I'm proud of the fact that with the onset of winter in New Bern, I had to dig out my long pants.  I didn't even remember that I owned long pants.  If we weren't contemplating a year off, we would be in Marathon and those long pants would still be buried and forgotten.
  
• I put on sneakers today and my toes feel pinched.   That reminded me that I haven't worn any shoes other than Crocs for several years.   I still wear socks, but only because I'm afraid my feet will get sunburned.   I don't blog about underwear.
  
• When we bought a car two weeks ago, the dealer ran credit checks on us.  This month I got two letters in the mail from the credit agencies.  The first agency said that credit was denied because they couldn't find any information on us; we don't exist.  The second agency said that our score was 798 but that we had "insufficient debt history" to qualify for credit.  Hooray, we did indeed "drop out" of conventional society and we're proud of it.  [p.s. we did get the car loan anyhow; the dealer never waited for the results of the credit checks before processing the loan.]

I won't presume to speak for all cruisers and their status symbols, but I do believe we are in the main stream.

Now, however we have one foot back in the conventional life style.  It is our intention to pull that foot back out next fall and resume 100% cruising.  Wish us luck.