Couple decide to sell home and live on cruise ship as it's cheaper than mortgage

It’s not exactly an uncommon thing to say if you had the money, you’d just dip out of everything and travel the world.

But would you sell your home to live on a cruise ship instead?

Sure, it might not seem like the most practical way to save cash, but it seems to be a popular one for some couples.

I mean, it’d practically be like living a real-life version of The Suite Life on Deck, just without Zach and Cody.

And it is real-life for this pair from Seattle, USA, as they left their jobs for a new start at sea.

Angelyn and Richard Burk began their life at sea back in May 2021, packing up their lives into one suitcase each.

They reckon living on the cruise ships is much kinder to their bank accounts than having to fork out on a mortgage.

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Former Angelyn told Australia’s 7News a year into their adventure: “We love to travel, and we were searching for a way to continuously travel in our retirement that made financial sense.”

According to their research, they believe they could keep up this love of travelling for the rest of their lives, travelling for as little as $62 AUD (£32) a day.

Both in their 50s, the pair have been able to hop and off cruise ships all over the world with highlights including the Bahamas, Canada, Italy and Singapore.

They took on an epic cruise, travelling for a whopping 51 days from Seattle all the way to Sydney, Australia.

“Our original plan was to stay in different countries for a month at a time and eventually retire to cruise ships as we got older,” Angelyn explained.

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They aren’t just splashing out carelessly though, the couple are pretty tight with their cash and take advantage of sales and their loyalty memberships to save.

And thanks to all that skimping, they were able to retire right away in the first place.

With no plans to return back to dry land any time soon or go back to slaving away on the nine-to-five, their cruise ship life is ‘well within their retirement budget’.

In April 2022, Angelyn told CNN the average cost of their day was $89USD and this included their room, food, entertainment and transportation plus tips, port fees and taxes.

Sound like they’ve smashed it – that is if they aren’t sea sick every day anyway.

Topics: Travel, Money

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

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