How to make money traveling? Trading is a perfect job, says the nomad

Patrick Schulte said he wanted to be a merchant since he was 15.

He said he saw a clip of the New York Stock Exchange on the evening news and thought, “This is what I’m going to do.”

He learned the ropes close to home at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, before moving to Chicago, where he started trading corn, wheat and soybean options, gold, Dow futures — “a little bit of everything,” he said.

He was doing well, he said, and life was good. Soon her friends started having children and moving to the suburbs.

But Schulte said he and his wife, Ali, “were not ready for it yet.”

So they sold their belongings, bought a boat and set out to sail around the world, despite having no sailing experience, he said.

The couple left Chicago in 2003 and have been on the road ever since.

They sailed the world for four years, visiting 45 countries and learning to sail on the fly, he said. They soon became “addicted to the lifestyle,” said Schulte, who worked their travels.

He called commerce the “perfect” job for full-time travel because “all I need is a laptop, an internet connection, and I can be anywhere in the world.”

Eventually, they sold their boat and bought a restored 1958 Volkswagen buses, which they lived in for nearly two years, traveling from Alaska to South America and later Europe, Schulte said.

Then Ali got pregnant. So they returned to Minnesota.

Schulte said her family was sure a baby would get them settled. Instead, they took a vintage 1965 Porsche that had been in his family for decades and drove to Mexico.

They had a daughter in Puerto Vallarta, then bought a second boat, before having another son and moving the family into an RV for a few years, Schulte said.

But the sea beckoned again, he said, and they spent five years, including the pandemic years, exploring the Caribbean and Central America, he said.

More recently, the couple bought another boat — their fourth — a catamaran that they plan to sail around the world on, he said.

“The kids are the perfect age,” she said, adding that they’re now preteens.

A life of full-time travel may seem expensive, but Schulte said her family spends less money traveling than they would living in one place.

They don’t own much, she said, preferring to live a life that focuses more on experiences than possessions.

Also, they don’t have access to Amazonia, Starbucks and other places that “erode your finances,” she said.

On their first trip around the world, Schulte said he and his wife tracked every dollar spent, which averaged about $3,100 a month. Their biggest expenses were food, entertainment and fuel, he said.

But that doesn’t include a substantial boat repair they paid for during the trip, which cost more than $33,000.

The boats aren’t cheap to buy or maintain, but owners can save on other costs, Schulte said.

With his sailboat, “fuel expenses were low. And the vast majority of the time we were anchored for free at the places we visited, so there were no lodging or camping expenses,” he said.

Schulte said he paid $157,000 for his first boat, which he sold four years later for $140,000. But Schulte said he’s made money off other boats he’s bought and sold.

“It’s all a wash in the end,” she said.

Schulte said many people have asked him about his profession and lifestyle over the years, so much so that he teamed up with a friend to write a book called “Living on the Edge”.

But there’s only so much you can teach in one book, she said. So in 2016 she published a post on her blog about her, Loseroffering to teach people to trade options.

“I was amazed at how many people jumped at the chance,” he told CNBC Travel.

Eventually he started a business, Financial drifter, to teach people about investing, including complete beginners, he said. He also posts his he exchanges live for people to follow.

But perhaps the biggest attraction – and the one he likes best – is the daily live chat he hosts before the market opens.

It also cured one of the hardest parts of being a solo trader, he said: loneliness.

“It’s nice to have a group and be able to bounce things off each other,” she said. “Also, there’s not always something going on – we don’t do day trading… so we talk a lot about life and travel.”

Schulte said most people who contact him want to learn trading in order to travel full-time.

“They’re either already living this lifestyle, similar to mine — they live on a boat somewhere or an RV somewhere — or they’re fighting for it,” she said.

He’s clear on one thing: Newcomers should have realistic expectations.

“It’s a great way to make a living,” he said. But “I don’t think anyone is going to turn $1,000 into $1 million. I’m not going to pretend that you can just magically make huge sums of money.”

His advice to those interested in giving it a try: Don’t wait until it’s too late.

Many people focus on making their dreams come true after they retire, he said. But “parents get older… your side goes [out]…there are simply no guarantees.”

Schulte said that’s why he’s in “mini retirements” or “early retirements.”

“Go and do that big thing. Take the year, take the two, do something big that you’ve always wanted to do,” she said. “Don’t put it off forever.”

Anything else?

“Learn to live simpler,” she said. “Once you accept that, then all kinds of possibilities open up.”