With the year’s end visible on the horizon, it can be oh-so tempting to neglect what’s left on your to-do list and put it off until next year. But why start a fresh year with old problems? This January, give yourself a fresh start and maybe even use these last few weeks on the calendar to gift yourself a one-up on the new year.
This month we’re waving goodbye to procrastination and building motivation by organising life’s chores so that you can get key tasks under control and ticked off the mental to-do list. Head into your 2025 yachting life 2025 with less stress, a positive frame of mind and a clear path ahead.
Sort Out your Finances
When it comes to yacht crew, one of the biggest worries on most people’s minds is finances. Whether it’s sorting out taxes, planning for the future, controlling spending habits, or learning about investing, it’s a very common box that often stays unchecked.
Seafarer Tax
Tax regulations for super yacht crew differ from country to country, but for many, their monthly yacht crew paycheck is indeed tax-free. However, this is not the case for everyone, and the majority will still need to complete a tax return or paperwork each year to ensure they stay within the law. For example, almost all UK residents working at sea, outside of UK waters, qualify for the Seafarers Earning Deduction Scheme and will not need to pay tax on salary or tips. To qualify, they must complete a tax return and the relevant paperwork. It’s a similar story for South Africans. Seafarers must be tax-registered and meet certain requirements to qualify for exemptions.
The easiest and most surefire way to ensure you are staying within the financial laws of your country is to seek the services of a tax specialist. There are a number of tax service companies that specialise in marine accounting and will help file tax returns each year along with the necessary paperwork. These include:
Get your tax issues sorted ASAP by speaking to one of these service providers. A tax specialist will do all the hard work for you, making it an easy task to get sorted before the year is out.
Budgeting
Budgeting may seem like a pointless task when you have a nice, steady paycheck, no rent, and fewer bills to pay. But a career in yachting is not always as solid as it seems. Working in a dynamic industry like yachting can mean your career trajectory is unstable. Many crew work seasonal roles, and those in full-time employment can still be left jobless if the owners decide to sell the yacht. It’s vital to put together a budget for your monthly paycheck to ensure your future financial security.
Develop a detailed budget accounting for monthly expenses, savings goals, and discretionary spending. There are a number of methods of doing this, the old-fashioned way with a pen and paper or with the help of the many apps designed for this very task. Apps like Rocket Money link your bank accounts and allow you to calculate your monthly spending habits, which then makes it easy to set and track goals. Other apps like Good Budget use the old-fashioned envelope system so you can set yourself an amount each month on category spending and saving.
Savings & Investments
From experience and strong relationships with working superyacht crew, we know crew finance habits tend to swing one way or the other. Either the money begins to pile up in an account which doesn’t get much action because you’re too busy working to spend it, or you use your free time living like a yacht owner. Whatever your spending habits, it’s essential to put together some sort of financial plan for your future. The easiest way to start is a simple savings account with a high interest rate. Allocate a minimum amount from each month’s paycheck and watch it grow.
However, there are plenty of options if you want to do more with your money. Buying a property, investing in stocks and shares, high-earning savings accounts, pension plans, and cryptocurrencies are just some of the ways people hope to grow their money. Financial advisors who specialise in yacht crew finances, such as Yachting Finacial Solutions and Crew Family Office, can help with building personal financial plans, organising mortgages, making investments and help educate you on the best way to invest and grow your money to ensure your financial future is watertight.
Financial Education
If, like many others, you feel a little clueless about managing finances, it may be a good idea to talk to a professional or spend some of your free time educating yourself on finance management and investing. Financial advisors, like the ones mentioned above, Yachting Finacial Solutions and Crew Family Office, can help educate and handhold when making decisions on your finances. However, if you’d like to take things a step further and are interested in learning about finance aspects for yourself, there is a wealth of online courses where you can do just that.
Masterclass has a number of online courses that cover everything from economics and society to crypto and blockchain. Spotify is now also a bottomless well of information, with everything from podcasts to audiobooks and even new online courses. Listen to the Financial Times daily briefing podcast, or listen to books such as The Sunday Times’s Money: A Users Guide, or take a course like Understanding Investments.
Take Control of your Professional Life
The winter period is the perfect opportunity to take control of your professional life. Whether it’s getting your CV in order, job hunting, or booking courses, now’s the time to tick it off the list.
Make a Career / Post Yachting Life Plan
It’s time to ask yourself that age-old question. Where do you see yourself in five years time? For some, it’s an easy answer but for others it’s much more difficult picturing a realistic future. Setting it all out on paper (or screen) can give you a literal road map to your goals.
- Start by thinking about your personal life and career. Where would you like to be in your career in five years? Captain? Chief Stew? Engineer? HOD? Chef? Boson? Back on land? Whatever title you see yourself holding, how is it affecting your personal life? Are you happy? Do you have a comfortable work balance?
- Once you’ve thought things through, set your goals. Example goals could include, I want to be a captain, own property, have a basic investment portfolio, have closer relationships with friends, or start a family. Goals should be realistic and attainable. Use the SMART principles to set goals that work for you – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
- Now it’s time to create an action plan to achieve those goals. What courses do you need to complete to land your dream role? What steps do you need to take to achieve home ownership?
- Now use this action plan to create realistic annual goals all leading towards the final goal. Year 1 – complete X course, achieve X amount of experience, save X amount of money…
- Again, break down your yearly goals into monthly or weekly short-term goals. These could include researching the course, saving for the cost of the course, booking the course, studying, and so on.
By creating a five-year plan, you’re making yourself the captain of your own life, controlling where you go and when you get there. You’ll feel more motivated and less stressed as you see a clear path ahead.
Get your CV in order
A good CV can be a ticket to your dream job, so it’s important to keep it up-to-date and attractive to recruiters and captains. You never know when you might need it. Some tips on how to create a first-rate CV include:
- Limit your CV to two pages. Anything more is unnecessary.
- At the top of your resume, include your full name, current location, phone number, email address, date of birth, nationality and passport / VISA details, languages spoken, and driving licence status.
- A professional-looking photo should also appear at the top of the page. Take a photo from the shoulders up wearing a clean and ironed shirt or polo, minimal makeup for ladies and clean-shaven for guys, and remember to smile. Keep the background simple, either plain white or in front of the water.
- A profile or objective section stating the role you are seeking. Add a little about your experience and what you have to offer. Let your personality shine.
- Qualifications – Include all marine qualifications and any other relevant or major qualifications you hold.
- Experience – List your previous yacht experience in the following format: Start and end date, position, private or charter, and boat name and size. Underneath, you can add a short description of duties if you think it is needed. You can also include any other relevant experience outside of yachting underneath.
- Interests and hobbies can be included, but keep it honest. Don’t just write what you think they want to hear.
- Lastly, give reference details. Full name, position, and contact details.
- Keep your CV clean and simple. Colour should be used sparingly as captains and recruiters don’t want to waste colour ink when printing the many CVs they receive.
- Check and check again. Triple-check your spelling and grammar. Attention to detail is very important in yachting. A sloppy CV will not do you any favours. If you don’t feel confident doing it yourself, there are services available that will do it for you.
- Save as a PDF and Word file. PDFs can be opened on any device, but yachting agencies generally prefer Word documents so they can edit your CV before sending it to captains.
Book Courses
Whether you’ve been putting it off for a while or your five-year plan requires you to get qualified soon, now is the perfect time to book a course. Even if your career path doesn’t require any additional qualifications, it’s always good to have a number of varied skills under your belt, as it will set you apart from the competition and make you much more desirable to future employers. Training schools such as Bluewater offer a vast selection of on-site training courses for yacht crew, including STCW refreshers, navigation, engineering, interior, first aid, deckhand, and management courses. They also offer a number of online courses. Other training schools include YACrew, International Yacht Training, and The Crew Academy.
You could also take maybe somewhat more enjoyable courses that are not directly related to yachting but could still help your future career path, such as yoga and pilates, scuba diving, fitness, beauty, photography and videography. In fact, we’ve done a previous post on why upskilling in photography and videography can be a huge boost to your future prospects.
Boost your Health
With the craziness, long shifts, and mental and physical challenges that often come with the Mediterranean summer season, the Mediterranean winter can offer a much-welcomed change of pace. Use this time of year to allow your body to rest, recharge and come back stronger in time for next summer.
Develop a fitness plan
It’s all well and good telling yourself that you’re going to start working out, but by developing a personal fitness plan, you’re much more likely to stick to a routine and see results. Just ten minutes of exercise can help boost mood, self-esteem, energy, sleep, and mental alertness and reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. Our health and fitness journey should be part of your five-year plan, and as we said before, you should be working towards realistic and achievable short-term goals. A fitness plan needs to be dynamic and adaptable so that it continues to deliver results as your health and fitness improve. Reassessing and reprogramming every month is recommended.
A fitness plan can be as simple as scheduling times and days to work out and sticking to it. A more advanced fitness plan will structure training to meet goals and will include a weekly balance of weight training, cardiovascular and flexibility and mobility training. There are plenty of in-person and online fitness trainers that can design these for you, but as long as you include all three types of training on a weekly basis, you’re off to a good start. There are plenty of resources out there for workout routines, from YouTube to fitness apps. It’s easy to find a routine that works for you using body weight or gym equipment. You can even find free printable workout planners like this one to stick on your wall to help track and motivate you.
Develop a fitness plan
You are what you eat, right? Yes and no. While we’re not pretending to be dieticians, we all know that eating junk food can leave you feeling pretty crap, and generally, eating healthily can make you feel pretty good. The food you eat has a profound effect on your brain and body. Begin to incorporate healthy eating habits into your daily life now, and make long-lasting changes to your body and overall health.
Avoid crash diets and focus more on things like mindful eating, avoiding ultra-processed foods (most packaged foods – ready meals, sweets, cookies, cakes, processed meat, snack foods, crisps and diet labelled food) and eating less non or minimally processed foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, fish, whole grains and lean meats. One of the best ways to improve your eating habits is learning to cook, so when you’re not on the boat, you can cook all your meals from scratch and stop relying on takeaways and readymade food. You’ll also learn to appreciate your food a lot more once you’ve put your blood, sweat and tears into it.
Some great resources and books on healthy eating include:
Develop a fitness plan
Heading into 2025, it’s surprising people still need to hear this, but DRINK WATER! The human body is made up of around two-thirds water, and it influences 100% of our bodily processes. It’s a vital component in how well we perform and feel in our day-to-day lives. Losing just 2% of our body weight in fluid can decrease performance by 25%. Our muscles become fatigued quicker, we lack energy and lose mental focus, and cramps can kick in.
Keeping your body hydrated throughout the day will present a whole host of benefits, including healthier skin, better nutrient absorption, easier weight loss, improved digestion, mental clarity and energy, plus a heap more! Staying hydrated is a cheat code to improving your health for 2025!
Balance your Mental Health
We’ve actually already written a whole blog post on recharging your mental health, where we explore tools and tips for improving mental health. Check it out here. Talking about problems and any issues surrounding mental health can help a great deal. So whether it’s a crew mate, a land-based friend, a family member, or a licenced therapist, it’s good to talk.
Improve Relationships
If improving relationships is something you’d like to tick off life’s to-do list, then you’ll need to devote some time and energy to it. It’s great to check in on people by sending the odd text, but taking time out to actually speak to people will mean a great deal more. It’s easy to lose track of time and go weeks or months without speaking to the people you care about most, so why not create a social calendar? Schedule calls, FaceTimes, texts and actual meet-ups in advance so that you and them are more likely to make contact. Add birthdays and special dates so you never forget special events again and have fair warning to send gifts, cards or messages. All relationships take work, but they are important, and by putting in the time and effort, you’ll make that friend, partner, or family member feel loved and less alone.
Find a Hobby
This one should be relatively easy. What stops most people from enjoying a hobby is the age-old “I don’t have time” excuse. What do most people do after finishing work and eating their evening meal? Watch TV or scroll on their phone. While this is fine in moderation, it’s much better for the mind and body to do something a little more, well, more.
Hobbies and doing something you enjoy, whether it’s fitness, something artistic, gardening, playing an instrument, learning a language or a new skill, or reading, have been shown to improve mental health, and research suggests that those with hobbies are less likely to suffer from stress, low moods and depression. Most hobbies keep your brain active, give you space for self-expression, and many can also lead you to form relationships with like-minded people, whether it’s people you meet at the gym, an online book group or a painting class. So put down your phone, turn off the TV and start doing something you enjoy with your spare time.
We hope we’ve inspired and motivated you to kick into action before the clock strikes on the new year. Head into 2025 with a clean page and plenty of headspace for new tasks and life events. If updating the yacht toy box is on your to-do list, then head over to the FunAir website to check out our range of Superyacht inflatables and yacht toys. We can even promise delivery before 2025 on a large range of products.
