Would you like a Little Caretaker Job with that Wine?

My wife and I began our caretaker careers in South Carolina in 2004 where we moved to purchase, live aboard, and cruise a 48’ Trawler. We provided caretaking services for the people we purchased the boat from, also living at the end of their 250’ dock on the Intra-Coastal Waterway just south of Bucksport, South Carolina. We performed landscaping and house cleaning on a part-time basis, which kept our dock rent to utilities only which were very low cost in that area. Flexibility on the part of the property owners left many free days and weeks to go cruising. We also became very close friends and learned much about how to safely cruise in a 48’ vessel. After 2½ years we sold our 48’ Trawler and returned to our home state of Nevada to resume our careers there. I went back to marketing and sales, and my wife went back to purchasing. It was not very long before we realized we very much enjoyed the caretaking lifestyle, the freedom it most often provides, and the possibility to earn a great living while saving large amounts of money in the process because in most (but not all), caretaking situations your housing and utilities are included!

After being back at our old jobs for two years my wife and I decided we wanted to be full-time caretakers. After some research we found a great resource for finding this type of position via The Caretaker Gazette. We placed a Situations-Wanted ad in the Gazette and were then contacted by many great property owners who needed to hire people for their property needs, which opened many possibilities and options for the type of position we wanted. You will find everything from ranch manager, island caretaker, horse farm manager, estate manager, or like our position, a Wine Country caretaker position! We found this Wine Country position through daily reviews of email updates from The Caretaker Gazette. Keep in mind you may apply for five or even ten positions before you find the right fit and get that job offer! We applied for ten separate positions all over the country before landing this job but it was well worth the effort! One day we received an email update from the Gazette and noticed an ad regarding a position for a couple with some work inside and some outside on a Sonoma County winery property. 

We responded immediately sending the owners our photo, two letters of reference, a cover letter explaining our background and why we felt we would be great for this position, and our resumes. We received an email from the owners within one day and arranged a face-to-face meeting with them at their property in Sonoma. We were in Reno which is about three hours away so we left early to be sure we would be on time and just made a day trip of it. We met with the owners for a couple of hours, walked the property, reviewed the job expectations and overall felt very good about our meeting. Within two days we received a phone call from them saying they would love for us to come and work for them.

Just as you would do for any job application, be sure to provide exactly what the property owner asks you for! If you are serious about landing an excellent caretaker position update your resume and keep it to one page, have friends and business associates write a brief letter of reference for you, develop a brief cover letter introducing you and your spouse and detailing your work history, and include a close-up photo of you. Keep these in a file together in your documents for easy access when applying for positions. If you are able and willing to work anywhere in the U.S., or even overseas your prospects will naturally be much higher! Our original Situations-Wanted ad in the Gazette stated that we preferred a coastal or island setting, but would be happy to consider any position. We also stated our backgrounds, which in our case were construction, sales, marketing, landscaping, sprinkler system installation, and purchasing. List all of your attributes. We met someone in South Carolina who had an ad stating he was proficient in both horticulture and accounting; he ended up in a caretaking position worth $80,000 per year including salary and lodging! Whatever your talents are, you can earn a decent living with them as a caretaker.

We now work for a wonderful couple on their 30 acre wine country property, which includes a winery, tasting room, main house, and the guesthouse which we live in. We have a beautiful home with a large deck with breathtaking views of vineyards and the Sonoma Valley near Glen Ellen, California, right in the heart of the wine country! We provide maintenance, cleaning, landscaping, garden care, feed the chickens, and any other chores needed for the owners. We each provide eight hours per week, which will allow me to work any full-time job on the side. For our eight hours each per week we receive our home rent-free, including utilities. If we are needed more than eight hours per week, we are each compensated at $20 dollars per hour. We will save enough in five years to fully retire should we wish!  Another benefit is a ¼ acre garden, which provides artichokes, asparagus, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, peppers, various spices, apples, kiwi, blackberries, and blueberries, just to name a few… and fresh eggs daily from the nearby chicken coop! As part of our benefits, we are welcome to use all we can from this large garden. Our first Saturday morning on the property I went down to the garden, dug up a large handful of fresh potatoes for hash browns and gathered five eggs for an omelet, we added some thick cut peppered bacon and what a great breakfast that was! And we also enjoy the great discounts we get on the top shelf wines here!

We could not be happier with the results from our association and advertisement with The Caretaker Gazette! We will definitely recommend them to anyone seeking a caretaker position.