RE - "I would like to get to where everything just runs itself " I doubt if Jim needs to know this but for anyone who read his comment and felt the same, learn Perl. You will be amazed how many tasks you can automate with Perl scripts, both on your site and your own computer. For example, I had to change a sponsor link on 100+ pages once (plus find these pages among the thousands I have), think how long that would have taken. Took me about 20 minutes to write a Perl program that searched all .html and .shtml files on the hard drive that I keep my websites on, search out the dead sponsor, and replace it with a new link. I cannot remember how long it took to do this job, but it did it in the background while I did other things, so effectively all the time I spent on the job was 20 minutes. And that was back when I was learning Perl, if I had to do it again it would probably only take 10 minutes.

As one of the 50+ folks, I don't plan on ever "retiring". I do want to get away from the daily grind of my day job(six-figure income), but, those handcuffs are golden.

Like GG, I want to get everything setup on pretty much on auto-pilot and producing enough replacement income to maintain. After doing systems/programming for 30+ years, the auto-pilot(and other scripting) is a little easier for me to achieve maybe.

Then I can can take the extra time to go back to school and work on my 3rd degree and maybe do some teaching/research. And impress all those nubile young things in short skirts.

i would like to retire in the next 3 to 5 years and gonna build me some hotels:)

If retirement means - slowly down, living off of saved earnings and doing nothing.
I will flat out never retire.
Don't worry, I'll have the money at about 54 (give or take a few), but doing nothing? Yeah right.
If I want to travel, there is no reason why "Mark travels North Carolina" can't be a business expense :)
Come to think of it - "Mark fishes Tarpon" seems like a good title - hmmm, isn't this Cleo's neighborhood???