7 years of cost data

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by mr336

Thanks for this spending info. OK so you don't own a house. You've been cruising for some years. You guys are over 60 collecting SS. Do you have plans after the gig is up? Sell the boat and buy a home? Sell and rent? Live on her til. . .uh til. . .well you know.

Shirley there are others in the same boat? And stop calling me Shirley.

That is a constant subject -- who really knows -- I joke that I am buying a Harley and ride across the USA and Admiral says have fun -- but we could live in Albania for 3 months, Portugal 3 months Turkey for 6 months but ????

Yes we have been underway 9 years and I am 70 and Admiral is 69 -- but we still got some more miles to make and ports to call on - but as we say we plan God decides

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

Hello chuckr

You made data collection. Let's try to put it in perspective, now.

I think putting figures not alphabetically would provide a benefit!

First, all boat related, as for technical efficiency/works
It is a 15% of average running costs
Plus a 10% annual provision for x-ordinary items, as needs arise :-)

Then, costs related to boat mgmt
Insurance, a healthy 10% (wow! !!??)
Dockage another 15% (portofino, or Palermo? Posh marina, or a funky jetty?)

Thus, we reached 50% of budget to keep your mistress up&running

THEN, the human factor
Food and personal necessities (weekly, periodic...) a low 10%
Transportation, back&forth home base to family ashore (?%)
Extra (alcohol, gadgets, trips ashore...) say 15%

It is 25% for living aboard in a decent way

We are left with a hefty 25% of extra-ordinary items (must have now) like alas medical expenses, and Discretionary Items, like dining out (pizza or *** rest!?) etc.

Wishing the last 25% is for full blown pleasure/hedonism.... I comment this:

1.whatever your sailing area, average annual cost are the same. I feel like you spend 99% of your available pot.... correct?
2.dockage is a problem to any liveaboard. How do you manage it, in summer, and in winter?
3. Insurance costs are so high! Do they include health personal insurance?
4. Which boat have you? Swan65' or Contessa 31' :-) :-)
5.please keep down alcoholic consumption, unless you drink single malt scotch 60eur a bottle (which is my advice, as compared to 5 bottles of commercial blended scotch)
6. Strikingly, sailing all around the world, from Nassau to Sochi.... seems to cost the same... maybe you should account for running costs better on an AREA BASIS, better than annually..

:-) fair winds, gentle costs

Thunderbird --

1.actually the costs are broken down by sailing area -- From 2013 and forward all costs are for the Med -- from 11 &12 we were in the Eastern Carib - before that in the Western Carib -- a couple of years before that in Bahamas and East Coast of the USA --

2. Dockage -- When we were in the Bahamas and east coast of USA we just kept moving to stay out of the hurricane zone and see the sights - In the Western Carib we made it below the hurricane zone and the only marina for any length of time was in Cartagena Colombia because our insurance company insisted on it. It was dropped about 1/2 through our stay but we did not move. In the Eastern Carib we stayed in Crews Inn marina in Trinidad - there were a couple of cheaper alternatives but the admiral could walk to the grocery instead of taking the dink and it was nice -- In the Med we stayed in Port Yasmine in Hammamet Tunisia - there was another alternative a bit farther south but we did not like the security there -- We did have to take a marina along the way getting there such as Lagos Portugal where we put the boat in for inland travel. When we do inland travel we always put the boat into a safe marina. In Turkey we spent the winter in Kusadasi after and extensive review of marinas across Turkey - we think we found a real winner and will spend this next winter there. Across Greece there are some anchorages that we used but a lot of times we would go into a town with a med mooring for a small fee -

3. Insurance is for the boat. We do not carry health insurance and pay out of pocket for our health and dental care. In a lot of the world health and dental are very affordable. We have had major issues such as admirals hand surgery on both hands - one in Colombia one in Tunisia. I had 1/2 my nose replaced in Trinidad due to a growth - in Tunisia I ripped a shoulder tendon and had two screws put in to put it back in place. Not in the data yet but for this year I had my gall bladder removed in Turkey.
Our insurance company does a good job for us getting the coverage for the area we are sailing and making adjustments if we need them. When we went to Montenegro we had 500k liability but they require 1m euros so cost went up. It went back down the following year but back up this year as we needed a rider to go to parts of the Black Sea.

4. We sail a Jeanneau DS40 - built in 2001 launched in 2003. It is the only boat we have ever owned. We bought her new and tried to keep her in primo condition - yea she gets a lot of bobbles and bangles - but we think if we are going to keep this lifestyle going we need it. I think if you look at the data for 09 or so you will see a lot of boat expense - we added a 2nd fuel tank, water maker and few other things - before that we added ais and we are still adding stuff - this year put on a 4th solar panel. Wait until you see the boat expense for this year. We hauled and had the variable pitch prop pulled and rebuilt, the windlass pulled and overhauled, normal bottom paint, a lot of little dinks repaired from 8 years underway, had all the deck saloon windows pulled and reseated, had to replace chain on what was our primary anchor chain but replaced by the back up - same as primary - among other things. And we knew it was going to be expensive but if you are going to sail the Black Sea the boat must be as perfect as possible because if you have trouble up here there are no boat parts or help to get it fixed. We lost a fuse to our engine cut off and put in our spare but could not get the spare replace, we lost our bilge pump switch and put in a spare but can not replace the spare. Some folks have told us we may be able to find spares in Odessa but who knows. In Russia there are mega yachts and we keep wonder where they get parts as our agent is trying to get us spare bilge pump switch.

5 - in general we gave up hard alcohol as in the Med it is incredibly expensive. We do drink local wine - wine from the country we are visiting. That is except for Turkey where we got some Raki - no I prefer Raki to Ozo.

6 - we have a fixed income thus we can only spend so much - the boat comes first and gets taken care of in first class shape. Our health comes second and then everything beyond is discretionary and we adjust accordingly. By the way this year so far we had to take agents in Georgia and Russia and they were not cheap. That does not include the visa for Russia that we had to have in 24hours as the embassy is in Ankara and we were there to get it but the small cost was a number of days which means we had to stay a long time or leave and come back - ie cost tradeoffs and cheaper for the 24 hours. And we are now setting up trips to Moscow and St Petersburg while leaving the boat in a very secure mega yacht marina in Sochi.

hope this helps.

[Symphony]

Thank you, ChuckR, for the continuous thoughtful replies to new posts and comments. I continue to learn from your generous sharing of your data collecting.

Can't wait to hear what it costs to visit Russia

[TheThunderbird]

If you need parts i can provide from here....

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

If you need parts i can provide from here....

Thanks Thunderbird -- we just had a bilge pump switch fail but our agent found one in a day - So far the pre voyage has really paid dividends. Along with the spares we brought along.

And all we can say about Sochi is WOOOWOOOOWOOO -- one of the most beautiful cities we have ever been in

[TheThunderbird]

I found Ocean brand exactly a copy of Jabsco at 1/4 of the cost...


Qs:

Fuel costs are... which line?
You mean Agent.... what for!? For Custom?
How friendly was Russia with you!? Which flag, passports?

Sochi wow!? It means the world is beautiful! I was in Vulcano, Taormina, yesterday... world is beautifully interesting :-)

[CalmSeasQuest]

Thanks for sharing, very interesting.

[morrchr1]

I can't get this file to open, it downloaded as a .php file. Any help?

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

I found Ocean brand exactly a copy of Jabsco at 1/4 of the cost...


Qs:

Fuel costs are... which line?
You mean Agent.... what for!? For Custom?
How friendly was Russia with you!? Which flag, passports?

Sochi wow!? It means the world is beautiful! I was in Vulcano, Taormina, yesterday... world is beautifully interesting :-)

Thunderbird - not sure what you mean by fuel cost which line -- diesel

agents - some countries require them - no ifs ands or buts - some have them and you can do it yourself and mostly we do - I did in Turkey at Kusadasi but when we get back to Turkey we will check in in Istanbul and we understand the offices are all over the place - we tried for over 3 hours one day last spring to try and find the coast guard office and never did find it - so we will probably have to use an agent

If you do you homework and really work hard the Russians were great - we were all prepared and have a good agent here and we did a lot of emails with him to make sure everything goes smooth - they are not use to small boats from the anywhere let alone the USA come in but were very efficient and great - now we are going to try and go north a bit and we will see how that works -
We just did an inland trip to Volgograd, Moscow and St Petersburg and everyone was very helpful and nice - and all were very surprised when they found out we were from the USA -

The issue is now to get out before our visa expires as we got some weather setting in for a week or so

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by Hoosiersailor

I'm just happy to know that I'm not the only one that would have alcohol in the top 10 expenses! Most years you spent more on drinks than diesel, clothing or boat parts!!

This got my mind thinking. Does cruising cause one to become and alcoholic or does the life style those who are already having more liquid meals than solid?

I work hard. Virtually non stop. Between computer time and phone time dealing with workers, contractors and everything else about my business I'm "up" all the time and virtually only rest when I go to bed. Drinking is the furthest thing from my mind as I need to have my brain in top gear and operating on all cylinders.

But I can see sitting on the back of a sailboat watching a dreamy sunset having a gin and tonic or in summer a cold beer not being out of the question. So my earlier question is does this life style cause people to slip into a drinking lifestyle?

Don't get me wrong. I am not a prude. Just wondering if I should be careful and ration my imbibing while floating around.

[RDW]

Originally Posted by chuckr

Thanks Thunderbird -- we just had a bilge pump switch fail but our agent found one in a day - So far the pre voyage has really paid dividends. Along with the spares we brought along.

And all we can say about Sochi is WOOOWOOOOWOOO -- one of the most beautiful cities we have ever been in

Since you have been so helpful and through, would your have a spares list that you carry that you could share with others.
I am doing the World ARC. I have done a major refit but now wondering what spares to consider.
RDW

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by RDW

Since you have been so helpful and through, would your have a spares list that you carry that you could share with others.
I am doing the World ARC. I have done a major refit but now wondering what spares to consider.
RDW

RDW -- sorry for the delay but we have been busy - Yesterday we were invited to join a boat parade to celebrate Russian Naval day. It was great and the Russians were really pleased that we participated.

As for spare parts -- wow if I were you I would start a new thread on what spares to carry - we carry a ton - we have so many that we have spread sheets to help keep track of all of it and where it is but as of right now it is not up to date
and we keep adding stuff all the time. we have everything from a fresh water pump, to auto pilot parts that raymarine says are the most likely to fail to fuses, to filters, to connectors for stainless steel tubing, to gosh it is a long long list -- but there are a lot more folks out there that can give you more and better info than we can.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

Don't get me wrong. I am not a prude. Just wondering if I should be careful and ration my imbibing while floating around.

I don't know, but I suspect the alcoholics can hide out better on a boat, and drinking is more acceptable, hey I'm on vacation, right? So they tend to seek activities where their drinking doesn't stand out as much, least that is my thought. They like parties, football games because they can drink cause lots of others are.
But I have an addictive personality, I used to smoke and just one day realized I was addicted, I didn't want it, I had to have it. I won't gamble because I am afraid I may like it. I have alcoholism in my family, so even though I drink, and drink far more on the boat (hey I'm on vacation, right ) I do tend to "watch it" look for signs that I'm reaching for a beer out of habit, not cause I want one.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

This got my mind thinking. Does cruising cause one to become and alcoholic or does the life style those who are already having more liquid meals than solid?

I work hard. Virtually non stop. Between computer time and phone time dealing with workers, contractors and everything else about my business I'm "up" all the time and virtually only rest when I go to bed. Drinking is the furthest thing from my mind as I need to have my brain in top gear and operating on all cylinders.

But I can see sitting on the back of a sailboat watching a dreamy sunset having a gin and tonic or in summer a cold beer not being out of the question. So my earlier question is does this life style cause people to slip into a drinking lifestyle?

Don't get me wrong. I am not a prude. Just wondering if I should be careful and ration my imbibing while floating around.

You'll have the same inherent susceptibility to alcoholism on land as while cruising. When you are cruising you may not have the social network inhibitions that kept you in check before. Also, some have such high and unrealistic expectations of the cruising life that the reality can lead to various levels of depression. This can bring on self-medication.

[89zorro89]

Hey All,
After reading all the comments and advise (especially from Chuck and Thunderbird) a now feel I've earned my MBA in finance. To summarize, it seems the important thing is, contrary to Thunderbird who must have bottomless pockets, to create a budget.

If you have never ever done one use Chuck's as a guide to get you started. Think long , hard and realistically about who you are and what is important to you and how you currently spend your hard earned cash. Then build in a margin of safety for the "unknowns" such as shoulder/hand surgery, dental caps, pneumonia, major boat repairs etc. You won't dip into the margin every month as you cruise but don't go and spend it at the end of the month because you didn't use it either. SAVE it for the day when the unknown does pop up and you will be that much closer to having the entire "unknown" covered.

There is a long standing saying... One doesn't plan to fail, they fail to plan.

To Thunderbird's point a budget is never exact. But on the other-hand it is hardly useless. There is both an art and a science to budgeting. A budget is a financial road map to "Guide" you through your journey and to "assist" with making sure you get to the other end or destination. Without it is called "flying by the seat of your pants". For all those without bottomless pockets let me know how it works out for you. But don't call me from halfway around the world on your circumnavigation crying "I'm stuck in _______ cause I ran out of money". If you do. well....Happy swimming