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Old 24-09-2016, 06:55   #46
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

You mention two words that I'll pick on: regrets and fear. You're too young to have regrets. So, you missed some time with your girl(s). She/they'll get over it and most likely already have.

Fear: Sure, it's healthy, especially in sailing, since it prompts that most important aspect: thorough preparation. But until you've cruised locally before setting out on your dream trip, you will have NO idea what to expect, unless you've done some already, which I may have missed.

Many, many folks on this forum are a lot more accomplished than I am in long term cruising, and are "out there." Others, like a64, are in the planning or early doing stages. But all of them have valid inputs for you.

I just finished a six week "cruise" from San Francisco to British Columbia in our 30 year old boat, with my 28 year old son. I thought of it as a cruise / delivery (because of pending weather), he thought of it as a restaurant tour of northern California, Oregon and Washington. We visited four anchorages and a dozen ports. Where do you think the food bills were less?

And of the harbors/ports, most were incredibly inexpensive compared to what we were used to in San Francisco for the past 35 years. Neah Bay was $21, Lapush was $15!!!! OK, plus $4 per day for power.

You say you've read a lot of the earlier posts on cruising costs. All of the issues raised here have been discussed so many, many times already: It all depends on what YOU want to spend and what your lifestyle is. We can't change your habits or behavior, only YOU and your family can do that.

And where you go and how much you choose to anchor out WILL affect how much you spend. I don't care where you go, except perhaps in those local places, eating out always costs more than eating in. If it didn't there wouldn't be any restaurants left, they'd all be outta business.

The rest of your "equation" is the boat and maintenance costs. Again, these have been covered extensively in those earlier posts which you said you read.

You are in a pretty healthy position. You're young, you have $$ and you have a built in fallback.

I think you're over analyzing this. 3% or 4% won't make a hill of beans difference if you spend less and tuck away some for repairs. What's so hard?

I'm 70, have owned boats for 35+ years, cruised extensively in Northern California, owned this boat for 18 years - she's thoroughly "shaken down." And I just fulfilled my sailing dream with this recent trip: I crossed the Columbia River bar, entered Lapush, and moored in front of the Empress Hotel in Victoria Harbor on my own 30 year old boat. We only "sailed" the last day, the rest was motoring north, but we had fun.

Go for it. KISS.
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Old 24-09-2016, 07:06   #47
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

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Originally Posted by Kenomac View Post
Did you forget about the Spanish civil war that took place not so long ago?
Off course not. I often think about how that war affected this society. I have some ideas but they are all for another thread and maybe also for another forum. But I do think that war affected their post war thinking in so many ways.

I often look at non Med people arriving here, mostly completely incapable of interactions at local level. I believe the reverse process is also true for any out and out Mediterranean who goes to live in Berlin, Oslo or Kobenhavn. Still, some of us, some of them, seem to adjust better, given enough exposure and some time.

Maybe the same is true about children brought up in isolation: maybe our genetic layup prevails and kids growing on remote farms can still make happy and valuable social creatures once thrown into a big community. After all, some of us abandon towns and communities to live in isolation. Maybe the reverse is also possible because we have it all, even if we only develop a sub-set while young.

Home schooled cruising kid like an Aussie farm kid going to live in Sydney? Who knows.

I have drifted so far that I am actually about to cancel this post rather than post it. ;-)

Frankly though, I think this subject touches me so much as I am myself a loner that grew up on such outskirts of this civilization. I never had friends as a kid, I never missed friends, and a grew up a loner. This makes me wonder if I could be more socially adequate if I grew up in a village, with the other kids.

I do not have any answers. I only have questions.

Cheers,
b.
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Old 24-09-2016, 15:45   #48
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

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Originally Posted by bennenrkc View Post
My wife and I, 30ish, have worked hard over the past few years/ gotten lucky on a few business deals and we are looking to escape the rat race, raise our 2 daughters, and travel the world.

We are keenly interested in cruising to accomplish this, however the one thing we are having a hard time calculating is the cost of cruising. I have read several of the threads, including the 7 years cost data, Mexico for 1k a month, and just about every thread I can find that would give us some indication. I have enjoyed reading Beth Leonard's book but I question the numbers as they are several years old (we would fall into the moderate lifestyle, and I am hoping some cruising families would be willing to let us know if it is feasible to do on ~3600/mo all inclusive which would be about 3% annual withdrawal rate from the nest egg. This would likely be on a used 40-44 ft cat, and ability and willingness to perform most maintenance and repair tasks on our own with hopefully no deadlines, except we would probably like to be back in the states in time for our oldest to go to high school to ensure ability to succeed in college.

So is it possible?

p.s. GordMay will be visiting as this is my first post. So thanks for all the participate in cruisersforum it has been a wealth of knowledge.
We did it on almost $2000 LESS per month in 2008-2012, so it's absolutely doable. We are not back living on a mooring in Morro Bay while the kids finish up high school because we wanted them to have the normal high school experience after home schooling aboard the boat for 4yrs.

You won't regret it, so ignore your family that is calling you crazy!
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Old 24-09-2016, 15:55   #49
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

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Barnakiel: Could explain this for me please?

My wife and I have seen several homeschool children that didn't adapt or gain the social skills necessary for successful integration into modern society. This is probably our second biggest fear about cruising, is we don't want them to become so isolated as to be the social outcast because they don't have the skills to interact. We hope to find another cruising family or two and hopefully be able to somewhat align are travels with them. Reading Voyaging with Kids in part by the owner of Totem, she seemed to indicate that this was possible. We had actually hoped that we would be able to find a location somewhere where we could stay for a semester and enroll them into school not only for our ability to measure our success in keeping them at or above the grade level they are supposed to be but to also give them some social exposure. We really liked that the Totem children were in school in Australia for a semester.
I it almost every parents fear BEFORE they go cruising with their kids, but it is also one of the biggest things they realize they worried about all for nothing. My parents darn near called Child Protective Services on us before we left for Mexico with our two kids, but they later apologized to us once we returned and saw how our kids turned out. I know it almost sounds flippant to say, but don't waste your time worrying about it...because almost every cruiser family we spoke to that went, now laugh about it.
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Old 28-09-2016, 21:31   #50
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

Note that to get out of the ACA insurance requirement (or penalty), you have to actually be resident elsewhere, not just physically away from the US cruising.
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Old 28-09-2016, 22:10   #51
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

Don't think the residency requirement is true, you just need to show being out of USA for the time period in the year.
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Old 29-09-2016, 05:29   #52
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

The ACA can be a nightmare for cruisers, here is part straight form the horses a$$ I mean err, website;

https://www.healthcare.gov/exemption...citizen-abroad

Sounds like the best thing is to leave the US on New Years Eve.

That said - there are exemptions and require a good bit of reading, the ACA is complex at best with lots of unintended bad consequences.
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Old 29-09-2016, 08:23   #53
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Re: Cost to Cruise with Family of Four

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The ACA can be a nightmare for cruisers, here is part straight form the horses a$$ I mean err, website;

https://www.healthcare.gov/exemption...citizen-abroad

Sounds like the best thing is to leave the US on New Years Eve.

That said - there are exemptions and require a good bit of reading, the ACA is complex at best with lots of unintended bad consequences.
Unfortunately, that's not the horse's mouth, and it's misleading as regards qualifying by being outside the US. The law actually says:

26 USC Sec. 5000A

(f) Minimum essential coverage
For purposes of this section—(4) Individuals residing outside United States or residents of territories
(4) Any applicable individual shall be treated as having minimum essential coverage for any month—
(A) if such month occurs during any period described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of section 911(d)(1) which is applicable to the individual, or
(B) if such individual is a bona fide resident of any possession of the United States (as determined under section 937(a)) for such month.

So go over to 26 USC Sec. 911:

(d) Definitions and special rules
For purposes of this section—
(1) Qualified individual
The term “qualified individual” means an individual whose tax home is in a foreign country and who is
(A) a citizen of the United States and establishes to the satisfaction of the Secretary that he has been a bona fide resident of a foreign country or countries for an uninterrupted period which includes an entire taxable year, or
(B) a citizen or resident of the United States and who, during any period of 12 consecutive months, is present in a foreign country or countries during at least 330 full days in such period.

So yes, you can get there by "physical presence," but that itself requires a "tax home ... in a foreign country." Do your own thinking about it, and I know that many summaries fail to note that subparagraphs (A) and (B) are subject to the requirement that the person's "tax home is in a foreign country" that arises from the introduction to those paragraphs. Just going out cruising, without having established a tax home elsewhere, won't make me confident that I'm not subject to satisfying the requirements of ACA through some other means. I'm not sure what the IRS will do when you show them that you were steered wrong by a healthcare.gov publication (who would have though that the government couldn't be trusted to explain the law?).
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