Cruising on $5,000 / Month

[Adelie]

Can you say 'Paid Crew'?

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by leslie

an a additional $4500 to spend on booze! This could get way out of hand!!

Yes

Then you will need a doctor (fees) but to get to the doctor you will need to berth your boat in a marina (fees) and then eat the recommended diet - tasts like cardboard but expensive.... you are on the slippery slope of using all $5,000 per month after one decent binge!


Life wasn't meant to be easy!

[Mariness]

Well, I think that's about what we're at now, on land. So lifestyle wouldn't have to change much. We could buy just about any boat we might have an interest in - just replace mortgage & home-owners insurance with boat payments & insurance. Or go cheaper and spend more on making it "ours". No stress about whether or not to take that side trip to the really cool site that happens to be way inland. Would be able to take kids home to see grandparents once a year (current plan is, I guess, to plead poverty, and suggest that they've never seen _____ fill in the blank).
Wouldn't be an extravagant life, but would have enough give to allow for what we want or need to do.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by osirissail

... Retirement income is not tax-free ...

The basic personal tax deduction (Canada 2010) is $10,320. Hence, an income (cruising budget) of at least $860 CDN would be tax-free for Canadian cruisers.

[DannySt]

Well.... back on dream topic, leaving aside: taxes, flying home, insurance, medical care, boat equipment including sails, personal gear, diving gear, etc...

1. Sail (the wind is free, but still important to mention I would keep doing that)
2. Boat internet
3. Boat toys - surf boards and accessories (5 a year - 700$ each + about 1000$ in accessories)...
4. have water to spare - thing I missed most while sailing.
5. Wife says: she would get new shoes from every port... well, that sums the budget and I think goes beyond.

Thats about it. being poor I can't think of anything else, but I am sure that if I had the money to spare my wife would find good use for it.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by Bash

Comments such as this fail to serve any constructive purpose, and ending them with a smilie only tends to emphasize the passive/aggressive stance of the poster.

Members of this forum come from a diverse background of cruising lifestyles and preferences. This divergence is what makes Cruiser's Forum a particularly valuable resource. It becomes counterproductive for one member to play the Troll and criticize the lifestyles of others. This holds true for the as much for the $500-per-month cruiser criticizing the $5,000-per-month cruiser as it would otherwise.

Our "Be nice" standard does not appear to resonate with all who use this forum. Perhaps an alternative ethic would be one of the rules found in nature: Don't foul the nest."

Jeeez, don't be so sensitive. The OP was a hypothetical question ... "if I hit the lottery", can't we have a little fun with it?

[osirissail]

Actually the "condo" comment is not that far off the subject . . . Comfortable cruising is not that much different in costs than a comfortable condo. Where the big difference is that when you take your land condo offshore it tends to sink and doesn't sail worth a damn.
- - So the point is well taken, if you only want to live aboard a boat in a marina and not go anywhere then the condo is a much better use of your money. You don't have to yank the condo out of the ground every year or two and paint the bottom.
- - But if you want to travel and enjoy the experiences of visiting far off places while living comfortably then the boat is the best deal. I personally am at a loss to understand the folks who live on a boat in a marina for years and never go anywhere - they would be much better off in a condo.

[captainron369]

I think 5k a month would be a good amount. It would allow you to eat out a couple of times a week, stay in a nice marina regularly. Do some nice sight seeing and take in a movie, show, or concert in the places you visit. Plus you wouldn't need to worry as much about having enough money if something breaks.

[s/v Beth]

I would spend the first 3 years studying the cultures of the world, then the next 3 being of service in some out of the way culture I had found. Then the next 3 learning languages, then the next 3 serving....

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

I'm tired of the low down cruising life discussion. Lets get to a real dream and shoot higher! In the almost impossible odds of winning the lottery; what would you do cruising if you had $5000/month to spend?

Good one Don.

Loving it so far.

[svBeBe]

It is always somewhat amusing to me to read what people think they will spend once they are out cruising full time. The old adage was to calculate what you think you will spend.......and then double that figure and you will be close to reality. We calculated that it would cost roughly 35k to cruise very economically, and could do it on 24k if cut to absolute bare bones and did not do cosmetic maintenance on the boat. (And wouldn't that be a penny wise/ pound foolish thing to do!) We also knew that if we assumed 35k would do it, then the actual cost would likely be minimum 50k annually.

On 1 May we celebrated our 4th anniversary as full-time cruisers and I reviewed our actual expenses to date. Please note that I record every single penny we spend daily. I don't just ball-park numbers by making assumptions; I literally record every penny spent. In 4 years we have spent $212,619.72 and I posted the breakdown on our blog at S/V BeBe: Log and Costs

Boat insurance is a hefty chunk of that total and each year it is a hard decision to pay that large annual premium. But we personally knew as casual acquaintances 7 boats that have been lost in the South Pacific in the past 2 years, so we reluctantly renew the insurance each year and fork over the money. It isn't like the old days. If your boat is lost anywhere other than in open ocean, you will be responsible for paying for the environmental damage. That cost alone will be more than the annual premium for any insurance coverage. Friends recently lost their boat on a reef in Samoa and they did not have insurance. They had to pay $12,500 for hitting that reef before they were allowed to depart Samoa. As much as I would love to apply that 11.6% of our cruising expenses to being able to spend more years out here, that would be a reckless decision.

Whatever you think it will cost to cruise.....double that number.

Judy
S/V BeBe
currently in Malaysia and halfway through our circumnavigation

[Hud3]

Thanks for a very informative post, Judy, especially the detailed cost accounting in the linked spreadsheet. Our cruising has been mostly in the eastern Caribbean. I mentally made some adjustment to the numbers shown in your excellent spreadsheet, and came to the conclusion that what you've recorded is darn close to our own experience.

[jackiepitts]

It looks like your 50K a year is not excessive but still 36K is all we have so it will have to do somehow. Our insurance costs at this point (Mexico) are about 1/2 of yours so that should help a bit. The rest we will have to cut from somewhere since you can't spend what you do not have.
Jackie

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Doodles

The OP was a hypothetical question ... "if I hit the lottery", can't we have a little fun with it?

Have all the fun you want, providing it's not at the expense of others. At that point, it's no longer "fun," it's "bullying." When you feel compelled to make the same critique two posts in a row, it becomes "persistent bullying."

Having spent decades in education, I'm well aware that the first thing the playground bully always says, by way of an excuse, is "we were just having some fun."

Always.

[sww914]

Very interesting thread. Our budget figures about $3500 a month to do it right, nothing extravagant. Basic maintenance plus a bit in reserve for haul outs and major failures, insurance, average Dr bills, minimal money to fly back to the US once a year, a couple average meals out a week, a marina a couple days a month, and school supplies. I was shocked at how fast it added up. I want to do it much cheaper but that will mean no insurance, no flying home, no marinas with unlimited electricity for my kid's video games and downloading a bunch of movies while we're there, and no cellphones.
It also means no tours, no taxis, no car rentals so we would miss a lot of things to see. There is still plenty of the world to see and if we can't do it on a $200k cat with insurance and a watermaker we'll still do it on a $20k mono with no insurance and a lot of beans and 5 gallon jugs. Good thing I like beans.