Published Costs of Cruising

[Livia]

Another thread got me thinking that it would be nice to find all of the published cruising budgets out there in the ether and compile them in one place. I volunteer to compile them if you'll help me find them.

What I am looking for:
- *Actual* expenses/budgets of people cruising. Not predictions or budgets that people are hoping to meet, but what they actually spent.
- Budgets posted online somewhere.

Here are a few I already know about:
Third Day
Cruising Budget
The Shards
https://howtogocruisingnow.wordpress...o-go-cruising/
Beth & Evans
Hacking Family
Simmer

Links please!

[Pblais]

Well we have a fair number collected. Don't try to publish material you gather here. CF owns it all lock, stock, and barrel. It's part of the fine print when you join. Republishing material from CF would be Ok if you never got caught. That would require it to have been a wasted effort.

I really don't think it's the budgets that you need to detail It's the life styles that make them work. Lots of people live in a lot of different ways and are happy. Finding that part of your life can take most of your life and more important believe in it and do it. Being like somebody esle seems to be a poor way to conclude the best part of your life.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Pblais

I really don't think it's the budgets that you need to detail It's the life styles that make them work. Lots of people live in a lot of different ways and are happy. Finding that part of your life can take most of your life and more important believe in it and do it. Being like somebody esle seems to be a poor way to conclude the best part of your life.

Words of Wisdom... Indeed.
Nice one Paul

[Mimsy]

Not to stir up controversy, but Livia asked for links to published budgets. I'm thinking that she is quite capable of searching the forum if that's what she wanted to do. As I read it, she was looking for budgets published on the web, not CF. Surely CF isn't going to claim ownership of information published elsewhere?

Its possible I mistook your wording as tone can be very difficult to read on a forum, but it sounded rather accusatory as I read it. If that was not your intent, just ignore this little old post.

[Pelagic]

Thanks Livia for what I think is a great idea to give potential cruisers a broad spectrum of actual costs.

I record everything I spend on a spreadsheet, but I never use that data to summarize the yachting costs….(since I really don’t want to know)

But if this thread were to take hold, it might inspire me to sort and share

Paul, I cannot comment on the copyright issue of members sharing this personal information, but I do feel Livia has contributed a great deal to our community and has won my admiration.

For those who blog frequently (almost daily) about their cruising lifestyle and abilities…. I think it would be easy for readers to interpolate which budget type would closely resemble their own standards.

Just as when people are choosing a home and a neighborhood, it is based on general information about cost of living, from those who are already committed to that area.

I see no reason why this raw data can not be gathered in one place (like this thread) and then anyone (with a lot of time on their hands) can correlate it into meaningful budget indicators about certain cruising types.

Example: (80% marina… Florida, live-aboard and boat value); (20% marina… World cruise, live-aboard and boat value)

Livia, maybe the first thing you should do (if still interested) is to standardize the format of costing, to make it easier for this information to be correlated into meaningful budgets that are weighted with initial boat investment.

Cheers!

[s/v Moondancer]

As I have written previously this forum usually does an excellent job of helping inexperienced sailors learn of the true nature of sailing and cruising. These threads about the true financial cost might be the difference between a hopeful becoming a cruiser and sitting there dreaming or might prevent a dreamer making a terrible financial error.

I will be pleased to provide whatever information Livia needs and it will be a great pity if that information has to be communicated in private rather than in a public forum.

As Pelagic writes, if you are still interested Livia, set up a spread sheet to standardize the information and let us all contribute to an accurate and significant study that can be published in a more widely read forum such as a cruising magazine.

[Kindle]

Livia,

I enjoyed reading each of the links to the posted actual budgets. It was interesting looking at each of boats/number of people/cruising ground/their lifestyles and then be able to view the expenditures that it took to make it all happen. Taking a peek into the blogs, when provided, and then being able to see the numbers that correspond is great. I hope you are able to collect a few more. Like most, I am not looking for a budget to "copy". But, it is informative to see what the largest costs and variables were for all of the cruisers that posted.

[sailorboy1]

Not as many sailing blogs out there that even have a posted budget on them. At least this is what I have found in searching them and reading. A little disappointing in a way because if you read a blog you know all the "if' and depends" the budget is based on and can descide how that compares to your own plans.

So I fully support the posting of a link to blogs that has a budget. I don't see there could be any rule problem doing so.

[Sunspot Baby]

In 2005/06 there was a poll on CF. Of course, there is inflation, but I thought it was interesting.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...dget-4296.html

George

[Livia]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for responding.

Just to clarify, as a former academic researcher, I think that stealing someone's intellectual property by republishing it without their permission is beyond tacky and I would *never* do it. In fact, I have my own policy on linking to the Interview With A Cruiser material because I have had a few problems with people reposting it in its entirety.

I am not going to pull anything written on this (or other) forums.

Regarding blogs and websites, I treat them like newspapers or any other public source of information. I feel free to reference them (with links to the original source material) or pull small quotations from them (with links to the original source material).

I think the spreadsheet idea is *excellent* but time intensive and I can't commit more time right now. If anyone wanted to take it on I would be happy to help pimp it out. I don't want to spread myself too thin and start doing a poor job on what I'm already doing.

This thread: I was hoping to compile a list of links (referencing/linking to the original source) to publicly published cruising budgets from cruisers websites or blogs.

Know any besides the ones I have up top?

Cheers, Livia

[Livia]

I found two more:
Atom
Billabong (currently broken but I sent them an email)

Also, for those interested, you can sort the IWAC site by question and you might want to see all of the IWAC interviews containing the question "How much does cruising cost?" Some answered "what you have" but many gave their own cruising costs in aggregate at least.

[VirtualVagabond]

Hi Livia,
I've always been impressed with your professionalism so I was a little surprised when some people felt the need to caution you. Personally I think that could have been a PM, but you've responded with your expected balanced position, so no harm done.

I found this article to be well written and helpful.

Xwaters.com | Liesbet

Keep up the good work.

Vic

[Peter-Jan]

Livia, I'm willing to invest the time to set up the spreadsheet and collect answers.

PM sent.

[ATC]

While we are not cruiser's (yet) we were able to take three months and go coastal sailing a few years ago. During that time I took on the task of recording things that we did, but not actual cost. I recorded the days sailind vs days motoring, the number of meals aboard and on shore, the number of nights on the hook, etc. All of which was to establish an average for future provisioning.

[capn_billl]

I was going to upload a spreadsheet, but it didn't work out too good. Basically it showed $200,000.00 - $500,000.00 dollars US will generate enough income to cruise in comfort, (after the boat is paid for), at moderate interest rates, (3% - 5%).