Month 7 Expenses & Costs of Cruising

[sailorboy1]

This past month we traveled from Glass Window Eleuthera Bahamas to George Town Exuma and back a little up to Emerald Bay Exuma (started heading North). We did spent one day at Cape Eleuthera Marina for fuel/water/laundry and the rest at anchor. We experienced at least 2 gales and have had to hide from weather a LOT!

We dined out a few times, once at a real restaurant and couple of times at beach type restaurant.

Entertainment expenses were for some Kindle books, and a couple weeks’ worth of Bahamas WiFi that didn’t work well at anchor in George Town (don’t understand the attraction people have for George Town).

We had two good stops for provisioning and did restocking at them (Black Sound and George Town).

I still use my credit card, but in Georgetown the bank ATM was easy to use so took a lot of cash out as the store adds 5% to your bill to use a credit card. Since people wanted to “fix” the cost of using my credit card last month this month I included the cash back I got from last month to this month’s credit card and ATM fees.

During one of the gales our head sail unrolled a little and it took me hours to “fix” due to the dark and conditions. This resulted in it beating itself and the rigging tearing out the stitching for the UV cover. That was much more sewing than we able to do so that was a sail repair at this little shack place in George Town.

I think water costs are low by $30 or so because the marina charged based on 100 gal instead of 1 gal, but it is what I paid

The total was $2,387.41 as follows:

Food, soda, alcohol, clothing, sundries - $ 1,158.10
Boat upgrades, repairs, maintenance - $ 220.00
Fuel (diesel, gas, propane) - $ 232.67
Dining out - $ 379.15
Entertainment - $ 58.96
Communication, storage, shipping - $ 183.28
Bank Fees - $ -1.09
Marina - $ 88.41
Medical - $ 22.27
Water - $ 39.66

[landsend]

Thanks sailorboy. You must be getting the same fronts bashing s florida.

[a64pilot]

Interesting to see how much less it is now
Thanks for posting

[MarkJ]

Has it been 7 months already?
Only a few months ago you were a rich bugger with no experience.
Now you are experiencing being a poor bugger.

😂😂😋😂😂


Exhumas are nice, eh?

[mjgriffin007]

New to the thread; what's your 7-month average?

[akprb]

Are you in Emerald Bay now and if so could you PM me and check on our boat :-) ?

Was wondering what you were up to just a few days ago!

[hamburking]

This is very interesting info, very real. Thank you for posting the numbers, and the stories that go with them.

I find it interesting that the bulk of your costs are food/diningout/entertainment/Communication
...these total almost $1800 out of a $2400 month. I mention it because I am thinking of doing a similar trip...but on a shoestring budget.

I would think that as a single person, rather than a couple, my food costs would be half of yours. And a smaller boat (maybe 35 feet) would have slightly lower costs.

I'm just wondering if I could realistically manage on $1000 per month.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Has it been 7 months already?
Only a few months ago you were a rich bugger with no experience.
Now you are experiencing being a poor bugger.

😂😂😋😂😂


Exhumas are nice, eh?

a bugger is a bugger,pretty much no class either way

I'm good with that

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by hamburking

This is very interesting info, very real. Thank you for posting the numbers, and the stories that go with them.

I find it interesting that the bulk of your costs are food/diningout/entertainment/Communication
...these total almost $1800 out of a $2400 month. I mention it because I am thinking of doing a similar trip...but on a shoestring budget.

I would think that as a single person, rather than a couple, my food costs would be half of yours. And a smaller boat (maybe 35 feet) would have slightly lower costs.

I'm just wondering if I could realistically manage on $1000 per month.

sure you could do it on $1000 if you don't have any problems (big IF)

It's not a contest use my numbers and adjust as needed to match what you are willing to do (you can cut $500/mo if you just eat beans and rice)

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by hamburking

This is very interesting info, very real. Thank you for posting the numbers, and the stories that go with them.

I find it interesting that the bulk of your costs are food/diningout/entertainment/Communication
...these total almost $1800 out of a $2400 month. I mention it because I am thinking of doing a similar trip...but on a shoestring budget.

I would think that as a single person, rather than a couple, my food costs would be half of yours. And a smaller boat (maybe 35 feet) would have slightly lower costs.

I'm just wondering if I could realistically manage on $1000 per month.

Yeah, if you have six $400 months for that month you have a $5000 month. That's my takeaway from all these sorts of accounts (which, don't get me wrong, are nonetheless very useful and helpful): all the budgeting in the world and careful penny-hoarding can be dashed by a cracked diesel head, a parted shroud or two, or an unexpectedly shredded main sail.

Not to mention emergency trips home for personal medical or familial duty reasons.

I think the budget for a five-year voyage should therefore have a contingency fund of two years' expenses. Whether that is doable for the sort of people who sail on permanent economy settings is another question.

[Alastair A]

Do you really need CF assist with this?
"Oh dear" from me? A.

[MarkJ]

Remember that Sailor-Lil-Boy is still just starting. He's through 7 months of the most expensive cruising year: the first year. And this is his first real month away from marinas and from adding junk and extra provisions on his boat.

So if we graphed his 7 months you would see his total expenditure has plummeted and some of the catagories. Some will have remained fairly constant.

Did you Excell Spreadsheet your expenses? Can you get it to knock up a graph? You could average the maintenance stuff too to give a better idea. I think it will confirm to you that you are doing very well.


Mark

[SV Bacchus]

Not sure SB is looking for assist. A few have been following his monthly expenses with great interest!

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Alastair A

Do you really need CF assist with this?
"Oh dear" from me? A.

Yeah, see I don't think he wants or needs any help.
I think its a little payback to help those of us yet to go ourselves. I assume he searched everything he could to determine cost before he jumped in, and is now adding to that data, which is appreciated by many.

[SV Bacchus]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Did you Excell Spreadsheet your expenses? Can you get it to knock up a graph? You could average the maintenance stuff too to give a better idea. I think it will confirm to you that you are doing very well.


Mark

A graph would give a great visual..