As we were getting ready to cut the
dock lines, I found Sailorboy's monthly posts listing his cruising expenses were very helpful as a real world example of the costs of cruising. In the interest of paying it forward, I thought I'd list our monthly expenses for those who are dreaming and planning as we once were.
As background, we are a middle-aged couple (I'm 49, Mr. cthoops is 59) and we are cruising full-time on our 1977 Bristol 29.9. This is our second
boat and we've spent the last few years sailing her in the summer and refitting during the winter.
We left our home port of Groton, CT on Monday, September 3rd and went to Block Island, then Narragansett Bay while we waited to see what
Hurricane Florence would do. We were also waiting for a
weather window to hop
offshore to Cape May, but after a few weeks when that didn't appear we decided to go inside down
Long Island Sound. We are currently anchored in
Oyster Bay, NY.
Here's what we spent in September, keeping in mind that Mr. cthoops has congestive heart failure so we don't drink alcohol (his cardiologist says no) and we rarely eat out (because of his sodium restrictions):
Groceries: $297.98
Diesel/Gasoline: $14.00
Health Care: $4,726.23 - this amount includes the cost to Cobra my
health insurance plan from October - December. We will be signing up for Connecticut's
health exchange so the cost will go down dramatically beginning in January.
Cell phone and
internet (2 phones, one
iPad data plan, iCloud
storage, and a
Garmin inReach subscription): $110.99
Last pro-rated
internet bill from our apartment: $9.99
Mail
Service: $121.75 - this includes a $100 deposit to the UPS Store which they will draw from when we have mail forwarded to us.
Laundry: $26.00
Ice: $13.00
Showers: $9.50
Netflix: $11.10
Boat Insurance: $90 - this is a flat amount to account for the increase in our premium when we added a rider for the
Bahamas and increased our boat's declared value.
Boat stuff: $318.19 - this amount is for 2 handheld
VHF radios (the old ones died a week after leaving), supplies for our
water catch, a 12v
plug inverter to recharge the computer, carabiners and lines to make a
dinghy hoist, ten
oil diapers, a 5 gallon collapsible
water jug, a chain hook, two velcro wraps,
electric cable anti-chafe, two
fuses, and a 9v
battery for the multimeter.
Restaurants/Entertainment: $79.60
Uber/Bus: $30.83
New York Times subscription: $20.20
Marinas: $58.49
Auto
Insurance: $51.36 - this is the difference between the refund for cancelling our policy when we
sold our car and the premium for our non-owner policy which will keep us out of the high-risk pool should we
purchase another car in the future.
Annual subscriptions: $82.79 - This is a one-time annual payment to upgrade our PredictWind app and a one month upgrade for our SailFlow app.
Random: $17.08 - this amount includes dominoes
game, a tea kettle to replace the one that broke, and other miscellaneous amounts
Total: $6,089.08
I hope this is helpful.