Our cruising costs - month three for a middle-aged couple on a modest boat.

[Miz Pea]

Great post.


We also subscribe to several newspapers, the New York Times among them.


Living in the electronic age is extraordinary.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Cthoops

Our average was skewed right from the start when I included paying for COBRA for three months (paid all at once) in September.

I'm glad you included the costs. Years ago when I tried to get a handle on total costs people would do stuff like put that into the mystery "doesn't count" costs. But, for a planner these types of costs are common and need to be budgeted for. I for try to report all costs and explain them and let others decide if they "don't count" for them (means they will be replaced by some other "doesn't count" that your checkbook still counts).

[01kiwijohn]

NYT subscription? Get that stuff off the net. Unless you need to recycle the paper...for fish wrapper??
Good job on staying away from the latest hi- tech items, and for staying with a basic ⛵. Isn't it amazing, what you don't need?

[roverhi]

If you get away from civilization, your expenses can go way down. We spent less than $5,000 in 2018 dollars for a year in French Polynesia. Half the year was in the Marquesas and Tuamotus where we couldn't have splurged if we wanted to as there weren't any restaurants or hotels. We did have a new boat that we'd built right ourselves and she was well stocked with enough provisions to last us more than 6 months strongly supplemented by what we could pull out of the ocean or off wild vegetation. Did not have health insurance or cell phone, who could live without one or four these days, so we'd have to add those must have expenses if we weren't covered by medicare in our current decrepit years.

Use that anchor and clear out of the US and your cruising dollars will stretch way longer.

[sailorboy1]

Actually I feel the op is being pretty frugal and mostly living the low life. Her numbers really highlight how so many budget numbers with the “not counting” line item provides a false accounting.

And yes staying away from civilization saves money. But it not as much as people think because the savings are, for me, mostly the difference between eating on the boat eating out. Regardless once you get back to civilization there’s restocking and deferred boat maintenance, so it will average out later.

I bet the op settles out about $2000 once she gets over the initial period. The wild card is the health issue and I bet they find a way to manage that (I’ve had a heart attack)

In the end it’s their money and they get to spent it their way. I don’t feel anything they spent his period was unreasonable and to them it was all good choices.

[Jaqun]

Thank both of you for making your expenses public. My wife and I are a few years away but this makes it allot easier to plan. I consider this a great service.

[Cthoops]

Originally Posted by laika

You've put a lot of work in to get things ready to go, so I bet you'll get things dialed in pretty quickly as the months go by.

Noticing as well here that your fuel/marinas/clothing expenses add up to close to a $1000, which to me indicates some cold blustery days down the ICW! Hopefully a one off

Good catch on the marinas/clothing expenses. We definitely had some cold and stormy days on the ICW in November! It has already been a lot better this month, keeping those expenses down.

[Cthoops]

Originally Posted by 01kiwijohn

NYT subscription? Get that stuff off the net. Unless you need to recycle the paper...for fish wrapper??
Good job on staying away from the latest hi- tech items, and for staying with a basic ⛵. Isn't it amazing, what you don't need?

The NY Times subscription IS the digital version. They limit you to a certain number of free articles per month.

[Cthoops]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Actually I feel the op is being pretty frugal and mostly living the low life. Her numbers really highlight how so many budget numbers with the “not counting” line item provides a false accounting.

And yes staying away from civilization saves money. But it not as much as people think because the savings are, for me, mostly the difference between eating on the boat eating out. Regardless once you get back to civilization there’s restocking and deferred boat maintenance, so it will average out later.

I bet the op settles out about $2000 once she gets over the initial period. The wild card is the health issue and I bet they find a way to manage that (I’ve had a heart attack)

In the end it’s their money and they get to spent it their way. I don’t feel anything they spent his period was unreasonable and to them it was all good choices.

Thanks, Sailorboy1.

I agree that there are a lot of "we don't count this" budgets out there which aren't as helpful. The one-offs do happen, and people should be aware of them so they can budget for them should they choose to do so.

Before we cut the lines I noticed how you stated in your numbers posts that going on shore = higher spending. That is so true! We can go days without spending a dime, but as soon as we step foot on land - ka-ching! It's all good though. For us there isn't any point in doing this if we aren't going to stop every once in a while and explore where we are.

[chuckr]

If you want to see real long term costs here are ours for the past 9 years -- includes a variety of locations from the USA to the Carib to the Med -- but it is an indication of real cost of being out here long term


http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ta-197309.html

[rickwest]

The cost of living and traveling on a boat depends on three things
1 How much you spend in your life on land now
2 the size and age of your both
3 where you plan on going
You can live on under $1000 a month or $10,000 a month

[SuW]

Originally Posted by 01kiwijohn

NYT subscription? Get that stuff off the net. Unless you need to recycle the paper...for fish wrapper??
Good job on staying away from the latest hi- tech items, and for staying with a basic ⛵. Isn't it amazing, what you don't need?

You can do this. Or there is a pay-per-article service (10-50 cents usually) called Blendle. I find $10 lasts me about 3 months, but you can browse all the headlines from dozens of newspapers and magazines for free. Load up from Paypal. (I have no connection to the company, just a happy user).