What Does Everyone DO ?

[whitecaps]

What is your JOB to afford these nice boats? Right now I do not own one yet!

I am looking around, I am a Network Analyst for a engineer company.

[Alan Wheeler]

Who said we can afford them?????

[whitecaps]

OK thats good, well anyway what do you do?

[Talbot]

I suspect that it is more a case of what else are we prepared to do without in order to be able to afford the boat which is half as good as the one we really want but cant afford. e.g. I run a 10 yr old car

[jemsea]

For us it was what we did/do in addition to our regular jobs that paid for the boat.
Rental houses over a period of years appreciated enough to be the major contributor. In addition, we started a web based business, sold our new new vehicles and bought old, and we live on one income and bank the rest.

[Pura Vida]

Boating is like autoracing in that it ain't what you have but what it costs. But I'll give you a rundown of some boats and jobs. Where I list two jobs it is a couple.

Islander 36 Retired navy
Islander 36 Mechanic
Gulf 36 Aviator
Westsail 32 Business owner/accountant
Morgan OI 50 Business owner(ret)/Nurse
PS Orion Shrink
Mac Powersailer Retired Royal Navy
Whitby 42 Project manager/accountant
C&C 27 IT Manager
C&C 27 Business Owner
S2 36 aft Business Owner
Endevour 42 Aerospace engineer
Catalina 25 Nasa Flight Director
Morgan 38 Salesman
Morgan 38 Retired Oilfield Engineer/Teacher
Morgan 38 Electrical Engineer
Tayana 37 FBI spook
Cataling 30 Petrochemical worker
S2 30 Supply Chain manager
Hinkley 42 Right Gene Pool
Hunter 42 Supply Chain manager
Hunter 34 Oil Executive
Morgan OI 416 Painter (fine arts)/HR manager
Beneteau 47 Physician
Baba 32 Construction contractor / nurse

I can go on... but the one thing these folks all have in common is a love for sailing. What you may earn may determine what you buy but not what you sail.

[Cookie's Cutter]

For us it was also what we did in addition to our regular jobs. We bought, remodeled and sold several houses over the past 6 years, doing most of the work ourselves on the weekends and in the evenings. We couldn't have bought our boat and be able to outfit her without having the other means of income. We also drive older model vehicles that we paid for several years ago so haven't had auto loans for quite some time. I am happy to say that we will be leaving in January for an extended cruise and don't plan to come back until we stop having fun.

We decided that we would do whatever it takes to go, and that's what we did.

Good luck to you,
Janet

[markpj23]

Several folks, like myself, stuck in that half-in half-out purgatory where we have a boat that we are working on in the hopes of someday casting off for good. Life keeps getting in the way for one reason or another and the departure dates keep slipping.

If we work for X more months / years we can have a bigger kitty / boat / new electronics / more toys / bigger waistline. And if (insert relative's name here) would just get their act together / get healthy we would be free to go.....

Until we commit to taking the plunge we're doomed to be marina queens I'm afraid. But even that has its satisfying moments

[whitecaps]

Markpj23

That is about where I am right now! I am trying to look ahead and plan for the future... I do believe I will do this in the next 3 years my son will be near getting out of school and going to collage so he will not need me then.

Its tuff when you are divorced and you cant leave your kid with the other side, because you know they will not help him with anything. Paying for Child support is killing me but I have 4 more years for that, then I will be sailing on my own.. Right now I will be sailing on a Rainbow 24 with my brother so I can say I am sailing for now!

[AdamY]

Magellan 36/ Software QA Engineer/Graphic designer for a gov. agency.

We dont have much money, we bought the boat for every penny we had and have been dumping every penny we make into it. Well every penny I make, every penny she makes goes into the kitty.

I drive a 1994 Volvo wagon I paid cash for 3 years ago to replace the 87 volvo wagon I drove before that. Despite some inscrupulous broker trying to tell me I could manage a $190k mortgage on my own income (see leverage ;-) ) I rented a crappy duplex for the past few years and split $650/month with Kristina. Now we live aboard. Our boat is our home and our expenses are low with the exception of the boat yard bill which will ruin us again. Last year it was the rigger's bill that ruined us ;-)

Anyway, I agree with most here, it isnt what you make it is what you're willing to do without. I know lots of people who cant afford their boats but it is the only thing they do other than their jobs/families so they manage.

Cheers,

[Alan Wheeler]

Wow, I can't believe you guy's all have such new cars
Anyway's, we have a fine balance of work and owing our dream. The pivot of the balance is our necks and the water level. The idea is just maintaining our heads above the water of the sea of debt.
I do nothing special now and don't earn a lot. In fact, I kinda consider myself semi-retired, but that is only because I don't have full time employment. My wife is Airforce and earns a good wage and that keeps us afloat. However, in saying that, it's been a hard road for us and I am not going into those details. But we sold our dream home to buy the boat and now we don't have a home, but I really don't care. We want to follow our dreams. That may or may not mean world cruising, but we will certainly be doing some cruising.

I look at it this way.
1: what is your dream?
a: that may mean major sacrifices and choices
2: is your dream still No.1?
3: Follow your dream!
a: when there is a will there is a way. You somehow make it happen.
b: it will be tuff going and your dream will be severly tested at times.
4: BUT! does No.1 still remain your dream??
5: continue to follow your dream!

It may transpire, that once you get your dream, it may not remain that. It could just be a search in life of what you are wanting to find and do. That's OK, you can move on to something else.
We built what we considered our dream house. I had everything in it I wanted. We had dreamed for years of having just what we ended up with. I even had a 30seat movie theatre in it and the screen was ruffly 12' high by 16' across. (damn I still miss that). The house was flippen huge, well for just the two of us. But after we lived in it for twelve months, we realised the house wasn't our dream after all. So we sold and moved on to our next challenge
Life is meant to be lived!!!!!!!!!

[Pura Vida]

whitecaps,
Look into the book "Cruising on a Small Income" by Anne Hill. It covers the basics of cruising economics very well.

And repeat frequently 'Debt Is Evil.' I hear the bank gets angry if you take their boat to Europe.

[whitecaps]

Alan Wheeler

Wow that is some story dude! I guess I am not at that point yet to live on my boat I am 36 right now and just landed a good job so I will have to stay working for awhile. I just bought a Hemi Truck so I am going to pay on that for a few years while my son gets through high school then we will think about selling everything, right now I would like to have something for the weekends.

We are still looking at are budget right now, I am guessing that I will have to find something around 50k for now. Then I need to look into dock fees compared to morning

[Alan Wheeler]

If I can add a little more advice. I have sadly seen this happen al too often and the question behind it even gets asked here. The question being, "What size boat should I buy" or "How big can I handle", when the question should really be asked, what size can I afford to keep, then buy to suit. The most common ones to get it back to front, were ones that came into a quantity of money suddenly. Either a supa payout or a retirement fund or Lotto. the would have say for argument sake, $100K, so what did they do, they went and boought a boat for $100K. But a year later they would have insurance, mooring, haulout and so on and the normal income wouldn't cover the ongoing costs of the boat the size they had. It's best to do some home work first and start with what you woould have as a yearly sailing budget. Then break that down into the mooring fees and insurance and so on and see what size you could afford to keep.

[delmarrey]

I work on my own boat! And that's how I can afford one.

I figure I've put 25K in labor just this year let alone the $$$$$$$$$ in equipment. Sometimes it's not how much you have to spend but how much you don't have to shell out.

If you have little knowledge on fix'n boats then you better buy new, or start out with a small fixer-up'r and learn your way up.

And this goes for cars and houses too............................................._/)