Month 41 Expenses of Cruising and Living on the Boat

[sailorboy1]

Added a new tab page on the spreadsheet for “cost events” items that happened each month. Hint, they happen more often than you think!

Still in Boot Key Marathon FL with my fellow boat scum people. My wife and I were at the bar for Happy Hour yesterday and across the bar heard this woman say to her friend "I hate people living out on the boats. They are just scum!" Met to leave beginning of Feb, but a medical item got in the way and we realized we were trying to force ourselves to head to the Bahamas and this made no sense as we don’t have a schedule. So plan to get out of here in March.

Did grocery, beer and supply runs as normal dollar wise even though there was big restock trip that has the freezer packed right now.

Boat costs were high. Replaced our solar controller (turned out old one wasn’t bad), got a big heavy duty tarp to make into a sun shade for the boat, got a new nav chip for chartplotter, replaced a macerator pump and got a spare. Plus a whole of those little “not counting things that add up to real $$)

Fuel was gas for the dinghy and Honda.

Marina costs were a month’s mooring in Marathon/Boot Key.

Medical were doctor visits and transportation costs involved to get there. Plus, monthly ACA plan payment that went up $55/mo. this year.

Transportation and travel costs were a rental car/gas/tolls.

Gifts include some birthday gifts and the return of some of our Christmas gifts

The total expenses were $4,530.11. Cost breakdown as follows for planners and hecklers:

Food, soda, alcohol, clothing, sundries - $ 1229.91
Boat upgrades, repairs, maintenance - $ 1453.06
Fuel (diesel, gas, propane) - $ 53.89
Dining and drinking out - $ 585.91
Entertainment - $ 34.50
Communication, storage, shipping - $ 123.54
Fees – $ -62.10
Marina - $ 348.30
Electric - $ 0
Medical - $ 483.95
Transportation and travel - $ 230.19
Gifts - $ 43.96
Water - $ 5

[MV Wanderlust]

Always appreciate you continuing to share, SB. This information is helpful to so many people. How often did you have to run your generator in the previous 30 days in Marathon?

[Bill O]

Monthly averages look fairly good over all.

In the first 3 years you averaged between $3600-4000/mo based on the annual totals. Months 37 and 38 are higher as the boat now needs more equipment/repairs and month 40 was much higher than normal medical. All in all not too bad for real numbers of life aboard for ~3.5 yr.
May want to check column P in the main tab if that is supposed to be the monthly average for this year (mo. 37-41). The monthly average (P83) seems low and maybe divide by 5 (mo.) instead of dividing by 12.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by MV Wanderlust

Always appreciate you continuing to share, SB. This information is helpful to so many people. How often did you have to run your generator in the previous 30 days in Marathon?

Only a few times for battery charging once i fixed the solar controller problem. Probably more often to make hot water and to use other high power things.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Bill O

May want to check column P in the main tab if that is supposed to be the monthly average for this year (mo. 37-41). The monthly average (P83) seems low and maybe divide by 5 (mo.) instead of dividing by 12.

The average is only right at the end of the year because thats th only ti i really care about that column. I could ‘fix’ it but don't really care.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

The average is only right at the end of the year because thats th only ti i really care about that column. I could ‘fix’ it but don't really care.

Ok thanks. Your info is really good, especially w/the detailed breakout for each category.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Bill O

Ok thanks. Your info is really good, especially w/the detailed breakout for each category.

Its worth the money people are paying

[Floatinghome]

Thanks Sailorboy! As a dreamer this is a very valuable tool for our planning and future! Keep up the great work!

[wolfgal]

Thank you Sailorboy. i really appreciate these updates!

am STILL doing all i can to live aboard and cruise... just wish baby steps were not so tiny!

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by wolfgal

Thank you Sailorboy. i really appreciate these updates!

am STILL doing all i can to live aboard and cruise... just wish baby steps were not so tiny!

just JUMP!

[fred4936]

Thanks again Sailorboy! As we get closer, your info becomes more valuable to us. We now have the boat, and are doing the refit now. Will keep following!

[zstine]

Originally Posted by Floatinghome

Thanks Sailorboy! As a dreamer this is a very valuable tool for our planning and future! Keep up the great work!

Sailorboy is doing a great service to provide such detailed data!! Remember as you dream that this is one data point. We (family of 4) found $2k was close to our monthly average. Where were our big savings? We spent more like $600-700 on groceries, alcohol and sundries a month. Never spent anything on a Marina ever. Our boat expenses averaged under $500/mo, even with a $2,000 autopilot install, our single biggest boat cost. We didn't have health or boat insurance nor any serious health issues while in the Caribbean. Maybe spent $200 for medical on a handful of preventive doctors visits for the whole year. And we only rented cars twice in the year, maybe 2 or 3 taxi rides for the year. So we spent about $100 for the year on transportation, unless you include flying back to USA for Christmas in December, which was about $700 for 3 tix b/c we had some miles which helped... if you want to see how we lived search "Sailing Diablo" on youtube.

Your mileage may vary!


Our boat, a 1975 Tartan 41ft

[jhulmer]

Thanks again Sailorboy - you scum bag! I can't wait to be scum too because I want to live on my boat!


I'm sure she was talking about the scum bag in the billion dollar mega yacht that didn't invite her aboard!

[alansmith]

I like that your honest and don’t hide things. No two couples and no two boats are alike or have the same interests. Sailor boy and his wife live comfortably and aren’t pinching pennies. So he is a good standard to measure ourselves by with our predilections, comfort levels, and complexity of boats.

[NorthCoastJoe]

Thank you the info is very useful for us. I hope to JUMP within two years. Always have the farm to come back to. New Beta 50 soon. Did you factor in your prep costs? When we JUMP the boat should be rebuilt in all areas.