Quote:
Originally Posted by xort
OK, you didn't direct it to anybody here..it sounded like that.
But $5,000 / year?
We think we need about $35,000 to cruise comfortably including food, insurance, some dockage, fuel, and repairs/maintenance. I hope I'm over on the numbers, maybe we only need $25,000. But I seriously doubt we can do it for less than that.
One also has to plan on inflation. It will hit us probably pretty hard after all this stuff is over. That's the only way the govt can afford all this. But that's for a different thread.
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I'm Canadian and seriously expect our dollar to leap about 40 cents U.S. in value when the world realizes the U.S. is printing its way to "recovery", which I interpret as "10 years of stagflation until all the crap debts are dealt with".
Having said that, we have two adults and one child proposing a five-year circ on a paid-for boat with about $20,000 in further services I can't do, or can't do well enough for the open ocean (like welding) and in gear (like RADAR, solar panels and batteries) to install or to retrofit before we go in 2011.
I expect that we will spend approximately $25K (assume Canadian/American money at par here) per year, of which $6,000-$8,000 will be fuel and maintenance. This may seem low, but the rather simple expedient of anchoring out consistently, the fact that a great deal of the boat's systems will be new (sea-tested, for we plan a trial trip to the Maritimes) or personally refurbished and simplified, plus the willingness to use the sails as much as possible (and carrying the means to repair and extend them) can save a great deal of money.
We may return only once in five years back to Canada. Not flying back and not having the cost of decommissioning and storing the boat on land is a great saving. We do anticipate one "prime and paint" haulout, likely in New Zealand, that might take a season in a yard.
We will be renting out the house (2 apartments, maybe $2,500 in and $500-$650 out in insurance, utilities, land taxes and "other" monthly) and we will be paying either my sister or one of my wife's brothers (he's a superintendent) to be "the face in the place" in order to collect rent, do light maintenance and to handle the bills.
We aren't relying on tenants for the cruising kitty. We
are wanting them to cover the mortgage ($1,200/month). I will likely work while we are gone (I'm a writer and graphic designer) and expect to make maybe 18 months of the 5 x $25K worth of expediture while in transit. I'm setting that aspect of things up now.
I also expect to lower costs by doing some fabrication and fixing for other cruisers, as I will have a small workshop aboard that will carry the sort of tools I need for a steel boat (plus the means to power them), but aren't always practical to carry on a Beneteau, for instance. I suspect many of these sort of transactions will be "in kind", but that's fine: If I'm handed a case of 24 cans of top-end stew and a bottle of rum for two hours of putting in custom-cut backing plates or for beefing up an anchor roller or stitching together a mainsail split, that's a good cruising day for me and for my crew.
I look long and hard at various cruising narratives and blog, and even if I assume 25% of the stories told are either lies or prettied up beyond recognition, I don't think my numbers nor my game plan is particularly unrealistic. The fact is that a lot of people go cruising who are perhaps too old for it, too unskilled for it, too reliant on technological aspects of it, and who have a great fondness for "amenities".
Us, not so much. With me at 50, with a 37 year old wife and a 10 year old kid, we'll be relatively youthful in the cruising community, yet not suspiciously so!
I expect opportunities to cut costs via small jobs will be available, and as I come from a marketing background, I know how to ask.
At base, however, the key to cruising economically is to extract oneself from the money economy in the first place. This can mean getting creative with stores, buying supplies when and where you find them cheaply, and getting used to trading with the locals.
It also helps to like fish. A lot. I do.