[PBzeer]

No need to apologize dawndreamer, they are everywhere. One thing that has been going around in my head though is what you would be doing to need $50k a year to cruise. Shoot, with that much, I could put 35 a year into the boat! And that's more than I paid for it.

Point is, that seems like a lot of money to go cruising, unless you're just going somewhere to tie up in a marina and live a shore type life. Nothing wrong with that, but I found one of the nice things while I was out was not worrying about how much money I spent, because I wasn't anywhere to spend any. I looked forward to finding a nice anchorage in the evening, and even the one's I shared with others, were still peaceful and relaxing.

It seems to me, at this point, that the biggest strain on the kitty is the periodic costs, such as maintaince, insurance, etc. The day to day costs are minimal when not using marinas each night. Though, if you are outside US waters, there are often cruising fees in many places.

I've started looking at my kitty as a two part thing. One for periodic costs, and one for day to day. That way, once you've established a good reserve for those periodic costs, the amount needed to actually cruise is much smaller. And since you won't always use all the reserve usually, it becomes much easier to refill it. That way, rather than thinking I need X number of dollars of return on my investments, I can probably do alright with Y. Then if I get X, I'm money ahead.

As a disclaimer of sorts, I have to say I've never been one to have a bunch of money in the bank. And I have no one but myself to be concerned about. So there isn't as much "risk" involved for me, as there would be for a couple or a family. But I do think the basic principal would still apply.