1st Time "LiveAboard" Need Help Budgeting Annually

[marlinmike]

I think finances (based on your numbers provided) will be the least of your issue, but more of confined space/storage and open air climate control while on an anchor.

Can you rent a sailboat for a couple weeks where you are?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by marlinmike

I think finances (based on your numbers provided) will be the least of your issue, but more of confined space/storage and open air climate control while on an anchor.

Can you rent a sailboat for a couple weeks where you are?

I agree, and I see no shame if you can afford it, renting a slip when it's Africa hot or Antarctic cold. For 40K a yr., surely that's pretty easy to do.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I agree, and I see no shame if you can afford it, renting a slip when it's Africa hot or Antarctic cold. For 40K a yr., surely that's pretty easy to do.

I see a Cruising on $3,333.33 a Month thread coming. My gut reaction is that it can be done.

[CPseudonym]

The 10% annual number is for budgetary projections only. Only a complete fool would assume it to be absolute. I submit that someone who currently has $40,000/year housing expense is intelligent enough to grasp that concept. If the OP puts aside that amount annually he won't have a problem covering an unforeseen major gotcha 3-4 years down the line.

Of course had the OP stated he wanted a projection on a $5,000 40 foot beater that needed pumps to float I would have never offered the 10% rule of thumb. Instead I'd have allowed the food and toilet paper projections to go unchallenged or perhaps offered a link to the dumpster diving thread.

[Sondor]

Originally Posted by mausgras

My discretionary "wants" are generally modest, I don't aspire to an effluent lifestyle but there are some creature comforts I dont want to compromise on.

I couldn't agree more - an effluent lifestyle doesn't appeal to me at all either!

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by mausgras

There would also be huge annual variation, maybe 5% for a couple of years then 20 or 30 % on a big refit.

It should be easy enough to get an estimate if people have kept records. Just divide total expenditure by number of years will give an average figure. Any offers.

Sure my numbers come out to be approximately $65,000 in maintenance spread over three boats with a lot of DIY over 43 years. This would be about $1,500 per year, but then the numbers become less meaningfull because a dollar in the 1970's bought far more than a dollar now. I bought a Atomic Four in 1972 for about $500 and I bought a Yanmar in 2000 for around $10,000. I spent over a decade with bottom cleaning and new applications of bottom paint every two years with no expense other than the paint. During this same time, I knew others that spent thousands of dollars for bottom jobs. There is simply no formula or percent that can be applied to represent what different people will decide to spend on the maintenance of a vessel.

Whoa! I just took another look at what I had posted and decided to total the purchase prices of the three boats that I've lived aboard and cruised. The first boat I bought in 1971 for 11K; the second in 1973 for 35K and the third and present in 1985 for 65K. Well, that's a total of 111K and I've just said that my average maintenance cost per year is $1,500. This puts my maintenance cost OVER the 15% of purchase price per year! This seems surprising to me, but then it's a result of keeping the same boat for about thirty years. So, how long you keep a boat changes the math too!

[StuM]

"Well, that's a total of 111K and I've just said that my average maintenance cost per year is $1,500. This puts my maintenance cost OVER the 15% of purchase price per year!"

$1,500 is 1.3% of $111,000, not OVER 15%

[BandB]

Originally Posted by CaptForce

Well, that's a total of 111K and I've just said that my average maintenance cost per year is $1,500. This puts my maintenance cost OVER the 15% of purchase price per year! This seems surprising to me, but then it's a result of keeping the same boat for about thirty years. So, how long you keep a boat changes the math too!

Capt, is that new math? $1500 per year over 15%? By my math that is 1.4%.

[Hudson Force]

Oh Yeah and Hallaleuyah! I must of jumped a decimal point placement! I am still the cheapest, crumudgeon, miser, DIY, fifth decade liveaboard in Northeast Florida! You guys are my saviors!

[BandB]

Originally Posted by CaptForce

Oh Yeah and Hallaleuyah! I must of jumped a decimal point placement! I am still the cheapest, crumudgeon, miser, DIY, fifth decade liveaboard in Northeast Florida! You guys are my saviors!

Was afraid you were going to have a stroke or heart attack from the shocking news of 15%. Hope I caught you in time to save you.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Kurt_Pollett

Hey Boys,

Thanks a lot for the replies!
Yeah out of my 40k/Year Budget, I was planning to put 20k/Year into my Boat Loan, and keep the other 20k/Year into the 'Boat Maintenance Fund'
Food and Living expenses is a different budget
and I was gona be a bit of a Pirate and just anchor up 90% of the time
I will take a Mooring or Berth about once a Fortnight to go do my big grocery shop. I don't really eat out a lot mainly because I like my own cooking better.
I was just hoping to know if my above expectations were realistic?
Cheers Fella's

Recon that 14/20K /year would easily handle your maintaince particually as the vessel is mainly being used for liveaboard and not long distance cruising and is not an old boat.

Cheers

[Atanua]

We don't live aboard but we are planning to one day ourselves. We have an 83 Catalina 30 in a slip on a lake. Slip is around $360 a month with no amenities in the marina. We did a few upgrades and all the maintenance ourselves except bottom jobs as there are no places nearby that allow that sort of work by boat owners. The biggest expense was a bottom job (lots of blisters!) that was about $4K. We get nickel-ed and dimed almost weekly with things breaking or just wearing out. We participate in club racing which may put more stress on the boat than strictly necessary. Sail repair and new sails are probably our second biggest expense so far. We are in need of a new heads'l furler as the old one is no longer supported with replacement parts.

The spread sheet we keep says we have averaged $7.5K per year over 5 years in slip fees, boat payments (small), insurance and maintenance. The total is way more than the initial price of the boat but we would do all over again with a smile!

I can't speak to provisioning.

Hope this adds more useful data for your planning.

Best of luck to you!

[pdjb]

hi there.Here is what I did...bought a Irwin 28ft sloop on ebay for 4k...I was surprised I got it...saw it and took every thing out and started over...left the engine out so I could make spaces under there...sailed it to a place that I could do the work myself...I saved a lot of money on that end..put it in a marina up in Everett.wa...that was a mistake on my part..should of left it on the hard..but what I wanted to test the boat...so if you can't do the work yourself that will cost u a lot of money...lesson learned the hard way....hope this helps u think about boating...don't race the boat?

[Hudson Force]

I just had a great laugh reading through this thread again. Kurt started off with his plan to do a "stink of living aboard". I know Aussies have many colorful idioms, - nobody asked!

...and then BandB said, "the other day I wanted to buy 160 AA bateries". Why should this crack me up? Maybe it's a common practice. Like, excuse me, I need to make a quick stop and pick up 100 packs of dental floss. ....... nobody asked!

....and the Boatman mentions that we made it through 'tll recent history without spreadsheets. -and then I thought, why haven't I ever taken the time to find out just what is a "spreadsheet"? So, I looked it up and found it to be an arrangement of data in columns and rows that can be altered by a additional variable. No wonder we got by without spreadsheets. Didn't we used to call them graphs?

Sometimes I love to reread some past threads.

[StuM]

> Didn't we used to call them graphs?

No