Dear John Marshall: Your comments below, are they your estimates or your actual experience? I'm a financial planner and have worked with boat owners who have taken their boats on extended cruising (1-5 years). Only one had to tap into his capital to maintain his boating lifestyle. Mainly because he had older teen children who needed financial help during his cruising years. We specialize in a TIM process. Time, Income and Mobility financial planning process so your financial numbers are some of the highest we have seen when the boat owners are doing boating on their own without crew. We have calculated a $40,000 mean for planning purposes with 40% below that mean and 40% higher than that mean income base. We have the boat boat owners go back to their maintenance logs and sort their ongoing yearly maintenance, then their upgrades and material and labor costs that might be needed to get their boat up to renewable maintenance costs. If the boat owner is new with a new boat or used we ask them to go back to the previous owner to collect these numbers. We have noticed a common mistake is the boat buyer pays for a boat that he has calculated the renewable annual maintenance on but the boat needs material and labor to bring it UP to a maintenance or upgrade level (IE boat purchased lacks a chain anchor or dingy when owners intend to anchor out). This adds to the costs of the boat and generally reflects in a short fall somewhere in the renewable maintenance costs. This can be a financial spiral downward. So we take time to divide the two areas of costs carefully illustrating to the overly optimist eyes of the boat owner. We are also boat owners and have seen treads developing. First conscious fuel consumption issues are a main consideration now. Moorings seem to be increasing as marina costs continue to increase. Utility costs in foreign countries can be inadequate and very expensive. This tread seems to be escalating at 9-10% a year. Here are parameters we see in making our projections and TIM financial process. Parameters - Semi retired/retired. Dreamed of living on a boat - Lots of boating experience, but not really. (day cruises on smaller planning hulled boats) - Likes to tinker. Willing to do many small repairs themselves - Needs to sell home, or downsize to buy their trawler. It's a material part of their life. Not just an idle purchase. - Roughly $300,000 to spend on a boat - Annual budget for living, maintenance, everything boat related under $40,000 Attributes for our ideal boat Take 100 points, and spread them around, according to what percentage of the buy decision is based on this feature. - Safety (20%) - Range (5%) - Fuel Efficiency (15%) - Ease of Operation/maintenance (15%) - Cost of maintenance (10%) - Reliability (20%) - Comfort (10%) - Speed (5%) Message: 2 Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:15:52 -0800 From: John Marshall <johnamar@mac.com> To: trawlers-and-trawlering@lists.samurai.com Subject: T&T: live aboard costs? Message-ID: <86ECAB14-1FAD-453D-B442-DF2A4946B9C2@mac.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes In the PNW (where I am, and can judge costs), with a newer boat that you paid cash for and the ability to do most of your own maintenance, you might be able to get by with $80K a year if you were really careful and only took winter moorage (stayed out on the hook from May to October--most marinas open their transient slips to winter liveaboards for modest rates). The problem is the 50 to 60 foot range, which pushes fuel cost, maintenance and especially slip fees a lot higher, and makes it much harder to find a slip. And even with my estimate above, I'm assuming you would base the boat out of one of the more remote harbors in the winter (lower cost) and not down near Seattle. On the east coast and Caribbean where you expressed an interest, I'm guessing you'd need closer to $120K to truly use the boat properly. Everything is more expensive, with slip fees about 3x that of the PNW. If you really need to stay down in the $40K range, you need to consider a much smaller boat. One of the biggest problems that kills the dream is not being realistic about the costs, and/or buying more boat than you can afford to operate. Even worse if you have to pay someone to maintain it. That said, there are very resourceful (and resilient) sailboaters in the 30-35 foot range who do it on $30K, but they don't have much room, no A/C, etc. etc. That's a bit too rustic for most of us. John Marshall (http://www.moneyyogaseminar.com/) **************Dell Inspiron 15: Now starting at $349 (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222435718x1201460505/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fad.doubleclick. net%2Fclk%3B215748553%3B38126199%3Bs)