Can you do it on £1k a month?

[Colvic Watson]

We've just had our financial statements through and for the planned two year career break we can draw £1,000 pm with no draw down in our main capital and no onshore costs. Is that enough to mostly anchor cruise the Med and West Indies for 2 years? Assume that the boat is well found and prepped and there is a separate fund for emergency capital costs such as flights home and broken equipment. If £1k pm is unrealistic then we need to save much harder!

Protecting the capital is very important because when we come back we'll be starting at ground zero both job hunting, though we have very esoteric qualifications that will hopefully gain us job re-entry fairly quickly.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[vyv_cox]

Fairly comfortable provided the boat needs nothing expensive during that period, which I suspect it will not. Based on a number of years' experience we have transferred €8000 this morning to our Euro bank for six months of cruising. I doubt very much that we will use all of it during the season. We live quite well, eat out at least once a week, more often twice.

 

[Tranona]

Assuming 2 people then quite possible, provided you keep away from the western Med. The big killer is mooring costs, so if you keep moving and anchor as much as possible your living costs will be comparable or less than at home. in reality you can adjust your expenditure to fit the budget by identifying the high cost items and avoid spending. So eating out, staying in marinas, hiring cars for sightseeing and perhaps lots of motoring are the things to avoid, or ration within your budget.

 

[rustybarge]

France has got shockingly expensive.
I go shopping on the push bike with a laptop bag.
Ordinary stuff, no alcohol or chocolate, no steaks, costs nearly 40 euros!!!!

I would guess it's about 15% more than the UK, only a few years ago it was 25% cheaper.

 

[charles_reed]

We've just had our financial statements through and for the planned two year career break we can draw £1,000 pm with no draw down in our main capital and no onshore costs. Is that enough to mostly anchor cruise the Med and West Indies for 2 years? Assume that the boat is well found and prepped and there is a separate fund for emergency capital costs such as flights home and broken equipment. If £1k pm is unrealistic then we need to save much harder!

Protecting the capital is very important because when we come back we'll be starting at ground zero both job hunting, though we have very esoteric qualifications that will hopefully gain us job re-entry fairly quickly.

Thanks for your advice.

Don't know about the W Indies, but in most of the Med not a problem - however, in season, very difficult in Spain, France and Italy - mainly down to lack of safe, free anchorages.

An acquaintance of mine remarked that "The Western Med was only put there by the good God to see if you deserved the Eastern Med.."

 

[ChrisE]

Windies wise, the anchoring will be more easily attained but in our experience food is not so cheap as a fair bit of it is flown in. IF you can fish there's plenty of fish on offer. We managed on your budget but it was nearly 20 years ago ....

 

[KellysEye]

>cruise the Med and West Indies for 2 years?

You will be in one hell of a rush and not see much, I'd choose either the Med or Caribbean. The latter was our first choice, we planned for two years and came back six and a half years later. We spent more than your budget, often eating out, but we had let a house and flat. One expense was we had to replace a generator - £8,000 for a 1,500 rpm Westerbeke.

Be prepared to repair everything except electronics. Boat kit is made for weekend and holiday sailors so everything will break more than once, so carry two service packs for everything, all the associated tools and exploded parts diagrams for everything. Apart from a single month without anything breaking I did maintenance or repairs two days a week. Also don't forget oil filters, fuel filters, impellors for engine etc.

 

[rivonia]

In the caribean we managed comfortably on $100 per week. We also found the odd job to do to support our way of life. Still doable. Now the med is so very very different and we JUST managed on £800 a month. However we did have to draw done due to repairs and replacements. The Med is now where as cheap as the West Indies.

Good Luck

 

[Cardo]

France and Spain we struggled to spend less than £1000/month, but we were making a fair bit of progress and burning through fuel and staying at marinas more often that we'd like.
We're hoping we should be well within that budget this summer in Greece.

Though where we have gone exponentially over budget has been boat maintenance/repairs. We spent a small fortune getting the boat "ready" before we left, only to find we've had to do a whole load of extra work after only a year of cruising. The boat is on the older side, and we've discovered that a lot of the older stuff has had to be repaired/replaced now that she's getting a lot more use.

 

[ChattingLil]

Though where we have gone exponentially over budget has been boat maintenance/repairs. We spent a small fortune getting the boat "ready" before we left, only to find we've had to do a whole load of extra work after only a year of cruising. The boat is on the older side, and we've discovered that a lot of the older stuff has had to be repaired/replaced now that she's getting a lot more use.

What kinds of things conked out? I saw some of your threads re water tanks and rudder.

 

[Cardo]

What kinds of things conked out? I saw some of your threads re water tanks and rudder.

The main thing has been the steering system the previous owner did a serious bodge job on. We've spent another small fortune replacing most of it with proper bits!
But then there's also:
New loo, old one broke within weeks of setting off.
Antifouling had to be redone after a season. We'd gone with 3-4 coats of Micron Extra hoping it'd cover us for 2 years. Not a chance. (So crane, etc. fees)
Fuel system started playing up due to improperly fitted Eberspacher, that had to be rectified.
Leaky water tank, now being replaced.

Those are the bits that have cost the most. There have also been loads of small bits along the way.

 

[Cardo]

The other big expenses have been items we didn't think we would need. Much like the above list, they are items that would probably only come up at the beginning of cruising, but it's a big hit when you only budget for a couple of years.

As an example, an alternator regulator. The standard regulator was doing naff all to our batteries and we found we were struggling to charge the batteries once the days were getting shorter and cloudier.

 

[GrahamM376]

We've just had our financial statements through and for the planned two year career break we can draw £1,000 pm with no draw down in our main capital and no onshore costs. Is that enough to mostly anchor cruise the Med and West Indies for 2 years? Assume that the boat is well found and prepped and there is a separate fund for emergency capital costs such as flights home and broken equipment. If £1k pm is unrealistic then we need to save much harder!.

There are anchorages on the west coast of France, the Spanish Rias, the Algarve and SW Spain so not much need to use marinas in those areas and, food costs in Spain & Portugal are lower than the UK. Western Med is mainly expensive with not many anchorages and most push east as quickly as possible. No idea of costs in West Indies. We can certainly manage on <£1,000 p.m. normal expenses.

 

[AndrewB]

No, not us. We did just about live within that for the first year or so because we'd got the yacht completely up to speed before we left, needed no maintenance, and never used marinas. However, after a couple of years maintenance grew again, and often it helped to put into a marina to get things done. A yacht in continuous use does need much more maintenance than a weekender.

Long-term, our costs were about £1,600 per month (up to 2012), excluding the cost associated with leaving the yacht and going back home for a visit, which was by far our single biggest annual expenditure item.

 

[duncan99210]

Couldn't do it on that little, even taking out major bits for maintenance. Our spending is more like £2k per month.

 

[Colvic Watson]

Very interesting replies thank you. The reason for saying Med and WI is that we're only going to get one career break and I've always wanted to do an Atlantic crossing, this way I get two and we get two fantastic cruising grounds, one each year. It seems like it's going to be just possible but better to try to do it on £1,200. Trips home except for an emergency are a no no; close family will come to us - great advice on here about not letting them book return dates so we're not chasing a destination.

 

[michael_w]

Two years? Windies and the eastern seaboard of North America would be my choice. Your budget looks fine, provided there's a reserve for unforseen problems. Everything, apart from bread, and antifoul, is cheaper in the USA.

 

[Colvic Watson]

That's an idea.

 

[chuckr]

somewhere on this forum i put out our 5 years of cost cruising the east coast of the usa, western and eastern carib and crossing over and part of a year in the med -- as we own no dirt we take good care of the boat and do upgrades every year - along with a lot of maintenance -- we spend between 2500usd and 3500usd depending on upgrades and marina stays --

what you want to do but as folks have said things will break and crossing the pond with take a toll on your boat so be prepared to spend a bit on fixing it once in the carib -- then of course come june to nov you need to think about where you want to be for hurricane season -- or if you even care about it --

then of course you will have to sail back so again be prepared to spend some money in horta fixing what broke on the passage back --

can it be done - maybe but you need a kitty for boat repairs -

you can much easier get away with it in the med but then what are going to do in the winter -- think red sea if egypt calms down and who knows when that will happen but it is a thought - but again you want the pond crossing --

 

[KellysEye]

>I've always wanted to do an Atlantic crossing, this way I get two and we get two fantastic cruising grounds, one each year.

You get two crossings just going to the Caribbean. Bear in mind that hurricane season is November to June 1. So you set off over the Atlantic from the Canaries in December and say you take three weeks. Then you have to leave at latest mid May. That gives you a total of 23 weeks there until you leave, it's really not worth it. As I said before go to the Caribbean and stay the two years excluding passage time. You could always charter in the Med which we did although we did take our boat to Portugal Spain and Gib before going to the Canaries.

Also bear in mind you have to get to the Canaries and the best time to cross Biscay is June to August you could pop into the Med before going to the Canaries but I wouldn't go further than the Balearics, Rota in Spain (a proper Spanish village with no all day English Breakfast) and Gib are great places to stop but get the weather and tides right for GIB. Rota is a good jumping off point.