Cost per use

If you need to do the calculation you can't really afford the boat. If you can afford the boat, then you don't need the calculation.

After all what else are you going to spend the money on?

Broads and Booze? Oh hang on......
 
It is a matter of tweaking numbers to present what you desire. Any copy machine salesman can do it.

The cost per
use
mile
day
minute
year
outing
stay

etc.

makes no sense whatsoever. First of all it is a hobby (exception rule from bussiness cases), next it is life quality.

Simple question is: Is it worth it - to YOU?

To me it is.
Berth £650
Insurance £650 (incl. tax(!))
Maintenance, fuel and other stuff £1200

£2500 gets me a daily visit to the boat throughout the season. Chilliing out after work, meeting fellow boaters, having a good time. Take boat out regularly - say twice a week. Plus weekends now and then - and a two or three week holiday (which may add to fuel cost).

Worth the money? Definitely!

Do the check: Compare ££ to a three week charter holiday! And that would bring only 21 days of joy (probably).
 
Firefly625 said:
Ben, that is superb. It just goes to show that when you pick the right boat its quite possible to persuade yourself what brilliant value this boating lark really is :rolleyes:
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Acksherly - I rather think the trick to making boating good value is to use it! As you know, we operate a long season, Easter to end Oct, every weekend, plus about 4 weeks of holidays onboard.

Can't wait to get the new boat finished and running.
 
To apply a bit of man maths, no-one would think it excessive to watch footie once a fortnight would they? Arsenal season ticket is >£2,000. Add in travel and pies and you've got £4k for 20 games. So, again, £200 a go.
 
Boating/flying/driving fancy cars all have the same dynamic - you need to do it quite a lot in order to feel good about the numbers involved. Rather like joining a swanky gym and only going a couple of times a year, and you discover that each visit has cost £2,500, so it is with boating - the more you do it, the less it costs per hour, or per trip (whichever suits the 'man-maths better). In addition, most pieces of machinery hate to be left idle; the less work they do, the more that seems to go wrong.
 
thecommander said:
So my partner and I did a few calculations last night to find out how much our motorboat was actually costing per use.

For a 20ft 3 litre petrol motorboat, drystacked with 20 uses per year it was costing £200 everytime we stepped onboard. Needless to say we were shocked. If we've done this calculation three years ago, we would have never bought a boat. But we're hooked now :D

This cost was calculated by totaling up our drystack fees, annual fuel costs, insurance costs, annual maintenance costs, cost of transport to and from the boat divided by the annual visits/trips to the boat. Not 100% scientific as it doesn't account for depreciation on the boat nor food or drink costs onboard.

I would be interested to hear readers opinions. Obviously the more you visit your boat the cheaper the cost per use becomes.
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Why mention food and drink? I expect you would still eat and drink, even if you didn't have a boat. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I've seen it suggested that you should be prepared to spend 10% of the purchase price annually, so if you want to get your money's worth, use your boat more.
 
Right that's it!! had enough of this twaddle, if you have to count the cost then why suffer it?? Sell the bloody thing and subscribe to readers digest and get a bath chair.
 
Why is it we never take our elders advice.............


If it Flies Floats or .........
Fornicates..........

Rent It....
 
The way I look at it is,

Everybody needs a hobby & that costs money.
If your married that means you can duplicate the hobbies & costs what ever that may be as you both may have separate hobbies that cost, shooting,fishing,golf gym,horse's ect.

Most things you buy devalue.

We all earn money to spend on things we like what ever that maybe.

And lastly can I / we afford it ?

If so why worry & work every little cost out just enjoy it.
 
Over a least six months of the year we spend two nights of almost every weekend aboard , plus most of my annual leave so that's another 20 nights. I would say that makes it 65 to 70 nights a year.
On cost per night basis that makes keeping and running the boat look quite good value.
The downside is my garden has become a little over grown!
 
MartynG said:
Over a least six months of the year we spend two nights of almost every weekend aboard , plus most of my annual leave so that's another 20 nights. I would say that makes it 65 to 70 nights a year.
On cost per night basis that makes keeping and running the boat look quite good value.
The downside is my garden has become a little over grown!
Click to expand...

Gardener.
Job done:encouragement:
 
I once made the mistake of totting up what we spent upgrading our last boat (Fairline Targa 35) and was quite taken aback at what it came to. Okay so we sold at a good price but it reflected what we had done and came nowhere near recovering the cost, so not actually a good price!

The thing is it has been a family hobby that we love and I enjoyed getting the boat up to spec so the clear lesson was never, ever add it all up again! :)
 
Ah but the cost per use is handy. Some standing charges remain the same irrespective of how often you visit the boat so the more often you use the boat the more you will be reducing the cost per use. Man maths at it's finest!
 
All of the above posts seem to agree that if we get the use out of our boats it is easy to justify the costs associated. So how on earth do people who never use their boats or visit them justify the costs to themselves, and it's amazing how many boats are out there that still have the ongoing costs (moorings, insurance, etc) and yet never get used.
 
iledesprit said:
Or owning your own plane
Click to expand...

In all honesty that was cheap!

3 of us owned an Arrow for 10 years. The cost excluding fuel was about £3k each and it was sold at a profit.

Our S65 costs about £40k pa before it even thinks of moving and ignoring the depreciation. And sadly only one person pays the bills!

The flip side is i spend about 3 months a year on it and 3 months of family holidays would not come cheap either!
 
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