Funding your habit

Neil_M

Neil_M

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 Oct 2002
Messages
301
Location
River Deben, Suffolk
home.btconnect.com
We ordinary mortals who failed to sell tech shares in December 99 or float TMT start ups for unfeasibly large sums don’t have large amounts of cash & time on our hands and consequently have to borrow to support those precious days snatched aboard our boats.

As one of many being squeezed between rising bills and stagnant/declining real income, I’m being forced to reassess the priorities and take a hard look at the costs of boat ownership, as I’m sure others must be.

What’s the preferred way to fund our habit, short of piracy, fraud, embezzlement & larceny?

Repayments & therefore affordability (not to mention partner justifiability) of that ideal yacht could vary hugely.

Do forumites look to repay all the capital over the ownership period, stretch it out as long as possible, add it to their main mortgage (as I do) or just pay interest only on the basis that depreciation may be low and the capital could be met out of any eventual sale proceeds?


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Buy a smaller boat and don't borrow unless you absolutely have to.

Problem with borrowing is that if things take a turn for the worse then the boat is going to be the first thing to go . . . wheras I prefer to think that if things take a turn for the worse I can always go sailing :-)

- Nick

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What about smuggling illegal immigrants accross the channel or a bit of drug running? Pays very well but I understand there could be some small risks involved! ;)

Ho Hum....

So is it just your running costs that are too high? There are always cheaper ways to run a boat........

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I paid for my boat cash. I had saved for a number of years. I wouldn't borrow to fund my hobby - even though sailng is what we do - every holday, every weekend.

Next boat will be the same. Dont laugh - but I have a With Profit endowment due to mature in 2007. It will either pay for the new one. Or it wont. If it doesn't I will still be as happy with Rebel.

Regards

Donald

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Mortgages for poor people? Too bloody right they are, which is why I have one for both house and boat.

I take the view that I would rather enjoy sailing and life in general with immediate effect, than wait until I can afford it and run out of time. Too many people, including my father, have looked forward to retirement to use their boat extensively, and then run out of time.

Life's too short to buy outright, for the middle income majority.

<hr width=100% size=1>Real stress is when you wake up in the night and realise you haven't been to sleep yet.
 
Paid cash for mine 20 years ago with an overseas contract payment & keep her on a swinging mooring as its cheaper than a marina or mud pontoon. Older grp boat meant lower initial cost and not much higher maintenance, osmosis notwithstanding. Now, I can both afford and justify £2k per year, so I guess I'm just lucky.
Two friends are in "do-it-yourself" sailing clubs (Southampton and Hillhead) and their costs are half mine or less. Time is money, they spend time on club duties while I pay the boatyard for haul outs, etc.

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Putting it on the mortgage works for me. My justification is that the money that used to be spent on holidays is now spent on extra mortgage, mooring fees and boat maintenance. So I'm no worse off, I'm accumulating capital in the mortgage, and I'm having more fun.

And if the worst comes to the worst? I downsize the house, upsize the yacht, pay off the mortgage, and go sailing.

Where's the downside?

Rich

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Buy a boat you can afford to buy without any loans/mortgages. Accept that you may not be able to buy and maintain your dream boat (in my case rebuild Ibex - Brixham sailing trawler!) and enjoy what you can without selling your soul!

Failing that I hear that there are high value "security" (read suicide) contracts in Iraq!.. but then you might not survive to sail whatever boat you had bought!

What I'm really saying is if have to kill yourself to buy your "dream" boat you probably wont enjoy it!



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Yes, I went through the same process a few months ago and decided that boat ownership is prohibitively expensive. I only have a 35ft race boat but with morgage, marina and insurance I have to find 8K a year so I have decided it's cheaper to charter in new warmer places without any of the worries.

It's nice owning your own boat because you can do what you like, when you like but the downside is the ever escalating bills, maintenance (wet and dring the hull in the winter winds and rain), the lobster pot explosion and associated risks and the every growing British disease of being sued whether it's your fault or not.

My cunning plan is to bale out for now, save some dosh for a couple of years then sell the house and business and emigrate and buy another yacht some-where warm and sunny.

Jeeze I hope it all works out!

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Hah! That doesnt work for me as SWMBO sees it as her God given duty to spend more on clothes and holidays than I do on the boat. Fortunately if I put the company logo in big enough writing on the kites I can call it advertising, but I havent sussed a way of putting all the other expenses through.

I doubt I will ever be able to sail with SWMBO aboard again, so I am looking to buy a smaller, cheaper boat to race, and maybe a RIB to take the family to beaches - that way I get my hobby, and they dont lose out too much. Holidays will be beside the sea, not on it which saddens me, but isnt the end of the world.

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Be nice to your elderly relatives. My boat is a family heirloom/ millstone.

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Re: Cash

If you borrow your a hostage to fortune.

If you need a bigger boat than you can afford look at sharing (shares the running costs too) or chartering (no running costs at all).

Boat ownership is a mugs game if you over extend. Sure you can insure your loan but thats pretty expensive. The idea that you can sell the boat if circumstances change is pie in the sky. Few yacht sales are concluded quickly and all of the time you own it it's draining your bank balance and taking time to maintain.

The other thing with me is that if I was paying £300 or more a month for a boat I'd want to use it all the time and I'd miss out on so many other things as a result.

A wiser man than me once said "possesions end up owning us"

An even wiser man once said "If it fly's floats or F**k's, rent don't buy.

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We chose an alternative theory with which to buy our boat, although we were extremely fortunate - and it was incredibly stressful as it all came down to a few hours whether we would have the money in time or not.

My partner bought a house whilst at University, which, when sold at it's current market value, produced enough profit to pay off some loans, and leave the money over with which to purchase the boat we had just found, and desperately wanted. We worked out a cunning plan whereby we loaned the money to ourselves, at a rate of interest neither crippling to our current income, nor meagre to what she could have earned on it by investing - in fact, it's far better than investing, because she gets a guaranteed, predictable gain, which when invested in a high-interest account, almost doubles her initial outlay.

Of course, this isn't an option for most people, but the time was right to sell the house (she didn't intend to stay in the North after Uni), and it gave us a year to watch the property market before buying together. If our luck holds, prices will fall a little in our chosen part of East Anglia in time for us to buy again, perhaps using the repaid money on the yacht as a deposit.

And if times are hard, we just have to argue with ourselves about the boat repayments. We could even live aboard, if things went horribly wrong.

Again, we were very fortunate to be in this position, but it was a novel and effective way for us!

/<

<hr width=100% size=1>"Stop mucking about, darling, and get the bloody mud weight over."
 
Re: Lending money to yourself

Ooh, i hadn't thought of that one. I think I will try it, except that i will convince myself to borrow a huge amount of money to buy an imense boat, but in return I will rip myself off with a very high interest rate and so generating a high enough return on the loan to run the boat. The only question would be the rate of interest - high enough for me not feel a complete git by charging it (fairly high) yet low enough for a mug like me to go for it (still quite high).

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Re: Lending money to yourself

You see, it's a brilliant solution? And best of all, you can decide not to pay yourself for a few months, send yourself round to see you (virtually costless), and break your own kneecaps with a Mag-Lite. You could even go so far as to take your own TV away, and keep it yourself.

It can't fail.

<hr width=100% size=1>"Stop mucking about, darling, and get the bloody mud weight over."
 
Re: Lending money to yourself

uh-oh, i'm going off the idea. I'd probably resist my own threats and it would get nasty. There's a good chance that I might beat myself up quite badly and end up in prison AND in hospital at the same time.

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Re: Lending money to yourself

Or you could end up bankrupt and fabulously rich at the same time, (a bit like Dame Shirley Porter). At that point you could give yourself a charitable donation and claim the tax back on it. The possibilities are endless.


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