What is a realistic budget

[Carling]

My wife and I are working towards selling up to sail in two years. Our immediate plans are to spend 2/3 years in the Med and then off on BWR or similar, on a 41 foot boat (1989). Has anybody any ideas on budgeting.

I know its a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but the opinion of others can only help.

Thanks

 

[jeremyshaw]

A much rehearsed topic I fear.
Try
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php?C...rue#Post1463250
for starters.

It's a bit like "How much does it cost to live in XXX?". So much depends on your expectations, standards, how good a state of repair you like to keep the boat and whether you are happy to live on cabbage soup. I have liveboard friends who manage on USD30,000pa and have a lovely time. I fear we like our creature comforts too much to ever achieve that.

A good rule of thumb is to carefully work our your maintenance and living costs. Then double it because you are being optimistic. Then add 50% for things you forgot. Then add 50% for things that go wrong.

 

[Carling]

Thanks, v. helpful link. Just reading about bumfuzzle

 

[scarlett]

We, a couple on a 30 footer, budget for 30 Euros a day for everything but not including storing the boat for the winter and insurance at about 1600 Euros per year. This budget has worked in Greece , Italy, France and now on the canals.

We record daily spending and if we go under for the week we go out for a meal. Boat maintainance is mininimal at the moment because the boat is 8 seasons old, copper coated, and we have looked after it. I would say about 300 Euros included in the daily spend. The daily spend also includes taxis, travel, scooter hire and entertainment but not the flights on ungreen easyJet at a total of 150 Euros this year.

With a boat of your size I would recommend investment in a very reliaible anchor system and a dinghy with oars to give you exercise and reduce your need to use a marina.

 

[webcraft]

We've just been away for a year and spent abpout £12000, i.e. a thousand pounds a month.

What helped:

- Boat has new sails and engine and an extensive refit before leaving, so maintenance/repair costs have been minimal

- Boat is only 27ft so berthing costs have been small

What didn't help:

- Spending most of the time in marinas (due to lack of anchorages in Canaries/Maderia/Azores)

- Eating out too often - although it is very cheap compared to home

- Car hire - at least one day per island (but again cheaper than home)

Apart from the above, major expenses are if you need/want to fly home - this makes a huge difference.

Your boat is much bigger, so marina charges will be a lot higher and any repair/maintenance costs will be more expensive. Also of course it depends which areas you are crusing. If there are lots of good anchorages then you will save a lot of money on berthing charges. The advice to invest in good ground tackle is sound.

Another thing to sort out is communications . . . get a wifi enabled laptop and use Skype to make all your phone calls back home, and use a local SIM card in your mobile for local calls when abroad. This will save a bit.

Hope this helps,

Nick

 

[mandlmaunder]

Yeah...a very discussable subject, budgets!

Would agree muchly with the advice "stay out of marinas" (we found good anchorages in the Canaries, too), but also the weather needs to be taken into account - we did not plan to go into marinas on our way down the French coast (2003), but the weather was so atrocious that we found ourselves running from one to the next in between storms just to get on our way south.

One of those 'unforeseeables'......

 

[pyrojames]

I spent about 25,000 Aus dollars for 18 months sailing from Oz to the UK with 2 POB. That was with next to no marina usage, but stern to in Med harbours or anchoring. Boat was 34 foot timber, so maintenance was not insignificant. Biggest single cost was probably charts.

 

[richardwatson]

In the med you could be spending as much time motoring as sailing and as the weather is so changeable you may well find yourselves diving into marinas more often than you would like, and there are some very expensive spots in the western Med. The advice to work everything out then double it is not far off the mark. Getting spares out is always more expensive than you might imagine and dont always count on getting cheap labour

 

[charles_reed]

Western Med has few anchorages, marina costs are fairly high and availability low, especially in season.

There's little wind during the months of July/August, so motoring is the norm. Everywhere is crowded, it's hot and expensive and, IMHO, best avoided.

On the other hand food prices (if you shop in markets and avoid supermarkets) are <60% of UK, quality of many vegetables and fish higher.
I manage to live on £350 month by myself, go into marinas about once a month. With my wife visiting this doubles, mainly because I have to tie up in marinas more often and act the tourist.

You need to include a fairly large figure for boat maintenance, variable dependent on how new/refitted the boat is - I allow about £5000 a year - you'll need about double that if your boat is a similar age (17 years old). That includes overwintering costs and storage for the 2 summer months when I come home.
Travel costs are not included, I make 2 trips annually but my wife doubles that. That cost depends on where you fly to and if you use cut-price airlines - the secret for keeping costs down is to plan ahead and book about 13 weeks ahead of the trip.

UK costs are consistently higher than local Med; but that difference is eroded by the level of Brit infection in any area.

David Teall has some very well detailed costs, and his boat "Retreat from Battle II" (guess who's an Ian M Banks fan) is a similar size to the one you propose.

In the final analysis costs all depend on your life-style.

 

[mocruising]

We manage on about £1500 a month for six months of the year that includes all communication charges, food, eating out three or four times a week with wine, car hire, annual boat insurance annual health insurance, marina charges but we generally anchor when we can (Perhaps Marinas once a week) and routine maintenance but no capital expenditure or depreciation on the boat.

 

[chrisarcher]

Some sound advice, as usuall, here already. As previously stated, it really does depend on what sort of lifestyle you are hoping to acheive. As Charles has said, most of the Western Med can be expensive, especially during the summer. Like others, I am sure you will settle into a routine that helps to keep costs down, and as you gain more local knowledge you will find out how to cut costs further, but the budgeting advice of doubling your original figure does sound about right!! (however un-savoury it might sound at first!)

Don't let anything put you off though, there are ways and means of getting around on the most frugal of budgets!! Having the right mind set is more important the having wads of money in my opinion!!

Whatever and however you choose to get afloat, do it as soon as you can, you will only wish you did sooner!!

Chris & Elaine

 

[AnnapolisStar]

We have been cruising for two years along the east coast of the US and in the Bahamas and spend roughly $4000 per month. Tihis includes maintanence on our 20 year old boat that we maintain in Bristol condition. We completely avoid marians and anchor every night. We have been spending more than we should on food and beer but we enjoy it that way

 

[Oliveoyl]

Re: Avoiding marians

Your typo had me in stitches - we have a daughter in law of that name, and she's so earnest about the environment, she can get quite depressing

 

[purplerobbie]

Marinas have classes of size upto 10 meters 10 to 12 and so on. Some have upto 12 meters. You would be paying the same for a 26 footer and a 40 footer.
I didnt really see the point in having a boat less than 10 meters only that you can get away with lighter gear (read cheaper)
This is in my very limited opinion

Rob

 

[Amari]

Turkish marinas charge on a formula based on boat length and beam. Alcohol and diesel cost as much or more than UK.
Gear, spares and gizmos usually much more than UK

 

[charles_reed]

An interesting point

but not borne out in my experience - except in Budva, where all boats were charged as though they were 12m as this was the smallest boat for which they catered. They did have 3m increments above that to 24m.

Not only do most Med marinas have 1m increments, the costs for >12m boats frequently has a disproportionate increment, over <11m boats.

Interestingly a 41' boat is just under 12.5m.

 

[Onyva]

We have just returned from 2 years with the BWR and would be happy to provide you with feedback if you are interested as we conducted a "customer care survey" half way round. In terms of budgets, we managed to get round on UKP40K for the two years including insurance at 7.5K and repairs etc of around 5-6K. Out of the 35 or so boats on the rally I would say we were well in the bottom quartile and it was pretty tight.
As for the Med, our advice would be to stay East of Serifos. Too expensive in the West and too many charter boats with incompetant skippers in W Greece. Bon voyage!

 

[captainslarty]

We manage very well on 800 euros a month, 34 foot boat, 2 adults, 1 cat, no worries, we dont eat out, we eat extremely well on board, do all our own maintnance.
You live on what you can afford, we live extremely well. We dont have a house to upkeep, we just own the boat, nothing else.

Joe n Jayne
Yacht Ruddles