Living aboard - monthly cost

[billyb]

From a previous posting I did a fag packet estimate of the monthly cost of living aboard, taking into account the following

 

mooring fees

licence

insurance

heating & cooking

diesel

repainting every 2 years

saving for maintenance

 

I came up with about 600 English pounds, not including food or beer (which would double that).

 

Is this way off the mark?

 

Does anyone have an idea of their annual costs?

[Keeping Up]

Sounds about right to me

[davidandheather]

From a previous posting I did a fag packet estimate of the monthly cost of living aboard, taking into account the following

 

mooring fees

licence

insurance

heating & cooking

diesel

repainting every 2 years

saving for maintenance

 

I came up with about 600 English pounds, not including food or beer (which would double that).

 

Is this way off the mark?

 

Does anyone have an idea of their annual costs?

Hi

Bet thats not far of the mark depending on your mooring costs

David

[SarahB]

I also save for BSS and blacking on a monthly basis. Depending on your boat you may need to include pump out costs.

 

Other than that I also have an emergency fund just so I have a nest egg there rather than fretting when I suddenly need to update/replace something which is different to my maintenance fund but then I am particularly "boring" when it comes to money these days. It also gives me some reassurance that I can survive for a few months should I lose my job.

 

Value wise I don't actually save that much per month but I guess it's down to having saved for emergencies, BSS etc over a longer period that I already have enough saved already plus the fact my moorings aren't hideously expensive.

 

S

[Gary Peacock]

STOP IT

you're spoiling it!

 

Living on a boat is supposed to be cheaper than living on land isn't it?

 

Boat building is having a bad enough time at the moment without you lot shattering the illusion!

[SarahB]

STOP IT

you're spoiling it!

 

Living on a boat is supposed to be cheaper than living on land isn't it?

 

Boat building is having a bad enough time at the moment without you lot shattering the illusion!

 

Heh. I can safely say I am much better off financially since I've been aboard but then I was lucky enough to sell my dry land abode almost two years ago so bought boat with cash. Hm that doesn't actually help boat builders does it? Sorry!

 

Anyway the financial benefits are insignificant to the lifestyle benefits (phew did I dig myself out of hole with that??)

 

S

[estwdjhn]

A lot depends on what you want. I don't spend anything like £600 a month. My major costs are:

mooring - £90

licence - £45

maintaince - £40

phone - £25

gas - £20

coal - £20

diesel - £20

washing - £10

I make that £270pcm rather less than than the OP suggests. These figures are for a single bloke, on a rather short, old narrowboat moored on a northern online mooring. Try and live with all mod cons on a 70' boat in the SE and you could probably burn a grand a month without trying. Of course, this leaves out the cost of finance for those with loans - there is little point in trying to include that as everyones circumstances are probably different in this respect.

[billyb]

A lot depends on what you want. I don't spend anything like £600 a month. My major costs are:

mooring - £90

licence - £45

maintaince - £40

phone - £25

gas - £20

coal - £20

diesel - £20

washing - £10

I make that £270pcm rather less than than the OP suggests. These figures are for a single bloke, on a rather short, old narrowboat moored on a northern online mooring. Try and live with all mod cons on a 70' boat in the SE and you could probably burn a grand a month without trying. Of course, this leaves out the cost of finance for those with loans - there is little point in trying to include that as everyones circumstances are probably different in this respect.

 

As I said, how long is a piece of string, but I suppose 600 comes between your 270 and the 1000 for the SE.

I'll work on 600 average then I won't get any nasty shocks.

[budgie348]

In 2 weeks Time we have been aboard for 1 year continuosly cruising, our boat is 66ft diesel central heating, duel fuel burner. we did have a marina mooring but gave it up to cruise. our costs for this 1st year are below.

 

Boat Licence £682.68

Diesel for cruising and heating £883.75 712 engine hours

Coal (40 Bags) £290.20

Pump Outs £153.00

Oil and Filter changes £147

Gas £85.37

Petrol for Genny and Chainsaw £49.23

River Canal Rescue £160

Boat Safety Certificate £139

Blacking (Comastic) £627

Boat and Contents Insurance £518.50

 

Weve cruised The Oxford (North and South), The GU, The Stratford and Avon, The Coventry, The Leicester arm of the GU, River Soar (here now), Trent and Mersey, Llangollen, Shropshire, Staffs and Worcs.

 

That equates to £324.85 a month based on 11.5 months, I think that is bloody good value.

[Keeping Up]

When people quote a cost after a year or two, they often omit the maintenance cost of replacing larger items that have a longer but limited life. For example, it is not uncommon for a set of batteries to need replacing after 3 years; at a cost of maybe £360, that's £10 per month. Add in the replacement costs for a lot of other items (fridge, water pump, boiler, and so on) and you can easily fnd that your first year costs are only a half of the long-term average cost.

[Lady Muck]

When people quote a cost after a year or two, they often omit the maintenance cost of replacing larger items that have a longer but limited life. For example, it is not uncommon for a set of batteries to need replacing after 3 years; at a cost of maybe £360, that's £10 per month. Add in the replacement costs for a lot of other items (fridge, water pump, boiler, and so on) and you can easily fnd that your first year costs are only a half of the long-term average cost.

 

I call it the 'Oh b*gger! budget', as in, 'Oh b*gger the <insert name of large expensive item here> has broken'.

 

Always seems to happen in winter. This winter it's our gas changeover, which isn't so expensive, last winter it was a couple of batteries. I reckon £500 p.a. in the 'Oh B*gger' fund will do it.

[Chickadee]

I call it the 'Oh b*gger! budget', as in, 'Oh b*gger the <insert name of large expensive item here> has broken'.

 

Always seems to happen in winter. This winter it's our gas changeover, which isn't so expensive, last winter it was a couple of batteries. I reckon £500 p.a. in the 'Oh B*gger' fund will do it.

 

I need to get me one of these. I'm so rubbish at saving but the longer we are on the boat the more I realise how important savings are to fall back on. Just never seems to be any money left at the end of the month for this.

[bottle]

Hi

 

The running cost of our house is £260 per month, but I suspect that is rare.

[Naughty Cal]

At this moment in time our boat is costing us more per month than our house.

 

Our mortgage on our house is £500pcm.

Our loan on the boat is costing us £550pcm (over a much shorter period though)

 

Factor in mooring costs and fees and savings for any breakages/problems the boat costs us another £350pcm.

 

So its about £900pcm for the boat and with bills etc. about £750pcm for the house.

 

Cant wait til the boats paid off in 7 years!

[estwdjhn]

Phylis, what exactly did your boat cost, or is your broker taking you for a ride?

 

550pcm x 12 x 7 = £46K. You could have got a "bottom of the range" new narrowboat for that, or a very decent second hand boat. Insead of which, you have a boat that in 7 years time will probably be worth about £1000, and which will probably end up section 8 and crushed in another 5 years.

 

Also your mooring fees - your boat is shorter than mine, yet its costing you £260 a month more to have it tied up somewhere. My loan repayments are less than the difference.

 

Put bluntly, you are being ripped off bigtime.

 

However, if you like that sort of thing, its your choice I suppose.

Edited January 15, 2009 by estwdjhn

[Daftmare]

We have had our boat for three years now and have kept a note of every single thing we have spent on her.

 

This equates to roughly £420 per month. It has been slipped and blacked twice in this time.

We don't live aboard, so the gas and coal costs are small, I suppose. We also have an "Oh B*gger" fund on top of this.

 

The house definitely costs more to run at the moment. Can't wait to make the change!

 

J.

[MikeV]

Hi

 

The running cost of our house is £260 per month, but I suspect that is rare.

That's about the same as us. I make it about £280 including energy, water, sewage, insurance, phone, cable TV, internet, and rates - but no mortgage. . I'm not including any costs for essential maintenance but as a fairly modern house it should be fairly low. The gas boiler is probably nearing the end of it's life, so I expect to have to replace it soon. However, if you amortised its replacement over say 10 years, that's only ~£20/month. But then again if the Webasto on the boat had to be replaced I don't suppose the installed cost of a replacement would be that much less.

 

I make the cost of the boat about £273 per month based on use for extended cruising (not livaboard) but that does not include major items that will need replacing/renewing longer term such as the engine, cratch cover and a complete repaint - perhaps every 10 years. The boat is 10 years old this year and both the paint and cratch cover need doing!

 

There's no doubt about it, if it came to the crunch the house would have to go!! Not sure SMBO would agree though!!

[Naughty Cal]

Phylis, what exactly did your boat cost, or is your broker taking you for a ride?

 

550pcm x 12 x 7 = £46K. You could have got a "bottom of the range" new narrowboat for that, or a very decent second hand boat. Insead of which, you have a boat that in 7 years time will probably be worth about £1000, and which will probably end up section 8 and crushed in another 5 years.

 

Also your mooring fees - your boat is shorter than mine, yet its costing you £260 a month more to have it tied up somewhere. My loan repayments are less than the difference.

 

Put bluntly, you are being ripped off bigtime.

 

However, if you like that sort of thing, its your choice I suppose.

 

We paid £38k for Cal which was a reduction on the asking price. Similar boats are still going for more than 38k.

 

Sealines hold their value very well and are a highly regarded manufacturer. Early 90's S24's (the model ours has replaced) still fetch 30k so i have every confidence that in 7 years time our boat will be worth more than the 1k you predict. Cal is always going to be worth more than the model she has replaced.

 

Our mooring is £950 for the year so £80pcm on top of this there is insurances, licience, running costs, diesel, savings for the unknowns.

 

We are not getting ripped off, these are our running costs on our boat.

Edited January 15, 2009 by Phylis

[bottle]

That's about the same as us. I make it about £280 including energy, water, sewage, insurance, phone, cable TV, internet, and rates - but no mortgage. . I'm not including any costs for essential maintenance but as a fairly modern house it should be fairly low. The gas boiler is probably nearing the end of it's life, so I expect to have to replace it soon. However, if you amortised its replacement over say 10 years, that's only ~£20/month. But then again if the Webasto on the boat had to be replaced I don't suppose the installed cost of a replacement would be that much less.

 

I make the cost of the boat about £273 per month based on use for extended cruising (not livaboard) but that does not include major items that will need replacing/renewing longer term such as the engine, cratch cover and a complete repaint - perhaps every 10 years. The boat is 10 years old this year and both the paint and cratch cover need doing!

 

There's no doubt about it, if it came to the crunch the house would have to go!! Not sure SMBO would agree though!!

 

Ah! That is where the difference occurs, do not have cable TV and Broadband internet is free.

[Lady Muck]

Well - I know that im getting ripped off for my marina in London! Dread to think how much its going to be this year!

[NB Alnwick]

Jane and I did a very thorough analysis of our first year aboard, then continuously cruising, and we were seriously shocked by the results (which we published here) but since then we have learned to be rather more frugal. Nevertheless, you can be sure that however you approach boating, it will cost more than you expect!

[Lady Muck]

I started writing a spreadsheet three months ago (in order to better estimate costs) Yes I got a shock as well!

 

Ours costs this month were about (for two persons and a dog, in a marina - cruising only in summer)

mooring £250

mortgage £350

life insurance £35

license £65

food/dog food £200

blackberry, normal mobile and two dongles £125 (we're contractors and we need these for work)

insurance £30

coal £95

new gas changeover and associated gubbins £50

gas £20

electricity £20

laundry £15 (because my washing machine froze!)

 

Things to not forget to budget for:

public transport, visits to the pub, clothing, homewares, loo chemical, pump outs, magazines and books, internet/website subscriptions, music/downloads, toiletries, launderettes, public transport/taxis bicycle maintenance, pet insurance injections etc.

 

We can just about manage on £20k a year after tax for the three of us!

Edited January 15, 2009 by Lady Muck

[billyb]

I started writing a spreadsheet three months ago (in order to better estimate costs) Yes I got a shock as well!

 

Ours costs this month were about (for two persons and a dog, in a marina - cruising only in summer)

mooring £250

mortgage £350

life insurance £35

license £65

food/dog food £200

blackberry, normal mobile and two dongles £125 (we're contractors and we need these for work)

insurance £30

coal £95

new gas changeover and associated gubbins £50

gas £20

electricity £20

laundry £15 (because my washing machine froze!)

 

Things to not forget to budget for:

public transport, visits to the pub, clothing, homewares, loo chemical, pump outs, magazines and books, internet/website subscriptions, music/downloads, toiletries, launderettes, public transport/taxis bicycle maintenance, pet insurance injections etc.

 

We can just about manage on £20k a year after tax for the three of us!

 

I think I've given up. Anyone got a VW camper van?

[bibliotechno]

I think I've given up. Anyone got a VW camper van?

 

fine billyb if you're happy with the cruising too breakdown ratio of 1:1......I've a couple of friends who love their bus's dearly but have found very deep pockets useful!

[billyb]

fine billyb if you're happy with the cruising too breakdown ratio of 1:1......I've a couple of friends who love their bus's dearly but have found very deep pockets useful!

 

Tent?