Monthly Cruising Budget
Before buying our boat, we set a monthly spending goal of less than $3,000 a month / $100 a day.We’ve been tracking all of our expenses since purchasing the boat and share them in our Monthly Cruising Budget report each month.
We hope it to gives you some insight into what it costs to live, work and cruise aboard a sailboat.
Want to know exactly how much it costs to live aboard a sailboat?
We can tell you that! Want to know exactly how much it will cost you to live aboard a sailboat? Unfortunately the answer there is as unique as you are.
We can only provide you with our data points and, while we share a summarized version of our cruising budget on a monthly basis. Patrons get full access to line-item-level financial records, gaining insight into specific details and costs for every single transaction we make. From marina fees, to provisioning costs, repairs, upgrades, etc. Get the full picture of what living aboard costs us.
Patrons Get Full Access Below
Monthly Cruising Budget: July | Y2M1 – Hanging Out in the Great Lakes
July was a fun month. After the rush of getting up to the midwest to help move Lauren's family move house, we got a little time to relax and enjoy the best time of year in the midwest.
Monthly Cruising Budget: June | Month 12 – Summer Haul Out & Off-season Vanlife
Where as April and May were normal-ish, June was an absolutely wild ride: It completed our first full year living aboard the boat; we bought a van and named him Chip; we hauled the boat out of the water for hurricane season and drove north to help Lauren's parents move out of her childhood home, and attended our first electronic music festival.
Monthly Cruising Budget: May | Month 11 – Key West & A Business Trip
April and May were odd months if we were "normal" cruisers. But since we consider ourselves more 'slow travelers' who happen to live and work on a sailboat, it was just more of the same for us.
Monthly Cruising Budget: April | Month 10 – Fixing Things in Non-Exotic Places
While we made good progress south in the month of March, April took a bit of a strange turn when we realized that our raw water pump was leaking. It was a costly repair, and still without a reliable dinghy and motor we decided it would make much more logistical sense to be in a Marina.
Monthly Cruising Budget: March | Month 9 – Cruising the Panhandle
We left Mobile at the beginning of the month and officially began our saltwater cruising. We continued our spendthrift in March after having stocked up on food, and wrapping up all of our planned upgrades. It was good to be on the move and good on our pocketbooks as well.
Monthly Cruising Budget: February | Month 8 – Boat Projects Continue
After spending the equivalent of two months of our budget and then some in January, February's expenses were quite bit more tame. In fact since we had already purchased just about everything we needed to complete our projects we came in just under budget.
Monthly Cruising Budget: January | Month 7 – Major Boat Upgrades
This month's expenses were dominated by some major Upgrades we made to Soulianis. (You can see a detailed list of most of those on our Sailboat Upgrades page.) We returned to the boat from visiting our family and set straight to work - spending money :).
Monthly Cruising Budget: Month 6 – Re-Stepping Mast & Ski Trip
We wrapped up our River Trip at the beginning of the month and then re-stepped the mast and started prep for our big electrical project. We also flew home to visit family for the holidays and took a short ski trip over the holidays with some friends.
Monthly Cruising Budget: Month 5 – First Month on the River
This is the first full month on the river, and our first full month away from our home port. After putting last month's craziness behind us, we were delighted to see that we were much much closer to our long-term monthly cruising budget goal of $3,000 a month.
Monthly Cruising Budget: Month 4 – The Beginning of a Sailing Adventure
This was a bit of a crazy month. We completed the last of our must-have upgrades before heading for the river, we left our homeport, we had a big going away party/celebrated Lauren's birthday, and we had some big boat expenses - some of them unexpected.
How much does it cost to live aboard a sailboat?
This is the big question. Hopefully this data gives you some insight! Some months we spend a lot, some months are much less expensive. It depends on where we are and what we’re doing. If we have big upgrades we need to make, or we’re in an expensive place, we’ve definitely blown our budget. But we’re hoping over the long term we can stick to $3000 a month.
Keep in mind…
Every person’s experience will be unique. We’ve decided to make long-term travel a lifestyle instead of a long sabbatical. Therefore, we are continuing to work while we travel, and have certain expenses associated with that work. It forces us to do things we otherwise wouldn’t if we were traveling for pure pleasure, but also gives us flexibility in other ways, too. We’re careful to not spend frivolously, but we’re not trying to travel as cheaply as possible. You won’t catch us trying to prove how frugal we are. (;
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