Expenses Tracking - Useful to You?

I’ve been having some fun scrolling on forums lately, focusing on the posts where people share their cruising-related expenses. What I’m not seeing yet is posts about what it costs to GET READY to cruise, on an existing boat that’s undergoing a massive overhaul and refit while simultaneously living in a house that we’re about to sell. A lot of the categories related to the boat will be the same once we take off but the cost will (hopefully) be far smaller.

Would you find that useful/interesting in any way? I was thinking of the following categories:

  • House (insurance, projects, expenses associated with listing/selling - we have no mortgage as the house is paid off)

  • House utilities (power, water, internet, propane)

  • Boat insurance

  • Boat registration/documentation

  • Boat projects (purchased items)

  • Time spent doing boat projects

  • Costs of dockage/hauling out/storage

  • Groceries

  • Eating out

  • subscriptions (Netflix etc)

  • Car expenses (gas, insurance, maintenance)

  • Medical (for us and the kids; for now, the cost of medical insurance is NOT in here as that’s part of the benefits package at J’s work)

  • Cell phone

  • Business expenses (domain names, LLC registration, storage)

  • Miscellaneous

Any other categories?

My version of this includes every single penny. For example, in November of 2019 we spent $411.19 on boat projects, which included such items as $65 for our storage unit by the water, $121.04 for sander bits and electronic parts for the Vesper AIS unit, and even $.85 to send paperwork off for the documentation. (Obviously this isn’t the whole shebang.) I write down things like $3.00 for screws and $5.00 to the guy on the internet for wind vane plans. There aren’t missing parts to the numbers.

Why would I do this? A few reasons.

I think it’s easy to underestimate the amount of money it takes to do things on a boat.

Once we set off, expenses will be categorized in the “cruising” mode.

Transparency. I’d really like to be a resource for others, and for people to see what they can do on a budget. If we manage to stick to $2000 a month once we set off, it’ll be because we have incurred all these costs done a lot of refitting and buying things ahead of time.

cost of cruising, cruising preparationNica Watersmoney matters, cruising budgetComment