Back again with “Ask Amy,” we’ll be devoting this entire post to the topic of the cruising budget. We get this question a lot and it’s been on my list to tackle. Since someone just asked, I’ll get down to it.

In short, how much does it take to come out cruising?

The Real Answer

The true but not very helpful answer is you’ll spend whatever you have. If you can take $100K/year or more out of your retirement fund, I’m sure you’ll find a way to use it. If, like someone we knew, you were a police officer involved in convicting Canadian mobsters (don’t Canadians seem too effing nice to have mobsters?), you’ll live on whatever you have until the heat dies down. Beans and rice beat being gunned down any day.

Honestly, how much you need probably has more to do with the lifestyle you’re living this minute than it does with anything I will say here. If you like things full-service, eat out a lot, and own a big, fancy house, you’ll probably want to hire people to do the icky boat jobs. You’ll also still eat out a lot and purchase a new, spacious boat with lot of amenities all of which require constant care and feeding. And I’ll bet you’ll stay in marinas.

Yes, sometimes transformation does happen and people scale down significantly to leave their crappy jobs and suburban hell before they commit suicide, but from what I’ve seen, there’s usually a limit to how much different a person you (or at least your spouse and/or children) will become just to come cruising. Know thyself, Paduan.

Just Give Me a Number Already

Financial philosophy aside, I recognize that the people asking this question really want to know—either from prurient interest or as a starting place for their own budgeting—what does Dream Catcher spend? Or the more aggressive version, which we’re getting less often now that we’re graying: how the heck did you start cruising so young?

Here it is boys and girls, the answer you’ve been waiting for: We spend ‘round about $30K/year, give or take. And I’m most comfortable if we can give or take by $5K or more, depending on where we are, what’s breaking on the boat, and many other factors.

That being said, we’ve been all over the map. I fondly remember when we had the Wall of Shame Budget Tracker (white board), where we listed every penny spent. There were times we went a month on $700. We felt cool when we did that—until it sucked.

Over the years, things have tended to balance out. For example, we were spending-light in November and December when we were moving the boat and kept getting pinned down in the middle of nowhere by weather. Then we went a little crazy through the holidays and into January. Similarly, it’s hard to spend much in the Ragged Islands, but whenever we return to G’Town or the U.S. after being out of touch for a while, there are 101 things we’ve been “making do” with to be repaired (with new parts) or replaced. Then I start to cringe when I look at the bank account.

The Nitty Gritty

As you can probably tell, we’re not exactly anal retentive here at Dream Catcher. The Wall of Shame Tracker lost our interest years ago, and I never do a real budget or end-of-year analysis. Mostly, we budget by feel—when we start to feel poor, we stop spending so darn much.

Without being able to provide a category-by-category run-down, here’s some detail that may or may not be helpful. Right now, we’re averaging $400 to $500 out of pocket, cash, per week. It’s been higher and lower, but that’s what it’s been lately for groceries, liquor, fuel, going out, etc. On top of that, we have expenses that mostly go on the AmEx: stuff we order from Amazon, website hosting fees, health insurance, and things that crop up intermittently, like flights to the States, pulling the boat, and what-not

So that gets us to my estimates—say, low to mid $20Ks for day-to-day (with wide fluctuation) plus $5K+ in “other” to be safe. Or thereabouts.

If you’re trying to apply these numbers to your own life, following is some information on how Dream Catcher operates, so you can see if your preferences are likely to put you higher or lower. In no particular order:

· We’re homeless, but we own it. We don’t have a boat mortgage, which would otherwise add quite a bit. We also have no residence to worry about. Just us, the boat, and the weasels.

· This is a permanent lifestyle choice. For a year or two, Bozo and I could camp on a 22-foot boat with a porta-potty and a one-burner stove. But to make it more than a decade and counting, we need certain comforts, whether that’s a separate shower stall or a new dress (for Bozo, of course). If you are only going out for a couple years, or only a few months per year, maybe you can get by on less.

· We came to it young. We have minimums for comfort, but having started doing this in our 20s, our standards may be lower than others who spent more of their lifetimes in a normal house. You know, the kind with flushing toilets.

· These are year-round numbers. I haven’t fudged based on stocking up and refitting in the U.S. and then spending very little for the time period we’re actively cruising. I’ve given you the full Monty. The year Monty (or Bozo) needs a knee replacement or Dream Catcher needs new rigging, things are going to get more expensive (or we’ll go out less).

· Our health costs aren't outrageous. Speaking of knee replacements, we have always carried U.S. health insurance, but we don’t require any steady medications or other pricey healthcare (yet).

· We live on the hook, always. Or we tie up to Dad’s dock. With rare exception (Vero Beach, St. Augustine, and other places that are better with moorings), we don’t pay to stay. If you want marinas, add those on top. For a rough estimate, think $2 x length of boat x # nights you expect to stay. Also add for all the other stuff you’ll do there, like buy a bag of ice and meander to the on-site restaurant for dinner, because you know you will.

· Our boat is relatively small and very light. We don't have anywhere to put stuff, so we can’t buy stuff. And Bozo gets grouchy if we’re not inches above the factory waterline.

· We aren’t lavishly outfitted... Despite a generous offer of a water maker, we still don’t want to deal with one (a topic for later). We don't have an inverter anymore because they kept blowing up and it seemed crazy to pay another $1K to $3K for something I use only to grind coffee, a task the Honda generator can also handle. More or less equipment means more or less spending on maintaining that equipment in a saltwater environment. Your math may vary.

· ..But we’re not roughing it. We do have central vac, a small but adequate fridge, a separate freezer (ice for cocktails!), a queen berth, a nicely sized galley, and the aforementioned separate shower stall. This makes being homebodies comfortable.

· We’re energy friendly. Two outboards don’t give us squat in recharging, so we’ve always had solar and wind power and have right-sized our refrigeration and other power-eaters accordingly. A Honda 2000 is there when Bozo sews, when we need an AC tool for a few minutes, or when we get down on power, but she sips fuel. And we’re looking at adding more efficient solar (it’s come a long way in 10+ years) to further reduce our reliance. If you want a big engine-driven refrigeration system to store a whole cow or if you expect air conditioning, add some bucks.

· Bozo is handy. He sews canvas, fixes engines, makes things in woodshops when available, brings electronics back from the dead, and even repairs my high heels (he might not be thrilled I shared that). Glad I married well! But yeah, if you have fewer skills, add some money to pay others and buy replacement stuff more often.

· We sail and we sit a lot. We really hate motoring with two 9.9 outboards, so we're willing to wait for the winds to come around whenever possible. And recently, other interests—not so much tourism by boat—have led us to dig in where we are. That means less fuel and less wear and tear than when we’re making miles. For comparison, some friends on small to mid-sized trawlers who do the U.S.-to-Bahamas annually budget $3K to $5K annually just for fuel. And when their engine breaks, it’s BIG parts.

· We work sometimes. I do freelance, which means there are associated costs but also the freedom of knowing we have money coming in. Bozo will pick up contracts when we need it, and we might get wild when the check clears.

· We have a good-sized, well powered dinghy. In G’Town we are babysitters of a 12-foot skiff, and Thomas patched together a 30 hp for it. We refill 8 gallons of fuel about every other week. Outside G’Town, we use a 15 hp. Those content with rowing or sailing dinghies, go for it…but you know you’ll be hitching a ride with us.

· We eat well…but at home. I’m almost embarrassed to say, but I bet almost $200/week goes to groceries. But you know what? Dinner is an event. Some people make it on canned goods, but I'm a fresh veggie fanatic and Thomas likes a decent steak once in a while. That being said, we don’t do much pre-fab food, which is expensive. Bozo needs the occasional cheesy-poof to fuel his Cartman impressions, but mostly we cook from scratch…and I mean everything: bread, salad dressings, pasta, soft pretzels, sauces, etc.

· We drink out... We go out a couple times per week, and somehow it always costs about $50. If you’re a teetotaler, you may be among the people who play poker all night at St. Francis for $4 in sodas.

· …But we rarely eat out. While I like fried seafood and peas and rice as much as the next person, there’s only so much I can take. And the “upscale” places here want $30+ for an entrée without giving the quality or culinary inspiration I want at that price point. We do better at home. If you don’t like to cook, add in more money for eating out.

· We are inherently cheap….Thomas will not buy the pre-made West Marine solution to anything. I like thrift shops because I hate paying more than $2 for a T-shirt that will disintegrate in this environment. We buy used: my kick-ass kayak set me back $200 and we once bought a dinghy outboard at a crack house (accidentally) for 300 bucks.

· …But we’re not THAT cheap! We’re not into deprivation, either. We have computers and tablets and smartphones and data plans for them. We just added a manual meat grinder to our galley tools because it sounded like a fun idea. We will happily buy fish from the locals and give a few bucks to whatever charity currently has the donation can out. So when at the Regatta softball game a group of women freaked out that the Family Island Fundraiser decided to increase the price of a soda from $1 to $2 per can (because otherwise no funds were being raised), we didn’t join the outraged frenzy. Bozo and I were buying the $4 beers and $5 rum drinks—but hey, it was for a good cause!

In running this by Bozo, I asked where he thought we fell in the spectrum of cruiser spending, and we agreed “in the middle.” We have nothing to base that on except that sometimes (when we’re not freaking about $1 price increase on a soda), we feel like big spenders. And others (when some guy on a $750K trawler shows us the $5K in new fishing gear he bought over the summer, on top of the $5K he’s invested every year since we’ve known him), we feel like hillbillies.

The fact is, you can probably hit $20K by living much like us, except with more time outside civilization (away from bars) and/or in cheaper destinations than the Bahamas. At the same time, it would be easy to exceed $50K with some marina stays, more equipment that breaks down, and periodic meals out.

Rather than try to figure it all out, the right answer is probably to cobble together a boat and a cruising kitty and get out here. Once the old life fades in the rearview, you’ll do whatever it takes to avoid going back—including living within your means, whatever those may be. But then that’s what I was trying to say in the beginning, before we brought out the calculators…