April by the numbers.

I have a cruising friend who also tallies his monthly spending to the penny.  We have joked on occasion about the number of cruisers who claim they spend $1,000/month or some other low number (a few even claim $500/month) but almost without exception they arrive at those numbers by “not counting” things.  Maybe they don’t count travel expenses back home, or the loan payment on their boat, or the radar they decided to buy.  Whatever they leave out, it’s not particularly helpful for those trying to figure out how much they might spend every month cruising full-time, which is why he and I both started counting and posting the numbers.

So this month we spent $1,695.96 – if you don’t count the water maker that we bought.  And believe me, there are people out there who wouldn’t count it.  But the fact is the money was spent.  So in reality this month we spent $8,060.83.  Ooof.  But as unpleasant as the amount may be, that’s how much we spent while cruising in April.

The good news is that this is the last upgrade for the boat – truly.  The only other possible thing we could ever even remotely desire is radar, and we are very unlikely to get that, so there you have it.  Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, we shouldn’t come close to a monthly number like this again until we swallow the anchor some day.  From now on, boat costs will consist primarily of maintenance, repair, or replace.  Looking at our available funds (and with no real desire to go back to work), I can say without hesitation that’s a very good thing.

Here we go:

April saw us spending the entire month on a mooring in Vero Beach, but we’re moving on in May so there will actually be something to report in the travel statistics next time!

Days under way: 0

Nautical miles covered: 0

Nights on a mooring: 30

Expenses:

Groceries/Non-food Groceries/Alcohol: $622.12

Denatured alcohol: $7.06 (we had some West Marine rewards certificates that offset the cost this time)

Medical: $14.34

Cell data, iCloud storage, and Garmin inReach subscription: $68.98.  This was lower because we received our $50 deposit back from MyIslandWifi when we we returned the hotspot upon arriving in Florida.

Marina: $434.10 (Vero Beach mooring for four weeks)

Laundry: $7.50

Restaurants/Entertainment: $28.53

Annual state registration for boat and dinghy: $145.00

Quarterly life insurance payment: $220.75

Subscriptions: $49.12 (Netflix, Prime, New York Times)

Miscellaneous boat stuff:  $98.46 (replacement USB charger, replacement portable inverter for laptop, Nature’s Head supplies)

Rainman Watermaker, spare filters, and shipping: $6,364.87

Total: $8,060.83

2020 Monthly average: $3,383.77

2019 monthly average: $3,457.97

2018 monthly average (September – December): $4,465.95

Monthly average since starting to cruise: $3,644.73