This month’s budget recap is brought to you by… Michael! (Brittany usually writes it). Let me know if you think it’s entertaining/funny/awesome.
And to compliment it, I’ve made up this fancy chart breaking down our expenses by category. Cool, right? We really enjoyed our $1,500 month, and the key to that is setting a budget beforehand. So we made a new budget tracker in Excel and we set our budget at $3,284.14 (the odd number is because of some fixed expenses such as web hosting, most of the categories are just educated guesses).
Boat repair / misc – $1,289. The windlass (the electric motor that pulls up the anchor) was functioning, but we wanted to have it checked out. This is a critical piece of equipment that seems to get ignored until it breaks most of the time. We took the motor to an alternator shop and it only cost about $120 to have it looked over. The heat exchanger had a few leaks and needed to be rebuilt ($230). New hoses for the engine ($158). The mixing elbow for the exhaust had a leak and we had a new one made ($190). That, plus some spare anodes, fluids, filters and a few tools.
Dockage – $370. Because of the engine and windlass repairs, we didn’t feel comfortable at anchor. If we dragged or for some reason needed to move, we would be completely disabled. So we took a ridiculously expensive mooring in Fort Lauderdale. Seriously, never go to Las Olas Marina. Ever. Overpriced and run down. 8 nights at $40 a night. Also, unlike Vero Beach, there isn’t really anywhere convenient to land your dinghy for free. We had our choice of Las Olas marina who charges $20, or Southport Raw Bar who charges $10 (but will credit that to your food bill, if you eat there). Southport is where we went most of the time, $50.
Groceries, $1165.83. We went way over budget on groceries, namely because of a friend of ours who was in the Bahamas already warned us, buy everything you can in the States! So we did. This killed the budget for this month, but hopefully will repay us as we travel along. As we have found so far groceries seem to be about twice as expensive in the Bahamas.
Fuel – $286.11. With gas and diesel at over $4/gallon in the Bahamas, we topped up as much as we could in Florida. We filled the tank to full and all of our jerry cans as well.
Travel – $320.83. This category includes clearance into the Bahamas ($300) and a few Uber trips in Ft Lauderdale.
And of course there are those recurring expenses, web hosting (12.74). Phone which usually comes in around $80 with T-Mobile. We weren’t planning on buying a BTC phone card in the Bahamas, since our T-Mobile service claimed it would work here. Well it works, but is deathly slow so we bought a high speed data card from BTC for those times we just can’t wait. $49. However we’ve even found BTC’s service to be spotty.
Wow Mike, so interesting. The water looks incredibly beautiful.
Nice job on the Excel, and stocking up on groceries and fuel that save money later. Are you planning on getting out of the Caribbean before the hurricane season? Fair winds.
Thanks! Yes, I think that is what we will do, although people have done it, we don’t want to wait out hurricane season there.
Clearing in certainly cost more than would have thought.
Never would have thought of these as expenses. Entrance fees on water? Sigh.
What an adventure though.
Yes, many people would not have thought about that part of cruising! The waters surrounding each country also belong to that country, and its important for each country to know who is coming in and out (and what they are bringing on board with them, like pets or plants) whether by plane or boat.
Well done Michael. We were actually putting together our cruising budget last night (at least the first pass at it). God’s timing !
You won’t regret stocking up before you leave, or getting all the engine work done. But to put things in perspective about that marina fee, 40$ a night for a boat your size is not expensive in our neck of the woods. You’d expect to pay about twice that up here. That being said, I’d rather be at anchor at any price. Mike is laughing about how I’m stocking our boat, but I like to be prepared to be at anchor anywhere, anytime, for however long we want. Kudos to you!