Cost to Cruise, November 2017

Boilerplate disclaimer: this is not what it will cost you to go cruising.

Free public art: topiary in San Cristobal de las Casas
Free public art: topiary in San Cristobal de las Casas

People’s constant advice, discussing cruising finances, always seems to be: It’ll cost what you have. We did not find this helpful in our planning, however true it may be. What we’re trying to show is the cost to us, more or less, for one month to go cruising. We’re going for monthly expenses, because they’re easier for us to track; so you won’t see the boat insurance amortized, you’ll just see that expense when we pay it. It won’t be what you’ll spend, but it was the kind of information that helped us out when we were trying to wrap our heads around that magical number for our cruising kitty.

Well, thank goodness we managed to keep it under $4600! Obviously, this is a big jump up from what we’ve been spending, but nothing here is a surprise to us. The trip to language school has been in our plan for a long time, and the money associated with the engine repair is being spent after pretty careful consideration. Not that we love to see this kind of outlay, but we’re ok with it.

Numbers for November:

Marinas: $0
Grocery: $453.84
Restaurant: $397.38
Supplies: $366.21
Booze: $37.99
Laundry: $49.44
Communications: $144.45
Education: $788.13
Hotel: $108.54
Ice Cream: $49.17
Transportation: $401.69
Bank fees: $20.75
Boat Parts: $910
Boat Work: $434.69
Boat Insurance: $232.90
Customs/Immigration: $204.50
Grand Total: $4599.68

Oh, so much to say about these numbers.

  • The bill for the marina at Chiapas is still outstanding, and now officially runs past the one-month mark. That’ll be an exciting part of the December budget.
  • We ate at restaurants 17 times, and still came in under $400! Sweet!
  • We’d like to knock back our sat phone data plan to $50/month, turning it into an emergency service instead of a weather info source. Cell service has been pretty good for us, and it’d be cheaper for us to just buy data. The problem is that we’re still very paranoid about crossing the Tahuantepec, and we want to keep up the killer weather service until we’re across—so that big $125 to Iridium is going to keep appearing for at least another month.
  • Ice cream available at the tienda at the end of the dock. Why do you ask?
  • “Education” here includes the fees for the family stay in Guatemala, as it was paid through the school.
  • I know the transportation costs seem high, but that includes a huge number of cab rides, plus the trip to Guatemala and busses to San Cristobal and Palenque.
  • Mexico requires liability specific liability insurance for traveling yachts; that amount should cover us for our stay.
  • Finally, a word about the immigration fees. We should have only paid about $100 to reenter Mexico, following out trip to Guatemala. Instead, we found that when we got to the boarder, we had been improperly cleared from Puerto Quetzal, and Guatemala felt we had never left. Despite the huge amount of money we paid for our tropical storm avoidance plan, our agent skipped a step, and we had to put down another $100 in fines to properly clear the country.

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