Cost to Cruise, September 2017

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

One of the smaller pleasures of Manuel Antonio National Park
One of the smaller pleasures of Manuel Antonio National Park

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.

Not so bad, all things considered. The important thing to keep in mind with these numbers is, they are pretty arbitrary for the whole stretch when we had family visiting. Generally, we paid for transportation, but it was for six people; generally, Michu’s mom paid for restaurants, although sometimes it was us, and sometimes it was Susannah. If we’d had all our adventures that week only with our family, we would have paid more overall, so take it with a grain of salt.

Numbers for September:

Marinas: $5
Grocery: $391.63
Restaurant: $159
Supplies: $320.22
Booze: $22
Laundry: $35
Communications: $179
Entertainment: $291
Fuel: $9.17 stove fuel
Ice Cream: $7.50
Transportation: $129.88
Tips: $62
Boat Parts: $137
Grand Total: $1748.18

Notes on the above:

  • We paid Big Al five bucks to watch our stuff when we went to Manuel Antonio from Bisan Beach, although he tried to decline it. Of course, we have a big marina bill coming from the Costa Rica Yacht Club, but it won’t get paid until October, so…look out, October!
  • Under the “Supplies” category, we ordered in a few things to be hand-delivered by Michu’s mom, including a new rain jacket for me, a new solar shower, and some nylon shopping bags to replace the moldy cotton canvas ones. Christmas in September.
  • We were obsessed with following the paths of all the hurricanes this month, and finding info on our friends in harm’s way. That led to a pretty big data purchase.
  • Entertainment was for park entry fees and surfing lessons
  • We’ve never listed tips before, but we frequently found ourselves leaving tips for services that other people paid for this month, so we broke it out into its own category.

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