Cost to Not Cruise - January 2014

Kristi and I talked a little about this - what to do with our ongoing Cost to Cruise series of blog posts (link to them all here:  http://mvvikingstar.blogspot.com/search/label/Costs )   After all most people, including us when we 1st started, seem to be interested in what it costs to maintain the Cruising Lifestyle.  And with almost 3 years of data, we have a fairly good touch point - at least for folks who share our lifestyle choices, and location in the world.

So, why this Cost to Not Cruise post?

We thought it would be interesting to contrast costs associated with living aboard a 50+ year old wooden boat in the Pacific Northwest of the USA and Canada, vs. the costs associated with living in the middle of the prairie.  (We are quite literally two towns over from Walnut Grove  - of 'Little House on the Prairie' fame).  So we decided to keep up the monthly posts. 

To put things into context, lets make sure the two 'lifestyles' are framed:

Life on the Boat:

• 50+ year old wooden 'trawler', fully paid for and fully fitted out for local as well as world cruising.
• 8+ months spend away from the docks where we were fully dependent for our own electricity and heating generation - as well as (depending on where we were cruising at the time)  water desalination.
• Spent winter months 'in port' (Friday Harbor in the San Juan's Islands) - coming in usually the beginning of November, then looking to leave end of Feb or so.
• Yearly trip (via rental car) to the Portland Oregon area for the Christmas holidays.
• No House, No Mini-storage, No Car.  If it ain't on the boat - we don't own it.
• Shopping largely limited to what was within walking distance of ports.

  
Life on the Prairie:

• Living with Kristi's folks in their house in the Midwest of the USA.
• Sharing grocery and utility costs, but not 'house' costs (house paid for long ago).
• Have Viking Star in long term moorage - will be some costs associated with that.
• Still no house payments, no Mini-storage, no Car.  
• Not looking to return to Portland area for the Christmas Holidays.
• Will be looking to take a trip back the the boat mid-summer to do maintenance.
• Shopping largely limited to the 'towns' within a 50 mile driving range.  (Windom MN being the primary place - population 4,600 or so..)

Common items between the two lifestyles include personal items, dining out (well, there are a LOT less coffee shops around the Prairie than in the Pacific NW), communication, as well as healthcare costs.  As before we are not including costs associated with gifts.

OK, there is the framework - and here are the costs for January 2014 - our first not-cruising month:

Cruising months in Blue,  Not-Cruising months in Green.

Two things to point out - Cruising costs are in Blue, Not Cruising Costs will be in Green.  And the 'rolling averages' will be only for the not-cruising costs.  For your reference, here is the costs of our last full year in Cruising Blue (2013):

For Reference, Costs for Cruising in 2013

Hum  . . .  within $3 of each other on a monthly average!  Will see how things shake out as we settle down a bit here in the Prairie.




You can follow these links to get a more detailed summaries of our prior Costs to Cruise posts:

Full Year 2013:  mvVikingStar.blogspot.com/..../cost-to-cruise-year-in-review-2013.html
Full year 2012:  mvVikingStar.blockspot.com/..../cost-to-cruise-dec-2012-and-year-end.html
Partial Year 2011: mvVikingStar.blogspot.com/..../cost-to-cruise-year-in-review.html