You’ve quit your jobs to sail around the Bahamas and Caribbean for a year or two? Cool. You must be millionaires!
Not even close.
In this new life of ours, we’re actually quite frugal. The more cash we can save, the longer we get to stay out and play. It’s a pretty good incentive, no?
To give you an idea of how we spend our money, I’ll be sharing a monthly itemized review of our spending and my thoughts on our financial burn in general. Here’s what we spent in May.
Summary of expenses for May 2016, USVU, BVI, St. Martin
Grand total: $ 2,441
Big ticket items
Eating out, mooring balls, miscellaneous items
▪ Charter boat tourism rules the Virgin Islands, and most islands are custom-designed to take dollars directly from the pockets of vacationing charterers. From the mooring balls that cost $26/night in the USVI and $30/night in the BVI (with limited anchoring options), to the pervasive happy hour culture and pricy restaurants, it’s a struggle for fun, frugal cruisers to avoid temptation. We spent more than we usually do eating/drinking out this month, but it should be noted that most of these dollars went to happy hour specials. If we had not been so disciplined about heading back to the boat for dinner, this would have been waaaay worse (for example, $100 of this was a night we showed poor judgement at the popular Willy T).
▪ The good news about being a cruiser in a sea of chartered vacation boats is that there is reduced competition for the obscure anchoring spots. It took time and energy to suss out safe spots for anchoring on the fringe of mooring fields, but we had nothing but time, so we spent surprisingly few nights on moorings last month.
▪ The budget took a big ding at the outstanding dive shop in St. John where we updated our gear with a rust resistant dive knife, dive booties, a new mask, lobster snare, and rash guard. We also bought a used Go Pro camera off of Bo and Allison this month, which we’re really enjoying.
Investments for the future
Wi-fi extender
▪ Wi-fi (or lack thereof) has become an annoying problem, especially as I start to get some freelance work. We decided to purchase a Bad Boy (wi-fi antenna) for the boat that will hopefully give us better access in the future and cut down on our need to purchase expensive SIM cards in every country we visit.
Lessons learned:
Everything is expensive in the Virgin Islands. Even with the provisioning we did in Puerto Rico, our grocery bills were high this month, because we couldn’t resist buying the fresh produce that was available everywhere we went (our salad consumption went up by about 2000%). If we hadn’t provisioned in PR, we would have spent so much more on groceries. Something to keep in mind if you are heading to the Virgin Islands from Puerto Rico.
| Cost group | amount | notes |
| boat parts/maintenance |
400 |
spare dinghy prop, spark plugs, replacement fan, anchor shackle, new portable VHF radio, sewing notions |
| booze | ||
| cleaning supplies | ||
| clothing | ||
| customs fees |
19 |
clear out BVI ($5), Clear back into BVI ($10), Clear out of BVI ($1), Clear into St. Martin (French side @ Island Water World – $3) |
| diesel | ||
| eating out |
404 |
Saba Rock, Cane Garden Bay, Diamond Cay, Cruz Bay Red Hook, smoothies, Cruz Bay, Willy T, Loose Mongoose, St Martin |
| fishing supplies | ||
| groceries |
400 |
Red Hook, bakery in BVI, Charlotte Amile, Soper’s Hole, St. Martin |
| gasoline | ||
| laundry |
25 |
Red Hook |
| insurance | ||
| marinas | ||
| miscellaneous |
398 |
mask, dive knife, dive socks, kmart run, weight belt, snare, bumper stickers, propane refill |
| entertainment | ||
| mooring balls |
120 |
|
| pet supplies | ||
| phone/data |
540 |
Delorme, iPhone apps, spotify, wi-fi extender |
| toiletries | ||
| toys/games |
125 |
GoPro Camera (used) |
| trash |
10 |
Saba Rock |
| water | ||
| grand total |
2441 |
Looking for more cruising costs? Check out the archives:
January 2016 – Exhumas, Bahamas
February 2016 – Exhumas, Bahamas
March 2016 – Exhumas & Out Islands, Bahamas
April 2016 – Turks&Caicos, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, BVI
May 2016 – US Virgin Islands, BVI, St. Martin
June 2016 – St. Martin, St. Barts, Nevis, Guadeloupe, Les Saintes, Martinique
Where are we now?
Thanks for all the great info. It will be so helpful as we move further south next winter.
Miss you both.
Hi Cori! I’m glad that this will help you with your planning. How is everything going in your world? Back in the BVI, Allison and I would periodically stop and say, Cori would love this! You so will. Miss you and hope all is well.
Great that you share this information. So many people have no idea about the cost of voyaging. Question: Is it more or less than you expected and how does it relate to your lifestyle ashore let’s say cost vs lifestyle
Norm on Cape Cod
Hi Norm, We planned on a monthly burn between of 2-3 thousand per month, and we’re finding that estimate to be true. With that said, we spend more than a lot of cruisers I have met. Compared to our lives in New York, this is much cheaper. But, we also had jobs there…
Work vs not-work. We just retired, what a readjustment. Enjoy it while you are young. I’d hate to tell you what we spend to go nowhere. Anyway, I think you’ll find life gets a little less expensive as you move away from charter bases. The French islands have good shopping and services at believable prices. Tip: They pretty much close up Wednesday afternoon so don’t clear in then and go looking for a meal. Jolly Harbour Antigua has good shopping but a bit pricey. Great hot sauces selection. Norm