Long-term readers know that in late 2014, 8 years out of residency, my wife and I decided buy a wakeboat after realizing it was okay to loosen the purse strings a bit. We had lived like a resident for four years, then purchased our dream home six months after we moved to our “big boy” job. But even then it was only a minor increase in our lifestyle. By 2014, I had been a partner in my group for a couple of years and had reached my “peak income”, for medicine at least. We were already millionaires. In fact, by that time we had started to see some pretty significant financial success with The White Coat Investor. Our goal has never been to be the richest people in the graveyard. So that year we made a conscious decision to spend more on our lifestyle.
Buying a Wakeboat
Part of that involved trading up our little 17-foot runabout for a 24-foot wakeboat. It wasn't the most expensive wakeboat on the market by any means, but it was the largest check I had ever written up until that point, about $80,000 when you add in tax, title, and license.
It's now been three seasons and about 330 hours on the engine and I think we can now step back and take a look at that decision. Since this is a financial blog, we'll focus on the financial aspects. So in that spirit, here are 10 financial lessons we learned or relearned from buying a wakeboat. The first seven are a bit negative, the last three are more positive.
Wakeboat Lessons Learned
# 1 Don't Buy a Boat!
Some people buy a boat to rub it with a diaper in the garage. Not me.
Let's start with the obvious. The best two days in a boat owner's life are the day she bought the boat and the day she sold it. A boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into. BOAT stands for Bring Out Another Thousand. This is all true. We owned a boat for 5 years before buying this one. We were well aware of the financial issues of boating. We knew that was all going to get worse by upgrading. But even so, I have been surprised by just how much more expensive this has been. This thing GUZZLES gas (about 2 miles per gallon when the ballast isn't full for surfing). Parts are ridiculously expensive. A propeller is $600. A little plastic piece might be $130. Carpet, upholstery, and gel coat repairs are crazy expensive. Don't kid yourself. If you buy a boat you will hemorrhage money. We certainly have. Which brings us to lesson # 2:
# 2 Boating Is a Rich Person's Sport
If you are not a rich person you have no business boating. I made a mistake on a boating forum once expressing surprise at how many people were willing to finance a boat purchase. They lit into me like I was insane. A later poll showed that about half of the people on the forum were financing their boat (including many that were much less expensive than mine). I cannot imagine after paying for gas, maintenance, accessories, repairs, storage, and license to then go and make a big old boat payment. It would be terrible to be writing a check in January for a boat you hadn't seen for three months knowing you won't be putting it in the water for another five months. Like many other things in life, boating is completely optional. It is not compatible with financial success on a middle class income. It belongs in the same category as heli-skiing, having horses, owning a second home, and flying planes. If you can't afford doing any of that, don't buy a boat. In fact, heli-skiing is way cheaper than boating.
# 3 Pay Cash for Luxuries
That old boat wouldn't pull this many people on a tube
As noted above, a boat payment in addition to all the other boating costs is crazy. But more importantly, saving up for luxuries is a great financial habit to get into. If you actually save up for something BEFORE buying it, you're more likely to understand exactly how much (in money, time, and life energy) it really costs. In fact, there will be a lot of luxuries you'll just decide not to buy at all as you save up for them.
There is another benefit to paying cash. Imagine, if you will, that we ran into some sort of serious financial issue. Not only do we avoid the curse of having a boat payment in that situation, but the boat actually becomes a blessing because we can sell it, effectively trading it for a lump sum of cash. No, it won't be anywhere near what we paid for it, but we could live comfortably for many months on what we could sell our boat for. I think it's okay to borrow a reasonable amount of money for your education (1X expected gross income) and your main home (2X expected gross income). But don't borrow for anything else, especially a boat.
# 4 It's Not the Purchase Price
$80K is a lot of money. Some financially independent families could live on that for 2-3 years. But that's not even the biggest cost of buying a boat. It's all the other stuff. You know like a “truck to pull it and a Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets.” What does it really cost to buy this stuff? Let me give you a glimpse:
- Gas to drag the boat to the local reservoir: $25
- Gas burned in the boat: 67 gallon tank x $3/gallon = $200 (always burn 1/3 tank/day, sometimes 1/2)
- Gas to drag the boat to Lake Powell and back: $175
- Typical amount of boat gas burned in 5 day trip to Lake Powell: $700
- Trips to Lake Powell in 2017: 5, 2016: 4, 2015: 5
- Winter boat storage: $625/year
- Winterizing and end of season maintenance: $500
- Repairs in 2017: $1000
- Accessories in 2017: $1500
- Days spent messing with (not enjoying) it: 4-5 half-days a year
- License for boat and trailer: $500 a year
- Insurance: $150 a year
Every year is a little different, but the point is that we could buy brand new skis, winter clothing, and season lift tickets for the whole family every year for what we spend boating, and that doesn't include the cost of the boat at all.
# 5 Depreciation Is Real
That wave looks a lot bigger with a 10-year-old on it
Very little of the “stuff” we purchase in our lives appreciates. Most of it depreciates. Some of it faster than others. Actually, on the grand scale of things, boats aren't terrible. I mean, look at how quickly food depreciates. Try to resell something you bought in a restaurant two hours ago some time and see what you can get for it. Clothing isn't much better. You know why Goodwill doesn't pay you for your clothes, right? It's because they wouldn't be able to keep the lights on even if they were only paying $1 an item. But, like a new car, a new boat depreciates as soon as it leaves the dealer. Just like with a car, there is a boat blue book. It says my boat is now worth $68,000. So it has depreciated about $4,000 per season. Granted, that ignores all the taxes I paid, but if I sold it, the buyer wouldn't have to pay those taxes, so it's still real depreciation. Add that on to all of the above, and you can see that this is a $10K a year hobby. Or about $100 per hour the engine is run. And we use the boat a lot. Imagine if you were only putting 20 hours a year on it like lots of boat owners. It could easily become a $500 an hour hobby.
The good news is depreciation can be minimized a bit or even reversed if you're willing to buy used. Our old boat was a 2002 bought in 2010 for $6,000 and sold in 2015 for $7,500. Crazy I know, but a true story.
# 6 You Feel a Need to Use It
Once you've spent a bunch of time and money on something, you feel a need to use it “in order to get your money's worth”. Even if there is something else you'd rather do. This happens to lots of people who buy timeshares and second homes, but it also applies to toys like boats, snowmobiles, ATVs, bicycles, and motorcycles. Everything you own owns a little piece of you. That includes your past (i.e. the work you put in to buy it), your present (the money and time you're using to maintain and use it), and your future (the money and freedom you could have if you had invested the money instead of using it on this particular item). This can be a good thing if it gets you out of the hospital and on to the lake with your family and friends, but it can also be a bad thing if it keeps you from doing what you would really like to do.
# 7 A Boat Is a Big Rock
I often remind readers that in personal finance, it is the big rocks that matter. By this I mean it isn't the lattes that are causing you to not become wealthy, especially on a physician income. It's the cost of your housing, the cost of your transportation, the cost of your debt, and the cost of your childrens' schooling. Well, a boat is a big rock too. If you take up boating before you become wealthy, it may very well keep you from ever becoming wealthy. You can blow a lot of money on little rocks (minor purchases and less expensive hobbies) for the cost of one big rock like a boat.
# 8 Buy Something That Makes You Feel Rich
On a boat, your kids are captive. They have to spend time with you.
Let's move on to some of the more positive aspects. There are two important principles I have discovered that have helped me to become wealthy. The first is that in order to reach your financial goals, you have to ensure you never feel deprived. Feeling deprived while trying to build wealth is like feeling hungry while trying to lose weight. It's going to sabotage the whole effort. You must ensure you spend enough to not feel deprived. Once you do become wealthy, it's a balancing act. You don't want to regret a purchase, nor do you want to regret not making a purchase. Continually ask yourself, “If I don't buy this, will I regret it later?”
The second principle is to reward yourself periodically for doing a good job with your finances. Sometimes, particularly before you become wealthy, rewards can be small things, like a meal at a restaurant or even a candy bar. Other times, it can be something expensive like a boat or a trip to Belize. All work and no play makes Jack a dull (and very unhappy) boy.
By following these two principles, you can stay on the plan, reach your goals, and maybe even have some fun along the way. Like climbing a mountain, it is more about the journey than the destination.
# 9 Relative Wealth Matters More Than Absolute Wealth
There are a lot of wealthy people in this world who feel poor. Unlike them, I feel rich. Part of the reason I feel rich is that I make more and have more than the vast majority of the people I associate with regularly. “Buy the cheapest house in the nicest neighborhood” might be good real estate advice, but it's a terrible way to avoid going broke. Not only do the Joneses have more than you do, but so do the Smiths, the Browns, the Martinez, and the Nguyens. That partially subconscious drive to spend is much stronger when you're surrounded by people with more than you have. I might not have the nicest house in the neighborhood (in fact according to Zillow it's the cheapest one on this side of my street), but I do have the best boat! I suspect I'm also one of the few without a mortgage. The behavioral finance data is very clear in that it really does matter who you hang around.
So figure out ways to use that to your advantage. You don't need the best house, the best car, the best boat, AND the best vacations in the neighborhood. Just pick one of them and focus on that when making the inevitable comparisons in your mind. Or better yet, try to become a little more immune to what people around you are doing financially.
# 10 Money Is to Be Spent
As we go through life, we need to learn how to make money, save (invest) money, give money away, and yes, spend money. Don't become imbalanced by only learning to do one or two of these things. Learn how to do all of them. All of them can and do bring joy if done correctly. If you haven't figured out a way to spend money so that it brings you happiness, I suggest you work on that aspect of your financial life a little more. The vast majority of Americans don't have a problem with that. Their issues tend to be figuring out a way to boost happiness while earning and saving money, but it takes work to earn, save, give, AND spend money well. Don't expect it to be easy. One of those four items is more difficult for you than the other three. Resolve to do a better job in that area this year.
I don't know about you, but Katie and I don't save money in order to die with it. We plan on spending (or giving away) the vast majority of the money we earn (and our money earns) during our lifetimes. While I kind of enjoy investing, it is far from my favorite hobby. We invest to live, not live to invest. Yet spending in a way that increases happiness is the most difficult of those four tasks for me. I still feel a twinge of guilt spending $50 in a restaurant, despite the fact that we're saving something like 2/3 of our net income lately. I've found a few ways to work around it—I let Katie do most of the purchasing, I purchase activities/trips in advance so I can avoid “ruining” the activity by having to spend while I'm there, I use a credit card so it isn't as painful to spend, and I buy expensive toys periodically like boats, but I'm not sure I've mastered it yet.
If you can afford to buy something, for cash, without keeping you from reaching your most important financial goals, and it will actually make you happier, then go buy it. For us, that item was a boat. We have had some absolutely incredible times in the last three seasons with that boat. We rarely go with just our immediate family. We bring siblings, cousins, neighbors, the local Scout Troop, friends, and our kids' friends with us. We share an experience that many times they could not afford, and that makes us happy. We go to wild, untamed places and have incredible adventures. We learn new skills and are bonded together. 330 hours, and that's just the time the engine was running. If we averaged 3 hours a day of engine time, that's 110 days, or about 37 days a year. A month's worth of experiences, each of the last three years. When I look at it like that, maybe I can understand why people buy a wakeboat even when they can't afford it!
What do you think? Ever bought a wakeboat or a similar financially stupid purchase? Why or why not? Which financial task is most psychologically difficult for you—earning, saving, giving, or spending? Comment below!
This is a great post. I particularly like points 6, 8, and 10. It’s hard once you have built a habit of saving to go out and spend a bunch of money. The frugality often required to make big financial gains (saving and investing) often strips us of the joy that spending can bring.
Also, what a great line: “Everything you own owns a little piece of you.” This not only made me think of the stuff we buy and how we feel inclined to use it if we are paying/have paid for it. It also made me think of is the businesses we own. People who are frugal are often afraid to put money into things because it becomes part of our nature. That said, one of the best ways to insure you are going to put an adequate time and effort into something is to put money into it. Then, it will own a piece of you and encourage you to work on it.
At the end of the day, we need to obtain our financial goals, but we can’t forget point number 10. I often say to my family and friends, “You can’t take that with you when you die.” In the end, it’s just stuff. That said, it’s stuff that may bring happiness to us in this life. And one of the biggest things we don’t take with us when we die is money. So, do well to make sure you save enough to prepare for your future, but in the end you should plan on spending most of it or (more importantly) giving it away to people and causes you love.
TPP
“The frugality often required to make big financial gains (saving and investing) often strips us of the joy that spending can bring.”
Here, here! This is perhaps one of the least discussed topics in the FIRE community. WCI’s milestone post really helped me and my wife think about spending for celebratory occasions. Although the leap from 250 – 500 is a long one!
Great comment.
It is a balance. Do we buy the beach house or not? Financially speaking we would be ahead by renting. That being said, I have many fond memories of spending the summers down the Cape at a family friends (basically second set of parents) home.
So how much is that experience worth to you. For me building those memories with my family is priceless. Don’t get me wrong I still ran all the numbers and they work out fine for us. Those friends also had a ski house. The numbers on adding a place in the mountains don’t work for us. Hence we rent in the winters.
Wow, you almost make me want to buy a boat. But the better strategy is to be friends with the person who buys the boat. 😉
Hahaha so true.
yes isn’t that the saying…”The best boat is a friend’s boat….”
I am still trying to convince my friend to get a trailer for his 24 foot boat. Maybe I should buy him one?
Great post! I am not a boat person (phew!), but I have enjoyed expensive hobbies and interests along the way.
Over time, I have learned that travel is what I do to enjoy spending money the most (both enjoy it the most and spend the most of it!). While I cannot sell the memories of my two weeks in Italy in 2015, I am not paying for a new propeller for it either, and other than it making me return in 2016 for some additional visiting, there are no ongoing costs or time-consuming chores.
Researching the trip (other than an occasional inexpensive book purchase) is free and reliving the memories is also no charge, and the planning-traveling-reliving cycle, every six to twelve months is a truly enjoyable pursuit for me. I am also learning travel skills that will benefit me in my later years, when traveling longer and more cost efficiently will be of greater interest.
This is your niche, you’re a great traveler and experiencer(?) of places you go. I bet you could write about these things and even have itineraries based on different interests for lots of places. Might be fun and maybe even profitable.
Loved the post and the family photos! You only have so many chances to give your kids these experiences as they grow up too fast. My dad bought an inexpensive boat when I was four years old, and I was water skiing along wth my four siblings every summer in Iowa. One of my favorite childhood memories. Thanks again for the post!
Ditto! I also own a used wakeboat and truck to pull it 2 years out of Residency, which many would say is too early. But we were going insane having to rely on other people (in-laws) to boat as a family. I have 2 children and the 2 boating seasons we have had it have been priceless for family time and time away from the Hospital! It is all paid for now and I have no regrets. But I also have a budget and a financial plan and maximize my retirement accounts and…
And its our vacation. We don’t go to Disney or on cruises or to Bahamas or Mexico or Europe or Hawaii. A lot of people spend 10k+ a year on 1 or more travel vacations and I choose to spend it on the lake.
Love this article. I grew up on boats fishing and wakeboarding/surfing with my family (dad was an ED doc and owned 3 boats at one time). One particular fun memory was my dad promised we could put a tower on our Sea Ray if I could do a 180 wake to wake! We had a tower the next month ;-). That part of my family is not really in the picture anymore and the boats are gone. Now that I am about to finish residency with a great general surgery job in Arizona, it takes everything in me to not go out and buy a nice Malibu Wakesetter the day I finish residency in June. I have two young kids (3 years and 3 months old) and I know getting a boat early on would be fantastic time spent with family. Both sets of grandparents will be in town in AZ too! A boat is definitely not a tool for financial gain, but money isn’t everything and memories made with family I would say are more important (as long as all other essential family needs are met). Every physician’s situation is different and you need to choose what matters most to you and your family and plan your finances accordingly. Cheers to being on the lake!
I bet you have that boat sooner than you think. Let it motivate you to take care of business and not let other expenses inflate.
I really loved the points made in #8! I am [almost] in the middle of residency at this point and am feeling like I am probably on a false peak of feeling very un-rich and deprived that will likely only get a little worse before it gets better. Because we are sticking to an uber-strict budget we are saving the maximum match in our 403b and a little cash every month to save for a used car, but I’ll be honest, although it is temporary it flat-out stinks and is frustrating! Really looking forward to being a little more comfortable down the road. The tunnel is still very long but I look forward to the time where we’ll have more resources to experience more (and buy a new mountain bike)! Thanks for a great post!
Amen!
It gets much better once you start moonlighting.
Live beneath your means, save 10-20% of income, and INVEST AS PREACHED HERE, and you become wealthy by 67 and buy your cars, not lease
Are there alternatives to owning a boat? I can see advantages to owning your boat, but just like you can rent a vacation home almost anywhere, there should be ways to rent a boat.
It is surprisingly difficult to rent a boat like the one I own to do what I want to do in my area. Even if it were a possibility, certainly it wouldn’t make financial sense to do it for 100+ hours a year. If you’re looking to boat and save money a better option, at least around here, is a boat owned by multiple families. Splits your maintenance/depreciation costs by 2 or 3 and you still get almost as much time with it. The hassle factor could be a big deal though, especially when not everyone wants to sell at the same time.
I joined a boat club a couple years ago and have loved it. It is $275 a month (plus gas) and you get your choice of center console, deck boat, or pontoon. All boats are less than 2 years old and there are multiple marinas in the area so we can go out in the ocean, bay, river, or lake depending on what you are looking to do. We live in an area where you can be out on the water about 10 months of the year. There is no wakeboard boat option but if you are just looking to get out on the water and cruise around with the family then this has been a great option for us.
Love this post! The gist I got was avoid paying too much (or financing) for depreciating assets. We have started savings funds for vacations and just depleted one for a car. There is are great behavioral components to this: you tend to do more research into the expenditure. You (probably) will spend less or look for a better deal. In an emergency you are not stuck with monthly payments (or you have the funds saved up to use instead of buying the boat). As mentioned by one of the commenters, there’s nothing wrong with renting if you only boat once in a while!
Glad you included the 6-10. We all have rocks and boulders to move but it the burden is lessened when you have a boat to float or a need for speed (in my case).
Keep up the posts!
I wholeheartedly disagree with #1 – “Don’t buy a boat”. I have a kayak and it costs nothing to own, needs no maintenance, and stores nicely behind my shed. It’s already 15 years old and I expect to get another 20 or 30 years out of it with zero maintenance. I use it a lot and it opens up all sorts of natural wonders for me that are inaccessible by other means (and other boats).
It is technically a boat 🙂
Great post!
Uhhh….okay. I’ll give you that one.
Tongue firmly planted in cheek. I would have to paddle extremely hard to drag someone fast enough to stand up on a board. But I’m up for the challenge!
“Trips to Lake Powell in 2017: 5, 2016: 4, 2015:5”
Time well spent.
Deprivation is a potent emotional scar that will backlash in harmful ways. True for food, sexual, and financial ways. Best to minimize deprivation.
deprivation, re-framed as asceticism, is touted as the only route to enlightenment…which is why it appears over and over again in multiple religious contexts. It’s not about self-denial; it’s about not being distracted by things which don’t ultimately matter. I’m an atheist by the way.
That thought was so deep I could float my wakeboat in it. 🙂
I like your point about the used boat
Still working out of debt here but in 2016 we purchased a used 2008 20ft deckboat for cash (15k). I could probably sell it for what I paid for it heading into our 3rd season.
Keeping it docked at marina is a fixed cost (2k/yr) but convenience of not towing and paying ramp fees and just hopping over to fish for an hour or two than the whole rigamoreole of launching it is well worth it.
Wish I had time to use it more. But by starting with the used boat and seeing how our lifestyle and schedule jives with it, the allure of upgrading to the 50k new 24ft deckboat with a Toilet on board doesn’t seem worth it yet. This lower cost option scratches the itch just enough and we can still tow it with a V6 SUV (only 3800 lbs) but the upgrade would mean needing a truck to tow to the other lake we like to vacation at 1 or 2 weeks a year.
i don’t aspire to own a boat, but I do aspire to have a couple friends who own boats.
Great plan!!! My good friend has a sweet 24 foot edgwater. We go fishing a couple times a year on a lake in NH. How do I convince him to get a truck and trailer so he can bring it down the Cape when he visits us?
one of the best posts in the last couple months. highlights a ton of behavioral pearls. echos of “How to Think About Money.”
If it Flies or Floats, rent it!
My favorite blog…
That’s not a complete quote, as I recall, although I wouldn’t let you post the complete one on this site.
🙂 Edited for “family” site.
PS I’ll wave if I see you on the Jordanelle. Feels like it could be any day now!
Lots of fond memories at Jordanelle. We were the ones on stand-up paddle boards getting rocked by the wakeboats. I found Jordanelle to be an interesting locale for social observation. No matter your socioeconomic status, everyone could enjoy the reservoir. If you were dirt poor, you could still drive to the beach in the old beater, grill hot dogs and splash around in the water. If you had some more money, you could kayak or stand up paddle board. And if you had a whole bunch of money, you could cruise around the lake on a wakeboat. Good times.
I’ll be out there by the first week of May in a very thick wetsuit!
While I own two kayaks, we own two other boats which are pretty dang cheap now that we’ve paid cash for them. The Sunfish sits in the garage, only the cover for it rotting away; The boat should last a few decades and will be there whenever we want it for one of the local lakes so long as we have a vehicle to tow it with (which we do for gardening purposes, not for towing the boat).
The big sailboat does cost us 2800 or less in Marina fees but that gets it in the water ready to go whenever we can get there as in another comment above. We buy 5 gallons of diesel every two or three years. Yeah for wind power! Of course we never get over 8 knots even with the iron sail so wake boarding is definitely out of the question.
unlike all WCI’s expenses for gasoline, our main fuel expense is having to Drive 100 miles or so, which is 3 gallons of gas, to get there.
Oops, I forgot The diver to scrape the barnacles and, hopefully not with a new boat, repairs which were 1000+ every year with the old boat.
BTW Anyone who lives or visits in the Florida Panhandle near Destin should become our friend, sometimes my husband goes without me and I prefer he have crew. We can be your friends with the boat.
WCI,
Thanks for sharing your financial experience with owning a wake boat. I believe in the next 2-5 years we will likely be purchasing some sort of floating apparatus. $10k/yr in expenses is very pricey but if everything else is in order financially, why not splurge on some experiences in our lives?
So, I’m a boat owner and she’s a relatively large boat as well. I must say it was probably the best purchase I ever made in respect to learning challenging new skills, having great fun with family friends and new acquaintances. It is something my wife and I finally agreed upon that we both love. I will never regret it, and frankly the day I sell it will be a very sad day for me….not a happy day. We never bought a summer house or cabin, our boat is our summer house, with the benefit that she can move up and down the coast from port to port, she can even go south for the winter and come back in the summer. I am blessed that I can afford it and keeping a large boat is something I have built into my retirement spending plans, ultimately paying off this boat or the next with the sale of a business asset. Financially, it is a horrible investment, I understand that. I don’t think there are many boat owners who pay cash for such a purchase at my stage in life. I understand the negative cash flow and plan for it appropriately. However, the days on the water with family and friends are some of my best memories and I plan on making many more.
So I’ve had that “Buy Me a Boat” song playing in the background more than a time or two when I’ve been drudging through my daily documentation lately. We now have the lake house as our primary and only residence, but we’re not at the point of buying a boat. We have some amazing, pristine lakes around us, including the one we live on, but right now, we’re still carving out the right financial picture before pulling that trigger. Before the boat comes the dock and boatlift…and the student loans and the kiddo’s tuition. I think Bennington will still be in business when that time comes. For now, I’m taking up open-water swimming, kayaking and fishing–well, ice fishing for now. When we’ve rented boats in the past, though, it’s really brought our family together, and living on our lake, things like catching a sunset on an evening cruise after a day of work sounds amazing.
Like with everything, it isn’t that you can’t have it. It’s that you can’t have it right now. Sounds like a good reward for paying off the student loans to me, at least a cheaper boat. You can upgrade later when you’re in a better position.
We have owned kayaks, a $200 beat up jon boat that my children bought with lawn mowing money well before they could drive and now a used wakeboard boat. Best purchases ever for our family quality time. Used is very good. We got someone else’s depreciation. Our family bonded on the water, I hustled out of work on those special weekends for many years and did not have access to phone on the water when not on call, so able to concentrate on being present with my children. Now my sons go with their friends. It is our vacation, our “lake house” and our joy. We live an otherwise modest life and have set by adequate retirement and the boys’ educations are fully funded. My family has a 12 year old version of your boat for easily 1/10 the cost. It lives in our garage. The taxes and insurance are not high on older boats. Those times with children slip past quickly. You don’t want them to remember that you were always at the hospital when the other parent took them places.
Wow that’s a carbon footprint.
You’re not going to like the other two mechanical devices in the garage, both of which are capable of pulling said carbon footprint.
I hope those who worry about carbon footprints don’t travel much. A Boeing 747 burns a gallon per second. A round trip flight from New York to Phoenix fills my big wakeboat tank once for each passenger.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. One international flight to Thailand pretty much wipes out that Tesla in the garage and the solar panels on the rooftop.
When my brother sold his first company I told him, “Nobody cares if you own a Rolex or Ferrari. They appreciate experiences they can share with you, like riding on your boat.” After he sold his second company we set out to find that boat. It turned out to be a 43 foot power yacht, which he paid in cash.
As long as I maintained it, I was allowed to use it any time. Here is a sample of some of the cost to maintain a 43 foot yacht (purchase price: $320K).
1. Fuel capacity: 300 gallons, cost to fill up $1000
2. Mileage: 1 mile per gallon averaging 20 knots on twin diesel engines.
3. Oil change: $800
4. Bottom paint every two years: $1200
5. Wax boat every two years: $1200
6. Insurance: $1200 year
7. Yacht club membership: $2800 year
8. Bottom cleaning: $900 year
9. Repairs and maintenance: $1000 year
10. Slip fees: $500 month (brother pays).
11. Countless man hours washing and making minor repairs.
The number one lesson here is that it’s much cheaper to rent a 43 foot yacht occasionally than to own one. As a “one percenter” my brother could afford to purchase this boat and as “three percenter,” I could afford its maintenance. Our friends really enjoy cruising with us, but only fellow boat owners really know the time and expense it takes to own a boat.
Costs vary widely, depending on type of boat and where you keep her. In the Northeast most boats are hauled every winter adding fall decommissioning and spring commissioning costs. We sail so fuel costs are minimal, but sailboats have there own maintenance issues that drive up expenses.
Wow! This is an extremely insightful, powerful, inspirational, and downright useful discussion for me at this point in my life!
It all makes so much sense.
My wife and I are, for all intents and purposes, set for life at ages 52 and 50. But we still really struggle with finding an appropriate spending level. And we are erring on the low side, I am sure.
I’ve bookmarked this post, and will no doubt refer back to it many times in the future!
Once again, thank you so much for sharing your lessons learned!