Working out the Costs

How big is a good budget? For something so important to all cruisers, there is a surprising lack of information. At one extreme you have the people who have been inspired by Annie Hill who had an annual income of £1300 (albeit in the early 1990s). At the other extreme are the Oyster types who have full satellite communication and run their multi million pound businesses and presumably spend five or six thousand a month. Perhaps predictably, the Cruising Association has a collection of information on this for people like us.

Sadly, the only concrete information is for people cruising in the Med rather than the Atlantic but it seems as if Turkish Waters are roughly analagous to what you would expect on an Atlantic circuit so we are going to use them as our guide. It seems as if you should be able to live reasonably well for around £1500 a month.

That assumes we anchor mostly (which we prefer), do all our own maintenance, drink what the local drink rather than cold beers ashore, only eat ashore two or three times a month. We will also have to take care to use the engine as little as possible or diesel will become a major expense. We are on a sailing boat after all!