Live Aboard MacroEconomics: A Case Study

 

WAYWARD earning her keep

As you live your life aboard a vessel, be aware of the sea of life on which it floats and on which it moves forward.

— Ian Gardner (as remembered)

Whatever floats your boat!

-- Sailorspeak

Live Aboard MacroEconomics: A Case Study

LUTRA, the boat we're currently building, offers an as-of-today set of numbers to puzzle over.

Numbers, of course, are slippery li'l devils. What counts in or out? Round up or down? Will the future hold the course? Nonetheless, it's worth a look! Here, I'll take a bird's eye look at up-front dollar costs of our live-aboard vessel relative to rent. 

So LUTRA. Our labor is 'free' (ha!). Time is probably about 6 months of steady, optimal workdays... spread across a year and a quarter in our actual context. Let's say 3000 person-hours (2 persons x 8 hours/day x 180 days, rounded up). The time investment itself hurts less than time lost cruising at large!

When all the dust settles, we arrive at two figures for her out-of-pocket cost. For building site, construction and materials of the hull and furnishings, around $5K is pretty close. Mind you, this is still semi-remote, so costs are high. That's the easy part.

Where it gets complicated is in evaluating outfit, gear and copper we're carrying forward from WAYWARD (and earlier boats!). 

WAYWARD's copper plate was originally a whopping $10K in 2014 dollars. We figure that it paid for itself in about 5 years, saving a rugged alternative finish (e.g., fiberglass/resin), anti-fouling paint, haul-outs and associated costs, repairs, on-board insurance, etc.. After 10 years aboard WW, we used half of it and her chine angles for LUTRA.  Each half is worth around $4K as #2 scrap in 2025 dollars defraying the original outlay.

Similar calculations go for anchors, chain and rode, a pile of fasteners, piano hinges, coms, nav lights and other gear.

So... um.... I'm going to say $1K for these components. Neither replacement value nor market value, but a nod toward what might have been an expensive heap if it hadn't already paid for itself. 

That brings LUTRA's up-front dollar cost to ~$6K.

We're building in our home port of Tenakee, Alaska. Currently, property is well out of our reach. Rents are running around $1K/month for a studio-ish space, utilities included. IF you can find one open. There are only a handful and chronically occupied.  In a larger town, such as Juneau or Sitka, low-end rents average $2K - $2.5K/month, utilities NOT generally included. Tight there, too, but there're generally more openings coming and going.

So let's start with our local $1K/month. That's $12K per year. LUTRA's build is paid off in 6 months at large, a little more when tied to the dock. If we live-aboard for 10 years, we clear 'savings' - in dollars not spent - of more than $100K in village rent, ~$200K in town rent!

Cash money, unfortunately, doesn't grow on trees. 

Tenakee labor is compensated at $18 - $25/hour. It's not exactly 40 hour work weeks, so can also stretch wider over time. But let's say 200 person-hours ($5K x 1 person-hour/$25) to earn the $5K cash outlay for LUTRA. Let's add to that our 3K person-hours for construction and round up for a conservative 3.5K person-hours.

Still, it's easy to see that 10 years of rent would require at least 4K person-hours at present rates.

So... well, well!... looks like we save time, too, even when calculating the bare rental alternative to living aboard. An even better dollar deal if we had bought a vessel, rather than DIY.

That being said, while DIY construction plays a role in all this there are middle grounds.

Buying a modest fixer-upper and DIY from there will (most likely) drop your time investment considerably, and quite possibly your layout costs, so give that a good look.

But the big money is in living aboard! Sail away from the dock if you can.

***

In reality, all of this is vastly more complicated. We don't begin to examine, here, the costs of gainful employment (commutes, clothing, peer outings, etc. inherent in the alternative). We haven't calculated equity and resale value vs. zero for rentals. We don't know how to count our time entangled in town while building. We haven't considered costs of maintenance and repair. We don't know how to evaluate what we learn while building, and how that pro-rates over the years. We don't know if we'll get that 10 years ahead, much less the 20 or so we have fair reason to hope for.

We keep in mind that, at the end of ten years, we still own our vessel  / home ; it's just another rent-due month for the alternative.

I started this post musing in print. I'm pleased to see that the numbers appear to crunch in our favor in both money (I was pretty sure) and time (surprise!). My sense is that, given a simple, low-overhead lifestyle, living aboard and sailing remote, the numbers tilt even further in our favor.

So don't let a little thing like money stop ya!