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You also have to deal with the reality that most everyone else uses boats and lakes for pleasure and that your "home" will not be even remotely peaceful during the weekends and summer holidays, and that no one will care that you are trying to get some sleep. The idea is kinda a cool until you put it into practice. Heck, spending a weekend on a cruiser is too much for me anymore. The mattresses suck, the temperature changes late at night, fishing boats flying by at 3am, trying to go #2 in a head.......all of these things are annoying after a little while.
The ONLY way I would consider living on a boat is if I had the fortune of being a proud owner of a 68 foot Sunseeker Predator. Look that one up. I'd bet a few people would gladly trade their houses for that assuming the maintenance costs weren't an issue. But......
I've lived on a boat on and off over the years. But I wouldn't say it's cheaper....I could rent a decent house for what a 60 foot slip rents for in the DC area. But I would have had the boat anyway (she's been in the family since new in 1966).
While the boat is very comfortable, the biggest hassle of living aboard was water, as in FRESH water....most marinas turn off the water on the docks when freezing weather starts. Reeling out 700 feet of garden hose to fill the tanks every few days gets old fast!
A lot of marinas around here prohibit "live-aboards" but most still have them....we called them "hide-aboards".
Since I bought my place on the Chesapeake Bay, I now keep the boat out back at my own dock....so I generally live in the house, unless I tick my wife off and get thrown out for a day or two! LOL
After thinking about it, there is a way - or used to be - to live cheaply on a boat. When I was younger, a group of us lived on other people's smaller commercial fishing boats during the off-season. The catch is that the month or so before they start getting ready to go out, you have to be prepared to move at a moment's notice. The other catch is that a working boat doesn't have room for frills, the living quarters may be no bigger than one of those pop-up campers with a little oil stove in the middle. Everything you own would have to fit in a duffle bag.
Avery good friend of mine lives on a sailboat in the San Francisco Bay. The boat is just shy of 40 ft. His rent is about 1/2 of what the rest of us pay for a small apartment. It is small, but not too bad, if he had an old lady, he probably would have purchased a larger boat, at least a wider boat. Living on the water is nice, having a locked gate to get to the slips is nice and a complete lack of bills other than rent and cell phone is a bonus.
The downside, besides being small, he also needs to rent a storage unit, and, it is impossible to get him to go sailing. "No, it's not clean enough." No, I spent too much time on the boat already, I just want to sit around one of your apartments." "No,too much loose stuff right now, everything will fall down."
So, i have a friend with a really nice sailboat, who doesn't sail, he should have saved his money and bought a clapped out, not running houseboat and had a lot more room.
[quote=CptnRn;9494775] I'm surprised more people consider the frugal lifestyle of living on a boat . I used to stay on my 28' sailboat for a week at a time and it was no great hardship.
You can buy an older used sailboat in poor condition for $10,000 to $20,000, sometimes less, and fix it up while you live on it. Budget $100/month in fresh water, $200/month in saltwater for maintenance, most of that will go to an annual haul out to clean and repaint the hull, etc. Fiberglass hulls don't wear out or depreciate much if you fix them up and keep them in decent condition. Chances are you could sell one after living on it for years for close to the same cost as when you bought it, or more if it needed work when you bought it.
There are numerous communities along the Texas coast where you can rent a boat slip for less then $200 a month, within walking distance of many jobs. Many have club houses and showers available for the marina customers use. Verify that they allow live-aboards, some do not but many do. Another nice thing about a boat is you can move it to a new location if you decide you don't like the neighborhood or find a better job down the coast.
I bought this 28' sailboat in 1990 for $13,000 and sold it in 2007 for $8,600. So it cost me $4,400 to use it for 17 years, $258 per year. Not including maintenance or slip rental. Slip rental was about $125 a month on lake travis when I bought it and went up to $275 by the time I sold it. They did allow a few live-aboards some years ago, I'm not sure if they still do. I had it on the gulf coast for 3 years. Marina's along the coast are usually cheaper and more accommodating of live-aboards.
I knew lots of live-aboards who lived on their boats in marina's along the Texas coast and they all managed to live very cheaply and were happy with the lifestyle. Our best friends retired and lived on their 38' sailboat for 3 years before they settled down in Florida. We visited them often never got the impression they were experiencing any hardship, they enjoyed the life.
Who are you thanking? Your post makes no sense to me.
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