Cutting the Cord

This is a post I started months ago but never completed. Arriving back on the boat I have found that this may be of some interest to those on a boat as well as those saving up for the experience. So the following is edited from the original and mixes experiences from time spent living on land as well as on the water.  Hope you find it helpful and not too confusing.

For all of those people saving up to go cruising or even those just trying to conserve a few pennies, I thought I would take a few moments to write about something I discovered moving back into an apartment in the Denver Metro area.  In the past I have written about my experience with our low-cost phone service (still like it, btw.) and this is another one of those technology things.  The thing I am talking about is television, the ol' boob tube.

Streaming "Man on a Ledge" from Crackle...on the boat.

The cheapest way to go, other than tossing your TV out (or better yet, selling or donating it), is to use an antenna for the over-the-air broadcasts.  This works OK in most metropolitan areas...or at least did in the U.S. until much of the broadcasts have concentrated on programming that highlights the POTUS screw up du-jour. This is still handy for the occasional check of the local news, weather, or occasional diversion. Since I get enough of the political shenanigans online to make my blood boil, I'm looking for more a entertaining diversion.

To start with, we needed internet anyway, so the simple choice for the apartment was to see what the local cable company (Comcast, Xfinity, or whatever they are calling themselves this week) had to offer.  A quick call to them resulted in my hysterical laughter followed by hanging up the phone.  Their cheapest package that included internet and basic cable was over $120 a month. Internet only wasn't much cheaper at around $100 a month.  I did a little more searching and found that our phone company (CenturyLink) had 40 MBit access for just under $30 a month.  A much better price, but that didn't include any television programming...or so I thought. If you are living on the water, hopefully you have access to marina WiFi or an open hotspot (perhaps using a long range WiFi antenna). At the marina we have a fairly slow WiFi connection that ranges from around 3Mbit down to 0.5Mbit.

We looked into satellite TV but it would be a severe hassle to deal with in an apartment and when we last had one it was around $50 a month for the basic channels.  This is even more complex on a boat as a dish has to point at the satellite and a moving boat complicates that (although there are expensive dishes that track...but that defeats the idea of saving money).

Then I started looking at the new streaming services. These are some of the services that are collectively called cutting the cord (as in cable cord). Many of these services can be accessed via an internet connection, so having internet solves part of the problem.

You can watch many of these services on a computer using a web interface or using an app on a phone or tablet. If you want to watch streaming content on a real television instead of computer device or phone, you will need a compatible smart TV or the modern technology equivalent of the old cable box. This box is actually about the size of a stick of gum, plugs directly into the TV's HDMI port and comes with a remote control. Various devices are available from Amazon (FireTV), Roku, Google, and others. They seem to run around $30 for the device, but if you need or want more of a TV experience, they are a relatively economical means of making that happen. Some of the pay services will even give you one for free if you sign up and agree to use their service for several months to a year.

A few of the devices for streaming to a TV.

There are a number of content options available when you have an internet connection. Obviously several major broadcast and cable networks have some online content available on their websites or via applications.  In addition, there are free services like Crackle, Tubi, and Pluto that provide access to on-demand movies and shows as well as some free channels.  A step above that are services like Sling, DirectTvNow and others that provide cable-like service (minus any local channels) at a lower cost than cable or satellite.

At the apartment I tried all the services mentioned above.  With reasonably fast internet, all of the services worked well except for one.  DirectTvNow seemed to have streaming or application glitches that caused the video to stop playing or would hang or skip on a regular basis.  On the boat, I've tried using all but DirectTvNow and have found that they are usable, but with slower internet connectivity, the video will occasionally pause during playback.  Best I can tell, the services need around 3 Mbit speeds to provide a reasonably watchable experience with a limited amount of interruption. They do tend to run on slower speeds, but will periodically pause to buffer the video stream.

The one service I found to work the best was actually Sling. The service (or application) has the ability to monitor internet speed and adjust video quality to provide a more fluid experience. On a large TV the video quality changes may prove to be annoying, but on smaller screens like you often find on a boat, tablet, or phone, I find that it is far less annoying than the video pause.  With this approach, Sling seems to be able to run with as little as 1 or 2 Mbit connections as best I can tell.

So, if you are paying upwards of $100 or more for cable, one of these options may help put some cash back into your wallet.  Or if you are on a boat with reasonable internet connection and in need of some entertainment on those rainy and windy days (like I've had here the past few days), you might want to give one of these options a try.

Fiddling With Social Media

A blog is obviously a form of social media. When I started the blog I did it mostly as a means to explain this crazy idea of sailing away to my relatives and to augment my own memory.  But, since that time it has taken on a bit of a life of it's own. I've met a lot of nice people, made virtual friends with more, and it has become a good place to share ideas and experiences about the act of becoming a cruiser.  So part of today was spent looking with ways to enhance the blog and related social media.

I've had a personal Facebook account for some time, originally created when I needed one for a job. I've ocassionally put up links to my blogs there, but it has been a limited thing. Today I decided to create a Facebook page for This Rat Sailed.

I also signed up for an account with If This Then That. This is a service that allows you to create rules to cross post things between various social media outlets.  If it works, this post should automatically show up on the Facebook page. While I am going to try to keep up the near daily blog posts, I'm also going to make an effort to periodically add to the Facebook page as well.  Guess we will see how it goes.

Something else I've been mentally wrestling with for some time regarding the blog is if I should include advertisements.  One side of me feels like this would be "selling out", but the truth is that I spend a fair amount of time writing on the blog (I think the average amount of time I spend on a post is at least a couple hours).  So (just as TV uses advertisements to keep the lights on) if I can manage to get paid enough for a rare cup of coffee to offset the late nights writing, it seemed worth investigating.

I signed up for Google AdSense since it is integrated with blogger. Right now my account is "pending" so I don't know exactly how any of this will work.  Over the next few days or weeks, you may see me playing with the configuration. I'm going to try and make it as unobtrusive as possible and hopefully I'll get some ability to control what is being advertised.  Only time will tell.

I also looked into the idea of becoming an Amazon affiliate.  This would give me the option of showing products and services that I like, trust, and use.  A preferred option to somewhat random ads on my blog. Unfortunately, it seems Colorado (I am still technically a resident there) has a screwy law that keeps Amazon from offering their associate program in Colorado and a few other states.  So much for the better of the options.

So, bear with me as I play around with this stuff.  Hope you like the Facebook page.  Let me know if you find any of the ads annoying or problematic.  And, if you want to help keep me caffeinated and find an interesting ad, give it a click.

Annapolis Sailboat Show 2014

So, what do you do the weekend after your estate sale?  Well, in our case, we headed out to the 2014 U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis Maryland.  The biggest sailboat show only happens once a year and we hadn't been in over two years so it was time to go.

This time our focus was quite a bit different than the last show.  If you recall, the goal of the last visit was to look at boats as we didn't yet own Rover.  This time we are boat owners and are now looking for things that we need or want.  My wife didn't have proper foul weather gear yet (waterproof gear that can take a wave isn't available in Colorado) and we could both use some decent sailing gloves. The laundry list of items that Rover needs (or we want her to have) keeps expanding too.  Solar and maybe wind power, water maker, more eco-friendly bottom paint, various interior and exterior cushions, a dodger, a better anchor, baskets of hardware, and maybe some toys like a kayak or SUP are all of interest. I also wanted to see a friend who lives on the east coast and since our broker Pete was at the show, wanted to see him too.

If you are shopping for a variety of items for your boat, a show like this is a real time saver as you can see a lot all in one place. We were able to check out most of the items we were interested in.  My wife was able to try on rain gear from several makers, and I was able to talk with several vendors about solar installs, bottom paints, etc.  We found an interesting nesting cookware set for the galley that seemed to be decent qality.  And we got to check out a few of the newer style anchors available today.  You could easily spend a LOT of money at one of these shows, so while it is nice to see all the newest and latest things, you do want to hold onto your wallet.

We did end up buying a few things at the show.  My wife now has some new Slam rain gear and we both have sailing gloves.  Since Rover needs a new dodger set and interior and exterior cushions, we had the idea we could make our own and picked up a Sail-rite sewing machine.  Sleeping at night is high on our desire list so we also bought a new Mantus anchor that we think will help when out on the hook.  Most of the items will be shipped, so I will let you know more about them once we have a chance to play with them.

Here is an interesting thing we discovered at the show.  We attended the last two days of the show this year.  Our first day at the show was the third day (if you count the VIP day), and I think most of the people working the booths were getting a bit worn down by that point.  We were having a bit of a hard time engaging some of the vendors to get information about their products.  Or maybe it was because the Sunday was the only nice weather day at the show.  Monday was the complete opposite.  There are no seminars on the last day of the show and it was a bit rainy so there were no crowds. We found it much easier to talk with the vendors that day. Some vendors were even offering additional discounts (probably not wanting to lug unsold product back to their trucks). This was the day we made most of our purchases.

Overall, it was a good show for us.  We acquired some stuff we needed as well as information we needed. And we might even have our first sponsor...we will see.

Estate Sale Day 3 - A Little Faith Restored

Sunday was the last day of our estate sale. We decided to do something we found fairly common in the estate sale business, we made Sunday a half-price day.  Most items, there were a very few exceptions that were specially marked, were half off the marked price. This doesn't necessarily get you a lot of cash per item, but it does help move a lot of stuff out the door that wasn't moving at the marked price...at least that was the theory.

I think we were finally getting the hang of running the sale as it was our smoothest opening of the three days.  Signs were all out well before the start of the sale (we retrieved signs each night since there are people that will deface or remove signs...calling them street spam...and we didn't want to spend more money to replace the signs), we had time to walk the house and make sure everything was in order, and get an OK from everyone that we were ready to open. It also seemed like there wasn't quite as big of a rush on the Sunday and that helped.

Overall, I don't think it was as busy all day, but we still had good traffic (better than our typical garage sale).  One thing happened that day that helped restore a bit of faith in my fellow man.  A lady had come in on Friday and purchased a jewelry box.  She came back on Sunday to return all the jewelry that was apparently in the box.  She said the jewelry looked like family heirlooms and wanted to make sure we got it back.  Most of it didn't have sentimental value, but was real gold and silver and we appreciated getting it back.  We gave her one of the pieces as well as a stuffed animal one of her children liked as reward for her honesty and integrity.

While we didn't get rid of as much stuff as we would have liked (much of the nicer furniture remains), I think we did all right. If you recall, the estate sale companies thought we would gross between $7000 and $8000 leaving our cut at about $4500. The first day of the sale we made over $5000, the second and third days were a bit over and a bit under $1000 respectively. This put us right at what the companies thought we would get without taking the 40% loss and we still have a few big items to sell.

Would I do it again...well...that is still a good question and I don't know if I would.  But the past couple days we have spent a couple thousand dollars on the boat so it is nice having that extra money...but that is the subject for a couple other posts.

Estate Sale Day 2 - Continuing The Purge

Day two was a bit more organized than day one.  I started putting the signs out a full hour before the sale started...with an added note on the sign in front of the house that read "Open @ 10 am". When I got back, we had time to walk through the house and make sure things we didn't want to sell (or have stolen) were hidden away behind locked doors. There were a number of people waiting as we opened, but I don't think quite as many as the day before...which was a good thing.  Adding that all three of us were there for the start I think made it a bit less hectic.

Attendance was still pretty good for the second day of the sale.  I think it probably helped that it was a Saturday so all those with real jobs during the week could finally attend.  It is only a guess, but I presume more people stumbled across our signs than came because of the online ad after the initial morning rush.

We were able to sell a number of items that I originally wasn't sure we would sell...like one of our artificial Christmas trees, our patio furniture, a computer monitor, and a work desk. Sometimes it amazes me what sells and what does not sell.  Someone found our stash of a few garden tools we needed to keep to clean up the yard and asked if they could buy the cheap, broken, duct-taped-together leaf rake.  Someone else dug out our stashed half package of toilet paper that was guarded by a baby gate and a "Nothing for sale here" sign.

There didn't seem to be as many people that were rude in their negotiation efforts that day. On Friday we encountered several people that were obviously looking for things they could get cheaply so they could resell them on Ebay.  When they realized that we wouldn't sell a collectable item for 1/10 of its actual value (we were priced below typical market prices), we would get snotty comments on price (and the item would often sell for the marked price just a little later).

While we didn't recoup as many freedom chips as we did the first day, we did OK and managed to clear out a fair amount of stuff.  Unfortunately, some of the bigger items (furniture) do remain.  Wondering get if we will have to figure out another option for selling that.  One more day to go and the estate sale will be done.

Estate Sale Day 1 - Disappointment With Humanity

After getting to sleep at 4 AM, we awoke at 6 AM to prepare for the first day of the sale.  We make some coffee...a lot of coffee...and continue pricing things, moving items around, and actually creating the estate sale signs that you saw in the last post.  My wife makes a run to McDonald's to get us something to eat before the show started (not a great option, but about the only option we had for something quick that early in the morning).

I left the house about 20 minutes before the start of the sale to put up signs and there were already a couple of people parked outside waiting for the sale to start.  I ended up miscalculating the amount of time it would take to put all the signs up and I didn't return to the house until 20 minutes after the sale started.  When I returned it was a zoo.  Cars were lined up and down the street. Apparently advertising the sale on EstateSales.net can bring in quite a crowd.  Hope it didn't bother my neighbors too much.

In our exhausted state, no one thought about doing a walk-through of the house before we opened the door.  As it turned out, I had left my laptop running so we could continue pricing items when I was distracted with making the sale signs.  It wasn't until someone tried to buy it that my wife realized it was still sitting out and rescued it.

Sales were very brisk throughout the day and we made a majority of the entire sale proceeds this first day.  We didn't even have time to stop for lunch (or even notice lunch time passed by).  The 60" LED flat screen TV, home theater with custom speakers, stainless steel gas grill, front loading washer, futon, one bedroom set, and other miscellaneous items were sold the first day.

Unfortunately it was not all good news.  Even though we had three people running the sale (the estate sale companies only planned on two), theft was an issue.  Two of us tried circulating through the house to answer questions and prevent theft but it apparently wasn't enough.  While I was busy demonstrating the home theater equipment to a buyer, I noticed that a rare CD collection (KBCO Studio C Box Set, numbered and one of only 200) was missing.  Later in the day we found a few boxes that used to contain items but only the empty boxes remained. And a few of these items were priced less than $1. The camera bag that went with a 35mm camera I was selling also walked away (I kind of wonder if it was used to smuggle the Box Set out).

One of the more disturbing things we found was discovered after the sale closed the first day.  In addition to the computer being left out, the old digital camera I was using to take pictures for the estate sale site was also left out.  The camera itself wasn't stolen, but the compact flash memory card was missing (you know the old, "big" by today's standards, cards).  Really?!?!  Why would someone take a 64 MB compact flash card...here you can buy a 1 GB card for a little over $6?  Other than pictures of the sale, my wife had taken pictures of some of the items she was selling so she could remember them and now those are lost.

So, while we got rid of a lot of stuff and recouped a fair amount of our freedom chips, the thievery put a damper on our excitement. Guess I forgot that not all people are as good as most of the cruisers I've met.  All we can do is hope that karma catches up with the thieves one day.

Getting Rid Of Our Stuff - The Estate Sale

As is usually the case, by the time I get to write about an event it has come and gone and so it is for our estate sale.  But let me take you back to the beginning of the process...

When I came back to Colorado to help wrap things up, one of the big items on the list was to sell all our stuff. Having lived in our home for about 18 years, we certainly managed to collect a lot of stuff (I guess George Carlin was right).  Looking around our house, and after dealing with my father-in-law's estate, we thought it might be a good idea to hire an estate sale company to come help us get rid of everything.  Yes, indeed, there is an entire industry devoted to getting rid of your stuff...wouldn't George be proud.

While looking for estate sale companies, we quickly found the EstateSales.net site and decided it might be a good idea to check out how some of the businesses run the sales.  So, one Saturday we found a few sales from the companies we were interested in and went to check them out.  Some were better than others, but the basic idea is that an estate sale is kind of like a garage sale, only on a larger scale and more organized.  They also seem to generate a lot more traffic than the usual garage sale.

We came up with a short list of the companies that we liked that seemed to be doing a professional and organized job and started giving them calls.  A few of them were not interested since we wanted to remain in the house during and after the sale (having to stay in a hotel for a week or two as the house was set up was not an option).  A couple others came over to the house to give us their pitch and look around at what we had for sale.  The estimates on how much they thought we could get out of our roughly 2000 square foot (186 square meter) home was between $7000 and $8000 U.S. This is where we found out that the companies would take 40% of the proceeds as payment.  Doing the math here...the fee for the sale would be around $3000.

Since I'm no longer employed, we thought it would be nice to keep that $3K ourselves to put toward the boat improvements.  I also found out that EstateSales.net and other estate sale advertisement companies allow private individuals to advertise sales on their sites and to their subscriber mailing list.  We pondered the potential loss we might have being less experienced in pricing for the sale.  In the end we decided it is unlikely we would be off by more than $1000 so we would do the sale ourselves.

We started digging through our stuff, throwing away the trash and cleaning up the stuff we wanted to sell.  We moved around furniture and started to set up our house and all our stuff for display.  We learned some tricks from the estate sales we attended like how to use a board and a couple small waste baskets to make a second shelf for your displays on folding tables. And we learned what the standard prices are for many smaller priced items like clothing, bedding, CD's and DVD's, flatware, stemware, and kitchen utensils.

We spent several weeks slowly going through stuff and separating it into:

• Stuff headed to the boat (the smallest group)
• Stuff headed to storage
• Stuff to sell
• Stuff to donate
• Recycling
• Garbage

You don't realize how much stuff you have acquired in almost 20 years until you try to go through and sell it all.  It didn't take too long until we realized we were going to need more tables.  This is where we also found out that renting banquet tables at the local rental places ran $10 a day per table.  That can get pretty expensive when you consider the amount of time needed to rent the tables (in addition to the 3 day sale, the set up and tear down time makes it a pretty long rental).  This is where having friends comes in handy.  I pleaded for help from a few friends and one had tables we could borrow for the sale.  Thanks Tom!

We planned on a little over a week to get everything set up and really turn our home into a showroom for all our stuff.  We set up the ad on EstateSales.net including a preliminary list of items, a few pictures, and our terms and conditions of the sale (Cash only, no moving labor provided, everything sold as-is/where-is, etc.).  Half way through the week, we realized we were not going to be anywhere near ready and ended up pushing the sale off by a week.

Not how our master bedroom usually looked

We continued to set up tables in our house, clean and collect like items together (it is recommended that you put similar items together and in the rooms they are used in as that makes for a more organized sale).  Kitchen appliances and cookware in the kitchen, dishes and decorations in the dining room, entertainment related stuff in the family room, etc.

Living Room or Showroom?

We bought some white corrugated plastic signs from the local quick sign shop and a really fat permanent marker and made signs for the sale.  To keep the signs easy to follow, they simply said "Estate Sale" in big letters and a big arrow indicating direction and in smaller print the hours of the sale (10am to 4pm for us).  When we used to go to garage sales, we found an arrow was far more useful than writing the address on the sign (who memorizes where every street in their part of town is) or a list of contents at the sale (usually too small to read as you are driving by).

After getting a lot of the stuff set up, we started going around and pricing items.  For cheaper stuff we generally took our best guess on prices.  For more expensive things or items we simply had no clue on, we checked retail prices as well as the sold prices of items on Ebay or similar sites.  The general rule of thumb we were using for pricing was to price items that were practically new at 1/3 of retail and reduce down to 1/10 of retail for more used items and a little below the bottom line Ebay price for items of a more collectible nature.

We had a few surprises on prices.  For instance, my wife had a Beatles White Album vinyl record and I had a hunch it might be worth a bit more than the $2/record standard price.  I checked and they can go from thousands of dollars down to a few dollars or so.  The pressing and condition of the one we had put it's price at $20~40.  I had purchased an electric bass guitar my senior year of high school and, as it turns out, the guitar is apparently pretty rare.  Ovation made the Celebrity BC-2 guitar and apparently it was a flop so the best information I can find says they only produced them for a single year.  I was having a hard time finding information on it and most of that was in forum threads that usually started by asking questions related to their existence or legitimacy.  I found one thread that indicated someone found a beat up one in a pawn shop, bought it for $100, and then sold it to a collector for $750. And the one I have is in near mint condition.

The day before the sale we were busy pricing items and still digging out more for sale.  We worked through the night to try and get everything ready.  Finally around 4am the morning of the sale my wife and I decided we should try to get at least a couple hours of sleep before the sale started.  So we pushed all the stuff that wasn't even close to being ready to sell into the closets and bathrooms, blocked them off and went to bed.

Were we ready for the sale....no.  Were there things out that were still unmarked...you bet.  But we were out of time and needed to push forward.  In one of my next posts, I'll cover how the first day of the sale went....it was definitely interesting.

It's been a MONTH?!?

Wow.  It's been almost a month since my last post...and I was sooooo planning on picking up the pace on the blog posting front. I thought things would slow down a bit, but that simply hasn't been the case so far.

I'm actually writing this while taking a brief break from the mad push to get ready for our big estate sale. Originally my wife and I were planning on hiring an estate liquidation company to come and do the sale, but in a "oh...I can do that" fit of insanity, we decided that we would just do it ourselves.

Part of the reason for making this decision is that the estate sale companies take 40% of the proceeds of the sale as their fee.  Having spent the last couple weeks going through all our stuff and turning our house into a "this was your life" showroom, I can say that 40% is probably a bargain.  I can't believe how much stuff has been packed in our house.  All this stuff could easily sink 5 or more catamarans the size of ours (my wife was thinking a garbage barge).  And I don't even think we were as bad as most of those around us in the "good American consumer" category.

I doubt this will fit on the boat...

...or this.

We've also met with a couple real estate agents to get an idea of what to expect when selling our house.  In the 18 years we've owned the house, the housing market has done some pretty strange things across the nation.  Fortunately, it sounds like our area is still a sellers market and we should do OK...probably not as well as we did selling my father-in-law's place (it went for almost $20K over list price), but well enough.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news, our boat is still on the hard in Virginia. Unfortunately the yard hasn't been doing a very good job of getting work done on time or anywhere near estimate.  So, pretty soon I will be returning to Rover to finish the necessary out-of-the-water repairs, get her back in the water, and get her heading south for warmer waters.

Well, I think my 15 minute break is over...so back to work. Only 3 days left to get everything dug out, cleaned up, displayed and priced for the sale.  Wish me luck!

Oh, and if you happen to be in the Denver area this weekend, feel free to swing by the sale and say hi.  Here is a link to one of the advertisements for the sale with the info: Broomfield Colorado Estate Sale.

Budgeting Freedom Chips

Mowing the lawn is one of those tasks I certainly did not miss when living on the boat. But, while I am here in Colorado, it has been one of my chores as we work on the house.  So, a couple days ago as I was mowing the lawn, the new neighbor that moved in across the street was in her car with what sounded like talk radio playing really loudly.

As I bag up the grass clippings, I start to hear a much softer voice in the background.  Is my neighbor talking to the radio?  Then I realize that it wasn't talk radio, but she was using her car's Bluetooth phone interface to carry on a conversation.  And with the radio so loud, it is virtually impossible (for anyone in the neighborhood) to ignore half of the conversation. The call was clearly work-related and it sounds like my new neighbor is some sort of personal financial planner.

The discussion was about how their client was having trouble keeping within her budget. It sounded like, while she had more than sufficient budget to provide for life's daily necessities and then some, she would continue to overspend each month.  I went back to mowing the lawn but started thinking about their client.

I thought about a post I made a while back on money and how it actually equates to a person's freedom. I wondered if their client was similar to other people I've encountered (including myself) that would often go buy things in an attempt to fill some sort of void in their life.  I pondered if the person's view of their budget would change if it were more obvious to them that they were trading part of their lifetime for whatever things were blowing the budget.  And maybe if they were enjoying their life a bit more, they wouldn't feel the need to spend their freedom on these things.

Of course, I only got half of the conversation so I don't know the whole story...and I'm sure the client, whoever she is, is probably happy about that.  But it does remind me that there are a lot of people out there running in the rat race because it is what society expects of them, they aren't that happy, and they never questioned that there may be other ways.  If my neighbor's client figures out there may be better ways (or that her financial problems are being aired throughout our neighborhood), she may regain some of her budget. And when she fires the people telling her to work more and spend less maybe she can figure out the underlying cause that makes her overspend and just perhaps she can regain some of her freedom.

Losing Even More

Last time I mentioned how I had lost a few things and that those losses were good things.  Well, the good losses continue.  This past weekend we had the first of what will undoubtedly be several garage sales as we continue to trade all of this stuff we have accumulated for our freedom.

If I knew then what I know now I certainly wouldn't have bought some of this stuff...but as I've admitted before, I was somewhat the good little American consumer that our society trained us to be since we were children.  Fortunately neither my wife nor I have ever been big spenders or overly compelled to "keep up with the Joneses", so the damage to our freedom isn't nearly as bad as it could have been.  Still, even recouping a small percentage of the price paid for many of these things we no longer need feels really good.

We held the sale on Friday and Saturday and had an assortment of items available.  We had some tools, kitchen equipment, dishes, artwork, camping gear, electronics, and the list goes on.  It was really only a very small subset of the items we need to get rid of, but was a good start and filled the garage.  I forgot how much of a pain it is to price things for a garage sale.  On one hand, you want to get a reasonable price for things in order to justify having the sale but you also want the items gone (to me the one thing worse than not getting a reasonable price for things would be to have to pay to get rid of them).  We decided to try and price things around 10 cents on the dollar of replacement cost, with some exceptions for condition or the type of item.

Since we had more to sell than would fit in the garage, I often told those that stopped by to let me know if there was anything in particular they were looking for. A few folks took us up on the offer and we did sell a few things that weren't originally out for the sale. We continued to "restock" as items were sold, so it is hard to get an accurate idea of how much we purged.

We got rid of a few big items that has made some extra space in the garage/house.  In the end we did regain over a thousand dollars worth of our freedom.  Not too shabby.

Thankful for a few Freedom Chips and the Wisdom to Use Them Well

It's Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., and we have been busily preparing to take possession of our future home afloat. While I don't generally like those "I'm thankful" messages that seem to be so pervasive (and not always sincere) and pop up in our social media society always connected conscience this time of year, today I decided to write one. So my apologies for writing this, and I do hope you find it interesting or at least sincere.

Actually, I hadn't planned on writing this at all.  My intention was to try to catch up on some of the reading I've wanted to do but am terribly behind on. I was reading the Cost Conscious Cruiser (one of the books that was so generously gifted to me and that I plan to pay forward in the future) and in one of the stories, it made mention of the phrase "Freedom Chips".  If you have been researching cruising much, you have probably heard this term used for money a number of times now.

Freedom Chip

I think it is a great term.  In our society we seem to be well trained to try and collect money but not to really see what the true cost of that effort is.  Sometimes there is a specific goal for the money and it is needed (food, shelter), but most of the time it seems it is just collecting money for the sake of trying to "keep up with the Joneses", to prove success or justify our existence.  We trade it for the newer shiny car, the bigger house, the big flat screen TV, or other symbols of our success.  At least that is what I feel I've spent most of my adult life doing anyway.

Calling money freedom chips makes the actual transaction much more clear.  I've traded my freedom for these chips by sitting in a soft-walled container staring at a glowing box on my desk (OK, I was diligently writing computer software) for 40 to 60 hours each week of my adult life. I would then trade these chips that represented my lost freedom for the bigger house, the newer car, the 65" big screen TV, or even just putting them in storage (bank) for later use.  Once or twice a year I may even trade my freedom chips in for a little freedom, a vacation from the other 50 weeks a year where I was trading my freedom away.

Since we started this idea of leaving it all behind and going cruising, we have been converting some of these symbols of our success back into freedom chips.  We've spent some of our chips to learn to sail and will soon be spending a lot more of them to acquire our traveling floating shelter.  Over the next few months we should have far fewer symbols of success and far more freedom chips.  We intend to trade a larger percentage of our chips for freedom as we move forward.  Freedom to spend our time the way we want.

We will always have to trade some of our freedom for chips and some of those chips for life's necessities, but we hope to find a balance that better favors our freedom and not symbols of our past "success".  The realization of our role in the rat race and the desire to change that role is what I'm most thankful for this year. Hopefully as we move forward we will spend our freedom chips wisely.

Hey Buddy, How Much for That Boat?

In the process of shopping for our future home afloat, this is a very common question on my mind. Of course, the real question I grapple with is "What is that boat worth?" Being a novice boat buyer, I entered into this process not really knowing much about the market.  Having gone through two contracts as well as a couple other offers and a lot of market analysis, I figured it was time for a "what I've learned thus far" on the subject.

Now before you go thinking what I write below is gospel, remember that we only started looking at boats in earnest in April (that's about 6 months ago folks). Also remember that we are shopping for used live-aboard catamarans in the sub $200,000 (US) category. And some of this is rather obvious, but I've found that with all the info swirling around on one's mind, sometimes even the obvious statements are worth mention.

The first thing that I've learned is that every used boat is unique.  They may have looked the same when they rolled off the assembly line, but they were probably unique by the time they were sold and certainly are by the time they are re-sold one or more times. Comparing live-aboard boats is a lot like comparing furnished houses combined with cars.  Each one has unique furnishings and touches, included equipment, as well as different levels of wear...and then they have engines and batteries and other vehicle aspects too.  This makes attempting to determine a reasonable value for a boat a very difficult task. I think most brokers, be it house or boat, learn the standard capitalist answer to the above question...you know...the "it's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it" answer.  That's great in your college Capitalism 101 course, but doesn't really give you much of a place to start when looking at boats. 

A near "bristol" condition FP Tobago.

We tend to start like we do with houses, looking at comparable sales or "comps" as they are usually called in real estate.  Seems reasonable, but there are a couple problems with it.  First, there are far fewer boats of a given type than there are houses in a neighborhood, so a comp list of recent sales often must go back years instead of weeks or months as you would for a house.  Another issue is the wide variance in condition and equipment. Obviously a former charter boat with minimal 1990's electronic equipment (often not working), original sails and upholstery, etc. would be a far different value than a non-chartered boat of the same age where the owner has updated the equipment and interior as tastes and technologies have changed.  And yet another differentiator is location. If you are lucky enough to find a number of "comps" it is not likely they were sold in the same area in which you are looking. Boats in less tropical climates tend to age better than those subjected to the tropical sun, and this impacts the value.  Boats located in hard to get to remote locations or places people don't really want to spend as much time in tend to sell for less just as boats in hot boating markets or where the supply is limited relative to demand fetch a higher price.

Leopard in fair condition when we saw it.

So, you collect what data you can and try to come up with an average.  What the average boat, in average condition, with average equipment should cost...approximately. As a software engineer with a minor in mathematics, I prefer looking at hard numbers. In my many attempts to figure all of this out, here are some rough guidelines I've found seem to hold true...at least for the catamarans in the price range I've been looking at sold in the United States (this excludes boats in "restorable/salvage" condition, see definition below).

• Boats sell for about 12% less than they are listed on average.
• Boats used in charter take about a 10% hit in price.
• Location can make a 10% difference in price 
• US non-tropical locations near the top
• Remote (harder to get to) tropical locations near the bottom
• The condition of a boat can make about a 30% difference in price (not including salvage).
• 3 years seems to be a reasonable time frame when collecting "comps".
• There is little difference in price between older and newer versions of a given model, prices are mostly based on condition.
• Buying a boat with the equipment you want is cheaper than buying a cheaper boat and adding all the equipment yourself.

As condition has such a large impact on price, it also helps to have a common definition of the condition of a boat.  The following seems to be a pretty "standard" definition of several surveyors and surveyor organizations.

• Excellent/Bristol Condition: A vessel that is maintained in mint condition or "Bristol fashion" – usually better that factory new, loaded with extras (very rare).
• Above Average Condition: A vessel that has had above average care and maintenance and is equipped with extra electrical, electronic, and other gear.
• Average Condition: A vessel that is ready for sale (or ready to sail) requiring no additional work and normally equipped for her size.
• Fair Condition: A vessel that requires typical recurring maintenance to prepare for sale.
• Poor Condition: A vessel that requires substantial yard work (in excess of normal maintenance items) and is devoid of extras.
• Restorable/Salvage Condition: A vessel where enough of the hull and engine exists to restore the boat to usable condition.

So, with this information you can start to get an idea of what you might end up paying for a given catamaran when all is said and done.  Here's an example using a fictitious catamaran:

• You are looking at a 1995 WidgetCat (I told you it was fictitious) in above average condition and started it's life as a charter boat (engines both have 5000 hours).  They are asking $190,000
• Assuming you don't have comps available, you look at the available listings:
• 1993 WidgetCat $220,000
• 1994 WidgetCat $180,000
• 1996 WidgetCat $200,000
• The average asking price is $200,000 so the average sold price is probably around $176,000.
• Since the specific boat is a former charter, expect 10% less than the average.
• Since the specific boat is in above average condition, expect 7.5% more (30% range gives 7.5% per step with average being the starting point).
• So, the final sales price for this 1995 WidgetCat should be about 2.5% below average (10-7.5) or about $171600.

Obviously this works a little better the more accurate data you have, for instance actual sold comps instead of average asking price.  But, hopefully it will give you some idea of where to start.

This isn't any sort of guarantee, and for every rule there is an exception. Also remember I'm of very limited experience in this area...so take this for what it's worth (and for what you paid for this advice :-) ). And, as I stated earlier, every boat is unique.  All of this calculation of averages and estimates are just that, averages and estimates.  I guess the Capitalism 101 answer is ultimately correct...but I hope this helps folks figure out where to start the negotiations.

 So, what do you think?  For those that have purchased boats, does this sound like what you found?  For those just starting to look, does this help any? Anyone out there want to comment on differences with the monohull market or different price ranges? Am I just an engineer trying to apply some order and logic where there obviously isn't any?

Strike Two

Well, it doesn't look like we will be reaching an agreement on the Leopard 38 "Catzpaw" that we had under contract.  There is just too much work that needs to be done to this neglected boat to justify the price that the owner wants.

When we put the offer in on the boat we took into account the things we knew about that needed work plus a little for unknowns for a boat that has been obviously sitting neglected for a year or more. Tape on two windows and a hatch were obvious indications that they were leaking and needed to be rebed. Hull damage from what appears to be a scuffle with a dock.

Taped window and hatch

Impact with a dock?

We were told the house battery bank was not doing well and would likely need replacement (an understatement, they wouldn't hold enough charge to run the chart plotter alone). Various light fixtures were broken, one of the AC units didn't work, and there were other odds and ends that needed work. The gel coat was in poor condition from baking in the sun for a long time without so much as a wax, and the fact there was a marine sanctuary growing on the boat bottom made the neglect rather obvious. But despite all of this we liked the boat and were willing to give the boat the love it had been missing to bring it back to reasonable condition, so we took these factors into account and made an offer that we believed was more than fair given the typical price range for these boats is $150K ~ $175K.

Well, along came the survey and we found that far more than we anticipated was wrong.  There were 51 items listed in the findings and recommendation section of the survey. The diesel generator would not work and had enough wrong with it that the surveyor highly recommended replacement ($8K), The water maker that was supposed to be pickled but was not and pumps were inoperative ($5K), the windlass would not carry a load when we tried using it ($4K), and the electric winch was inoperative ($3.5K).  That's over $20k just to replace the top 4 items found during the inspection.  Add in the non-functional refrigerator, seized through hulls, various electrical problems and everything else that needed work and it came out to over $32K in parts and labor to replace everything that was found that we weren't expecting to find (the total refit cost we estimated was between $60K and $70K including these new items).

We decided that we would split the difference on that $32K, an offer our broker said was more than generous. Our hope was that we could do much of the work ourselves and perhaps repair or find used and serviceable parts to help lower the cost. We are also getting a bit tired of going through all of this process just for the deal to collapse and that has a bit of value itself.  So our broker went back asking for a concession at time of closing to cover half of the cost of the stuff we did not know about that was found on the survey.

I don't know if sellers have way too much emotion tied up in their boats that they can't see the true market value, if they are wearing the rose-colored glasses I mentioned in the previous post and see the boat as it was when they bought it and don't see how time and their neglect have reduced it's value (I think the listing from when the current owner bought the Leopard can be found here) or what the reasons are that some owners have over-inflated sense of worth of their boats, but in this case, the seller was only wiling to concede $5K.  That is less than 1/10th of what we believe the boat needs, one sixth of what it might cost to fix the items we did not know about and 1/3 of what we asked in concessions.  Needless to say, that is not going to happen. So much for being generous.

I'm starting to wonder if people selling their catamarans have been out baking in the sun too long (much like some of their boats). I'm also starting to feel a bit bad for my broker.  I know he put a lot of work into trying to make this deal happen and neither of us can believe that this is happening again. Well Pete, what did you once say to me..."they are always making plastic boats and another one is right around the corner."

And on that note, a new boat has come on the market that we might be interested in. The owner of the Tobago we saw during our last shopping trip has also reduced his price and, unlike this one, was an obviously well cared for boat. So, the shopping continues...

Starting to Purge

Among all the looking for a new boat, there was also an important step that I made a couple weeks ago.  I started getting rid of things since we need to purge much of our current lifestyle in order to begin the cruising lifestyle.  Actually, to be truthful, I got rid one big item...probably my prize possession.

I think this is the first time I've mentioned it on the blog, I am a pilot.  While I didn't learn to fly as a profession, I found flying to be very fun and relaxing.  My prize possession, as you might guess, was my airplane.  Now, before you think I'm rich, this was a small, single engine, 4-seat aircraft which costs about as much as many cars, used campers, or small (non-live-aboard) boats. Right about the time we were going thru the survey on the Lagoon 37 was when I sold the plane.  I'm happy to say that I sold the plane to a nice gentlemen who I think will take good care of her.

After selling the plane I had a hangar full of stuff that needed to go, so I had the first of what will undoubtedly be many garage sales in our future.  I wasn't entirely sure how an aviation specific garage sale in a hangar would go over, but I was able to get rid of a fair amount of stuff.  This was a particularly good thing as I didn't want to haul a bunch of the bigger or aviation specific items home (it's amazing how much stuff you can collect in 8 years).

It felt good to be getting rid of stuff and putting some extra cash back in the bank.  I will also be getting rid of the hangar rent bill at the end of the month and that will result in more cash in the bank while I still have a job.  I will miss the plane though.

The Other Money Question

After the "how much will it cost?" question, the next money question people usually ask is "how will you finance this?".  Well, the truth of the matter is that we aren't quite sure.

While I like to call this my retirement plan, the truth is that neither of us will be able to completely retire.  So, the real goal here is to not spend 50 weeks of our lives each year sitting in a box just for a 2 week vacation.  So, assuming we will fall under the "moderate" category in the Beth and Evans Cost of Cruising example, the question is how we will be able to generate $20,000 a year while living on a boat.

One thought we had was to purchase some property that we could then rent.  With the sale of most everything we own plus some savings that we have, we might be able to purchase some property in addition to the boat.  If we can find the right market, either long term or vacation rental may provide some income.  Of course, the question is where...

Another option we have considered is doing what the couple that sparked this crazy idea in us was doing...chartering.  We could make some money taking people on dinner cruises or maybe even overnight excursions.  This option, of course would require licensing...and since we don't have much sailing experience yet, this is probably more of a longer term option than one we could do starting on day one.

My wife and I both have skills that could translate into contract work.  So if we need to, I think we could probably pick up some short term contract work that would be sufficient to pay the bills.  The key here would be to not make it a full time job, even for a short term.  I will not go back to sitting behind a computer 40+ hours a week.

The last obvious option is finding local part-time work.  I'm reasonably good with electronics and electrical systems, maybe helping out a boatyard with upgrade and refit work would be an idea.  Or I'm sure there are other odd jobs around a boatyard.  If not, I'm sure we can find part-time work elsewhere in various ports, even if it is simple retail.

In the end, we are talking $10,000 each per year.  That's just not all that much so I have confidence that we will be able to do it.  If you have any ideas, feel free to leave a comment

I can do better than this...maybe they'll need part-time help.

More Cost Research

Just a quick post this time.  In my continuing research on the money issue, one of the best "answers" to the annual cost of cruising question I've found was in this article from the Beth and Evans site:

Cost of Cruising

They have collected real user data and created three fictitious families to demonstrate the average annual cost of living and cruising on a sailboat.  Obviously everyone's situation will be different, but this article written in 2006 seems  to be a reasonable starting point.