4/30/01 | Six month spending update

Every six months we've been posting a table showing our expenses, so that those of you who are planning to go cruising can see what it really costs. (If you missed it: May 1999-April 2000, and May 2000-October 2000.) This update is for November 2000-April 2001.

We track all our expenditures with Quicken. Keeping tabs on our account balances is important since we don't get our mail regularly. The following table was made by creating a Quicken report from our transactions for the last 6 months, exporting it as a tab-delimited file into Excel, and then exporting that spreadsheet into an HTML table. The categories are those we find useful, and we frequently add new ones and combine existing ones. Some categories (indicated by TOTAL after the name) are further broken down into subcategories; one subcategory (Communications-Phone) is broken down into two sub-sub-categories. For example, Auto-TOTAL includes Auto-Gas, Auto-Rental, and Auto-Other. Some categories that we use don't appear in this table because we didn't spend money on those things during this period, or because there were so few expenditures in them that we folded them into the Misc category.

Some notes on categories and on particularly large numbers follow the table. We were in Chesapeake Bay marinas installing our heater and doing other boat work during most of November. In December and January we were in Florida, then left the US toward the end of February.

	11/00	12/00	1/01	2/01	3/01	4/01	TOTAL
Alcohol	427.52	0.00	285.12	0.00	13.00	23.00	748.64
Auto-Gas	54.61	17.58	6.00	0.00	0.00	6.00	84.19
Auto-Parking and Tolls	0.00	24.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	24.00
Auto-Rental	0.00	173.83	37.62	0.00	0.00	27.00	238.45
TOTAL Auto	54.61	215.41	43.62	0.00	0.00	33.00	346.64
Bank Charge	1.50	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	1.50	3.00
Boat-Charts	21.13	33.00	81.46	-25.00	-15.00	0.00	95.59
Boat-Dockage	510.71	34.31	149.48	0.00	0.00	0.00	694.50
Boat-Equipment	903.52	-173.32	1,220.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	1,950.20
Boat-Fuel	124.71	172.48	278.68	0.00	9.00	214.00	798.87
Boat-Insurance	2,108.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	2,108.00
Boat-Maintenance	60.49	258.10	99.40	0.00	40.75	0.00	458.74
Boat-Parts	862.10	132.75	630.98	0.00	114.46	35.00	1,775.29
Boat-Service	1,275.25	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	1,276.25
TOTAL Boat	5,865.91	458.32	2,460.00	-25.00	149.21	249.00	9,157.44
Books	0.00	11.00	61.64	0.00	0.00	0.00	72.64
Clothing	89.24	53.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	55.77	198.01
Comm-Internet	26.99	6.97	4.95	4.95	4.95	4.95	53.76
Comm-Mailing service	19.99	2.00	19.99	17.99	13.99	13.99	87.95
Comm-Phone	65.32	65.32	66.48	130.58	0.00	0.00	327.70
Comm-Postage	61.45	11.60	27.95	166.40	78.91	0.00	346.31
Communications-Other	0.00	0.00	0.00	3.00	3.00	0.00	6.00
TOTAL Communications	173.75	85.89	119.37	322.92	100.85	18.94	821.72
Computer	10.00	11.00	93.42	0.00	0.00	0.00	114.42
Dining	145.00	265.18	208.00	44.00	185.13	75.00	922.31
Entertainment-Bar	14.00	7.00	7.00	0.00	8.00	7.00	43.00
Entertainment-Movies	10.00	9.00	22.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	41.00
Entertainment-Museum	0.00	2.00	0.00	0.00	6.00	12.00	20.00
Entertainment-Other	0.00	385.22	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	385.22
TOTAL Entertainment	24.00	403.22	29.00	0.00	14.00	19.00	489.22
Groceries	398.02	544.09	794.83	64.00	34.00	259.15	2,094.09
Guides and tips	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	13.00	60.00	73.00
Hotel	0.00	254.66	0.00	0.00	127.28	0.00	381.94
Household	64.78	8.00	17.00	0.00	0.00	21.00	110.78
Laundry	12.00	10.00	20.00	0.00	12.00	18.00	72.00
Licenses and Permits	25.00	0.00	0.00	100.00	35.00	0.00	160.00
Medical-Glasses	459.96	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	459.96
Medical-Insurance	388.50	0.00	0.00	0.00	1,590.50	0.00	1,979.00
Medical-Medicine	23.00	0.00	72.00	0.00	0.00	53.00	148.00
TOTAL Medical	871.46	0.00	72.00	0.00	1,590.50	53.00	2,586.96
Misc	34.00	18.77	43.00	0.00	202.00	34.00	331.77
Office supplies	70.80	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	15.98	86.78
Recreation-Diving	0.00	0.00	92.02	0.00	120.00	0.00	212.02
Recreation-Entry fees	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	12.00	12.00
Recreation-Equipment	0.00	84.77	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	84.77
Recreation-Fishing	0.00	198.37	11.50	0.00	21.24	0.00	231.11
TOTAL Recreation	0.00	283.14	103.52	0.00	141.24	12.00	539.90
Sewing and Crafts	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	9.00	9.00
Subscriptions	115.00	0.00	33.50	18.95	0.00	0.00	167.45
TOTAL Tax	0.00	0.00	634.35	0.00	0.00	0.00	634.35
Tools	14.68	14.49	5.14	0.00	7.00	0.00	41.31
Transit fares	6.00	1.00	3.00	0.00	9.00	65.00	84.00
TOTAL OUTFLOWS	8,403.27	2,637.17	5,026.51	524.87	2,633.21	1,022.34	20,247.37

Notes on categories

Alcohol

Booze bought from stores. Drinks in a bar are listed under Entertainment-Bar.

Bank Charge

Stupid ATM fees...

Boat-Charts

Includes cruising guides. The negative numbers are from selling old guidebooks and charts that we're no longer using.

Boat-Equipment

There's a fine line between "equipment" and "parts". Mostly, "equipment" is gear which retains its own identity, e.g. the radar is equipment but the pole we had made to mount it is a part. The big numbers in this category are the Pactor IIe HF modem (which could also be considered Communications, or Computer, but since the HF radio's "equipment" we decided this was too) and some additional diesel heater components in November (most of the system was bought in October), and the solar panels in January. The negative number in December was from returning unused components of the diesel heater system.

Boat-Fuel

Includes diesel, dinghy gas, and propane for cooking.

Boat-Maintenance

Items which must be renewed or replaced regularly. Bottom paint, fuel filters, oil filters, engine oil, zincs, metal polish, wax, varnish, and so on.

Boat-Service

We paid in November for the haulout and bottom job, hull waxing, and repainting of our hail port that we had done in October.

Communications-Postage

Shipping things (our mail, and our replacement dinghy prop) to the Bahamas is expensive!

Communications-Phone

We turned off our cell phone at the end of January (we paid each month for the previous month's charges which is why there are charges in February). Some of the February charges are for recharging our AT&T international calling card.

Entertainment-Other

Disney World!

Groceries

In addition to food, this includes nonedible consumables like paper towels, soap, toothpaste, bandages.

Hotel

Disney World in September, and Santo Domingo in March.

Household

Things for the boat which are related to making a home aboard, such as towels, storage baskets, soap dispensers, kitchen utensils.

Licenses and Permits

Our US Customs sticker, and check-in fees for the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

Medical

We switched insurance companies, and also went from a quarterly payment to a yearly payment. The large number in March is because we had to renew our old one while we were waiting for our new one, but we should be getting a few hundred dollars of refund (maybe!).Our health insurance only covers major illness or injury.

Subscriptions

Includes magazine subscriptions and memberships to organizations (SSCA, our yacht club, Boat US)