It's funny but I've heard that mumbled about myself, too...:rolleyes: Go figure...

I can't afford a boat payment or marina storage, bought a small boat I can keep in the driveaway, older boat but fully re-rigged
light weight and bow up, (cheap on gas) paid cash, after selling my pride and joy car. The best stress release out there to be on the water.
Wife isn't passionate about it, so we will never borrow money for a boat payment.
I have to make sacrafices to fund a passion, like many of you, try to take my lunch to work most every day.
sold things i owned and wasn't passionate about.
Best thing my wife and I have done is to set a budget and a spread sheet to track all expenditures, we allow $100 spending a month to go out and eat etc.
We have three checking accounts, our combinded account for all living expenses (the account with the spreadsheet) and we each have our own account to use as we want with out explaining what we spend to each other.

Very Cool Thread!!

100mph352003 - I hear ya! I'm in much of the same boat. I'm from a small (6500pop.) town in Kansas where people are very consertive. My family ownes a Funeral Home and has for over 90 years right in the middle of Main St. We are very much in the public eye. From time to time I keep my boat in the garage here at the Funeral Home. I get the same kind of talk that you do about the boat. During Services I move the boat across town and park it at my buddy's car lot but now it's even to the point that my father has said he would rather not have it here anymore.


Why is it that if we had put just as much time and money into a old "Street Rod" nobody would even think twice!! Heck I know of a lot of Street Rods that have over 50 or 60 grand in them!!

What if we had a $40,000.00 Bass boat hundred's of fishing poles and thousands of dollars in tackle, and bought a new boat every other year??? Hell, everyone would think that's O.K.!!

My wife and I don't come from money and have worked our butts off in school and work to get what we have. When we got married we took every dime we had and put a large down payment on our house. At the time the payment was still a *****, now its nice and low and gives us lots of freedom to do things like boats. Thankfully other than our house, truck and boat we are debt free. Took 6 years to pay off our student loans and my wife's college cards! Looks like the boat will be for sale though. My wife has asperations of going back to law school full time starting next summer. If she does, I plan to pay for it as we go. No more loans!!!!!!!! But paying $12,000 tuition per year and losing 40K in income probably won't allow us to keep the boat we have. Looks like a Bayliner for the next 3 years. After that, look out!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very interesting thread,

I am 44 years old and my two children are out of the house. We live in a house that would probably win the prise as the smallest on this board. Bottom line is that is is paid for and we are very comfortable in it. The wife shares the same passion for boating that I do, so when I told her it was time to buy or build a new house, her reply was NO, I want a bigger boat.

WOW, that is great as far as I'm concerned. So our mortage is going toward a boat that we can right off like a second home, and it is our get away for weekends and vacations. You only go around once, we are not getting any younger, and we have not found a better way to spend our time off that we enjoy more in the warm months than boating.

However, this new 36 attracts a lot of attention. I will have people follow me from the interstate to the ramp to ask how much it costs and how fast it runs. These two questions are coming at us from every direction every time we have the boat out. We have had people follow us home and just set in front of the house as we are backing the boat into the drive. People actually drive out of there way and bring friends by to see it in the driveway.

I never in my life would have imagined that it would attract so much attention. They make comments like "It is Huge, that must have cost $50,000. Does it use much gas? Can you sleep on it?"

If they really knew what it cost and what it cost to operate it, they would ****.

But they still think just because you have something like this that you are making too much money. They forget that we have worked for years to get it, that we don't have a hugh mortage, or we would not have it and we get so much enjoyment from it that it is worth the cost to us.

This is what we want to spend our money on, it kinda pisses me off a little that we get the third degree from so many people regarding the cost.

It is best to not let anyone you work with, customers, vendors , etc. even know you have something like this.

Just my 2 cents.

Mark

Chin up Sean, I think the guy was jelous. You only go around once and you cant take it with you. I lost my father three years ago..he was 52, I am 30. I am looking for my first offshore boat. I hear all the crap from friends, coworkers and everyone else. You know what, I do not care what they think I will be happy with my loud obnoxious offshore power boat. Oh yeah I wont mind giving rides to all those who made fun either.

You have to go sometime and this is not a dress rehersal, so you midaswell go OFFSHORE!

Great Thread
 

Ifs great reading all these great posts. I am in my last year of college, and the questions of minimum salary? what can I budget? what are my expenses? are popping up. Its scary to think about. Its great knowing you all think about the same things, even the all guys with these dream boats. But, you can count on one thing....a monthly allowance for boat payment in my Budget! :D

This is the best reading in a while, great topic 29SCARAB. My wife and me are the so called "DINKS"(WE HAVE BEEN TRYING VERY HARD TO RECTIFIE THAT TITLE:D :D ). The funny thing is most people we know also know we have no kids and descent jobs and the same thing happens, "How can you afford that". We have the smallest boat in our crowd, so I can only imagine the questions everyone else gets. My wife and I are both die hard boaters and we will do or work what ever takes to be on the boat and continue boating. As we all on OSO know the best and truest people you meet are power boaters.

Once again thank you OSO for providing a great forum to live our passions through!


Jan

Boat payment.........? :p

This is a great thread!! I get that all of the time. I used to park my 311 Formula in the driveway. I used to get the entire neighborhood come to my doorstep and say...wow, what does that cost...how can you afford that? BLAH BLAH..

All Ive heard about from these people is whining and crying about their financial misfortunes . I am sick of someone asking me about "what does that cost" How can you afford that? His "Daddy left him the money" I don't run over to them and ask how much their 10k John Deere riding mower costs as it carts their fat butts around their yards. I have a old beat up push mower that smokes (Bugs the crap out out of the neighbors anyway) I don't have fancy tree lighting like my neighbors do, I don't drive the fancy cars....I drive a 2500 Truck!

I guess what I am trying to say is that we all have made decisons in our lives and made sacrifices to get what we want. In my book the less fortunate (sp) are that way because they are lazy. We all work very hard for where we are, or for that matter - to stay were we are financially. I have taken financial risks recently and really "stuck it out there." I don't see the average guy sticking it out there to get ahead. But these are the ones that cry and whine that they can't afford anything or give me a hard time because I have some of the finer things in life. They are the ones who knows what a 40hr work week is all about. They are the ones who knows what it's like to take a "vacation."

I am just blowing off a little steam with this thread but this really gets me going! I have read some real good posts on this thread and I am so glad that there is a forum that we can all communicate on.

Thank you OSO, and thank you everyone for your insights.

Jim Schultz