Al you got to pay if you want to play :)
Hell i sold all of my other toys so i could get that gun last year and no regrets.
Was it the smartest purchase i have ever made? probably not but it has been a lot of fun and having it is a lot better than waiting for the day i can go get another Cig.

Okay, so I was holding off until after the election. Now it's after the election but not with the results I was hoping for.

So now I'm still uncertain. I've been looking and there are a lot of good deals out there and will probably be more as I wait.

I'm thinking I'm going to wait until after the first of the year and see how things shake out. I'm really thinking six months but that puts us right at the start of summer so prices may be up.

It's going to be tough though because we've been having some beautiful boating weather on the coast. I'm doing some roofing for the Coast Guard in Santa Barbara and here is a shot of Pacific in the background. Hard to work when you are staring out at that all day long!

You sound like your smarter than most when it comes to finances and what makes sense financially. IMO you are much better off staying in that $30k-$40k budget and paying cash versus financing a TG for double that amount...
These are a couple boats I would be all over in your price range.

http://www.boattrader.com/listing/19...Fastech-342881

http://www.boattrader.com/listing/19...tech-101840549

Paying cash makes sense to me too. Plus you'll probably be less tight on gas and upkeep money and might get more enjoyment out of the boat. It'd be a shame to miss out on some good times by waiting to get a more expensive boat if the smaller one would work. You can always sell it and get a larger one later.

Both of those are GREAT boats

I've seen the second one it was pretty clean. Only issue I noticed was it had some mildew on the rear hatch, Also had 500+ hours.