Florida trip Expenses

W

Will-C

New member
My wife and along with our dog Lucy spent the month of February down in the Florida Keys in Marathon. We spent three days in St Augustine at a nice campground called North Beach Camp Resort as we left early and our slip rental started Feb 1st. Round trip about 4000 miles towing the boat about 3500 miles. Diesel fuel $831 boat fuel $74.00 dollars, rent for marina 28 days campground 3 days and one motel on the way home rent total $1115. Groceries $694 entertainment movie, tourist trolley through St. Augustine, fishing, beach umbrella, cab in Key West and parking $291. Gifts for grandkids etc. $123. Misc. getting nails done,(mani, Pedi for the wife) just a pedi for me only do that once every five years, Walgreens, maid tip $130. Laundry $56, car washes $28. And this was surprising eating out $1521. That included paying for a couple dinners to folks we entertained. Grand total for the month was $4863. When we did eat out we did go to better places. Normally breakfast lunch on the boat and most dinners on the boat. We did make fish tacos and fish cakes for a number of boats around us which rang up the grocery bill a little. We will probably try to cut down the eating out portion by half next year. Fished about six days out of the month it was pretty windy most of the time this year. Every fishing day costs me a beach trip, nails, etc. When we did fish I had a separate 100 quart cooler that I kept in the truck. I would pull our regular food cooler off the boat and get the tackle bag, cooler, and rods from the boat. The marina has free ice. I fished out about nine miles out in Florida bay near Bamboo Banks. I bought chum from the Publix grocery story along with a 1 pound pack of frozen squid. I would start chumming and catch smaller French grunts on the squid; fillet them and use strips of them to catch Spanish Mackerel which can make light tackle sing. Killed about 20 for the whole month. They turned into food for the pelicans, fish cakes and tacos, along with fish bites, small cubes of pan sautéed fish. Next year we will probably stay in the keys from mid Feb to mid April. I will split the time in between Marathon and Key West. The Key West fishing is the best. It was the first time we really tried to track every expense. We saw a number of C-Dory folks along the way with a number of Ranger tugs. It was a great trip.
D.D.
 
$28 for car washes, and $0 for wine for a month of boating, only part of which is Lent?
Thanks for the budget (diesel seems esp reasonable for your huge trip).
We would have spent over $42.00 on wine alone during a month of boating.
Cheers!
John
 
John,
I just wanted folks to be able to see what a trip to the Florida keys costs. We stayed on the boat for about 28 nights. We had some Hilton Honors American Express card points we used to stay in Key Largo for one night on the way down and one night on the way back. We stayed one night in Key West because it was windy and cold and we put the dog up in a decent kennel for a couple nights to give my wife a break. In the interest of full disclosure we traveled down from Pa. with three 3 litre boxes of Bota Box Pinot Grigio and a couple odd beers. Other wine and beer purchases were made but because we did those at Publix (the grocery Store) these beer (a case of Miller Lite plus a couple oil can sized Foster's Ale and wine costs (another Bota box),plus a couple 750 ml bottles to take into BYOB restaurants as we thought the box of wine might make us appear to be out of control. To avoid an intervention these costs where hidden under the grocery costs. Plus in our defense we did entertain on our boat and on our slip area.
D.D.
 
Thanks for sharing


Are you using your cell phones for internet access or have you found free or paid WiFi at campgrounds and marinas?

Go Well
 
Brent,
We stayed at the Black Fin Marina in Marathon, which has excellent Wi-Fi internet service. We also have a Verizon Ellipsis Jetpack. We use the Jetpack while towing the boat over land to let my wife check on food and possible motels using trip advisor, Yelp, Waze etc. and to keep in touch with friends and family. We always have a 400 watt inverter and a six way power strip to power and charge phones, Jet pack etc. both in the truck and on the boat.
I intended to try using my Freedom Pop burst and a router down there but before we left just in case that would not work; we sprang for the Jet pack. A good thing since the freedom pop burst would not work down there even though they showed coverage. My wife and I both have smart phones (Droids) on the same plan. For 10 gigs of data and the Jetpack it only added 30 dollars to our monthly phone bill. The jetpack cost us a dollar! The 10 gigs are shared by both phones and the Jetpack. We also use the Jetpack even if we have free internet if we are doing anything we want kept private like banking or bill paying on line. Free Wi-Fi seems to be almost everywhere but often is slow or inconsistent. The Jetpack works like a champ no holes in service seen the whole trip.
D.D.
 
Brent,
VPN? I don't even know what that is? The Jetpak has it's own password protection for security. We use the Jetpack when we want to protect our internet wanderings. When we use the marinas WIFI we just depend on our normal Avira virus protection.
D.D.
 
VPN is another level of security when using cell and Wifi connections esp open Wifi hot spots. You install an app and or software on device or PC,setup a VPN account with the company, open it, use your web browser to make online purchases and finiancial transactions ( check bank accounts, sell and buy stock, pay bills online, etc)

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, and creates a private and more secure connection to another site. The client or software encrypts your traffic before it is sent so if someone is snooping it would be useless to them . Your data is received by a server run by the VPN software company then sent to the finall web site. It is seamless in most cases but can slow down if the servers are busy or other glitches.

Some clients are free and others are not. I was looking at Stealth for example

Clear as mud?

We use Citrix VPN client at work and allows us to connect to network drives and open applications securely plus other features but will not work for personal use and we have our VPN servers
 
Brent,
I understand now. I remember a while back reading something about this on Active Captain. What does VPN service usually cost?
D.D.
 
So Dave , I didn't see "medical" marijuana or political contributions in the budget ?
What gives ?

Just kidding, that's a really interesting write up . Much cheaper and longer than doing the Miami Boat Show !
Marc
 
Marc,
Like Clinton I did smoke my share of weed but like Bill I never inhaled. (sic) I was introduced to weed in Vietnam while doing some work for the gumint. Having three kids my wife and I thought it might be better to be a more positive role models. I have no cross to bear about people who have more positive thoughts about weed. Believe me I smoked my share. But for me I'm a better person without it now. Not to mention drug tests by employer's along the way through my career would have frowned on it. I don't know what an oz cost these days but I sure some of todays more potent varieties might have impaired my ability to respond or do anything besides go oh wow man. I guess I could have gotten a part in the Cheech and Chong UP IN SMOKE movie.
As far as donations go; tipping is a far as that goes. If there ever was to be a poor politician I would probably make a donation. But since there does not appear to any poor ones that's not happening either. I don't even buy girl scout cookies. Maybe I'll smoke a bowl when we christen our Ranger Tug.
:smiled
D.D.
 
Pretty cool numbers and thanks! That averages out basically in the $165 a day range for travel. Pretty good rate actually. Some of us were talking the other day about "the cost of doing travel".... and pretty much agreed on about $175-200 a day depending mostly on hotels, miles traveled... by boat, car, truck..etc... fuel and eating out are always high. But, what is the price if we do nothing but wish.

I looked to find my cost figures the last "on the water trip" my brother Mike, his wife Brenda and I took but can not find them.
Can not recall how many days we were on the river, but we made way about 50-75 miles a day, only stayed overnight at one marina...and that was for 2 paid nights and 2 free nights to help the folks at the marina with a gig they had going on. It was a blast.

I recall my ice bill and my fuel bill were not that far apart. We traveled at hull/trawler speed and it was HOT. I wish I would have had my freezer on board for that trip as would have saved me several hundred dollars.
Again...thanks again for the travel figures.
 
At first I hesitated to post actual dollar expenses. I was embarrassed about the $1500 for eating out when we had really tried to rein that in a little. Then I thought because we have traveled to Florida for a month in the winter for a number of years some might find our costs helpful. Our marina was a deal at about 29 dollars a day. Pool, decent showers, nice little beach area which was quiet and had chairs and chase lounges, barbecue grills good power water free ice and free Wi-Fi, free truck and trailer storage free decent ramp. We also caught an unusual down turn in fuel prices. Little things like a haircut was $12 dollars as opposed to $17 at home. Our meals on the boat were cold cereal with ground flax seed which we used boxed milk of some kind that did not require refrigeration until it was opened. Cold cuts (smoked turkey, Swiss cheese and bread and butter pickle on Marathon Bread low fat mayo sandwiches. Dinners were usually fish, tacos, fishcakes using a crab cake recipe and substituting fish cooked in tin foil on our grill instead of crab meat. We bought some frozen meatballs, a jar of store bought tomato sauce and Penne pasta. We combined the sauce and meatballs cooked that up. Then boiled the pasta and added some pecorino/Romano grated cheese. A cheap baguette for the bread portion sliced up and sprayed with spray butter and some garlic and herb seasoning added then toasted lightly on the grill made for a great meal. We got invited to a potluck dinner deal and we cut up chicken, onions, green peppers and small tomatoes used cheap bamboo skewers soaked water and cooked them on the grill. I bought one of those mongo sized can of Bushes baked beans and warmed them after adding some onions on our induction cooker. We felt good about our contribution to the event. So we really did cut back from our normal eating out almost everyday. It was actually fun trying to keep track of everything using check book app on our IPAD.
D.D.
 
In Europe, boxed milk is fairly common. It is irradiated to sterilize it. It is shelf stable for quite some time. Irradiating food can protect it from spoilage without the changes in taste and consistency that can occur when some things are pasteurized. I think that they tried to introduce this type of food processing in the states some years ago, but some people have a big bugaboo about food and radiation as in "I ain't goin' to eat nothin' that's got that radiation in it!!"

The chemicals that they use to preserve some stuff are probably much worse for you.

I track all my money I/O in an excel spreadsheet. Been doing it for years. It gives a very accurate picture of your financial state. My SO used to give me grief about having to write down what all I spent, but when she says "I don't know where all my money went this month" I can say that I know exactly what I did with mine. Nowadays I feel kind of uncomfortable if I don't write down what I spent on something right away. The notepad function on my phone is very useful for this.
 
Back
Top