Are We Better Off Now Than 4 Years Ago? – Bequia, The Grenadines, March 26, 2024

First off, Happy Anniversary to my beautiful husband!  We have now been married for 11 years and boy, have we covered a lot of ground in that time!  Raised 4 daughters, lived and worked in suburbia, retired, sold our house 3 times, travelled to at least 20 countries (many multiple times) together (with and without the children), moved countless times, become nomads and minimalists, and so much more.  You have been a gift and saved my soul!

A brief recap on where we were 4 years ago and how much has changed.  4 years ago, we were both working fulltime in corporate America, had 1 kid still in the house in high school, 3 kids in college, a house in suburbia and 6 cars, 2 motorcycles, and a house full of stuff.  Wow our lives look so much different now.  We now have 2 kids getting ready to graduate here in 6 weeks from college, two kids already graduated from college and adulting, no house, no car, 2 motorcycles, 1 boat, 1 parttime consulting gig, 1 blog, a storage unit full of stuff, and spend 6 months a year living in the Caribbean.  Quite a big difference I would say.  I think we are so much better off now than we were 4 years ago. 

A key part of the journey has been trying to arrange all of this and our strategic tools, finance all of this, and carry healthcare in the process of all of that in the states and internationally.   I did a post last year on our finances and I wanted to give a brief update there.  We still use the empower app to track our budget (which used to be personal capital) and I have the say I still love it.  Let’s look at last year vs. this year and I work best with a picture so here goes.  The blue is 2022 and the orange is 2023.

Now what does this say to me?  Well here goes:

• Overall, we spent about 20% more in 2023 vs. 2022. However that is offset by also saving 20% of our income for 2023 as opposed to about 5% in 2022.
• Boat Maintenance went down in 2023 quite a bit since not only did Ron do most of the work but any work we did hire out was done in Grenada (which is significantly cheaper than what we had done in the states). We felt like we worked a lot harder on the boat in 2023 (mainly because of the bottom job) even though we spent less.
• Restaurants are still embarrassingly large in 2022, then actually went up in 2023!  Yikes.  I guess we still have some work to do.  It went up because we sat in Columbus for the whole off season, and it was our main form of entertainment.  I am hoping the new magic grill will chance this category significantly in 2024 since we have started to eat a lot more on the boat and plan to buy the same grill for the RV.
• Travel went down significantly mainly because in 2022 we spent way more on hotels driving out west.  In 2023 we flew more but used points so there was not much cost.
• If I add together the Housing and Travel categories, they are about the same for both years.  It doesn’t matter if we rent an apartment or stay in corporate housing/hotels.  At the end of the day, it really all equals out.  I am glad to know this as I think it gives us more flexibility during the off season.  It will be interesting to see how this changes when we get the RV and the costs there. 
• Groceries didn’t change even though we are spending more on restaurants.  Not sure why this is but I think it is because we are giving/throwing away more groceries when we change locations for the season.  We are unable to store any uneaten food in the boat or storage unit and must rebuy when we get to our new location.  Maybe?
• Boat Storage was cut nearly in half since we moved the boat from the USA to Grenada.  This was a large part of why we are storing the boat in Grenada again.  Hard to deny this.
• Our Automotive cost was down significantly since we rode the motorcycle and did not rent a car for most of our off season. 
• Our Gas/Diesel costs were about the same both years even though we have sailed much more this year and spent more time in a marina this year since we went home for Christmas.  This may be partially due to where we bought the diesel vs. how much though?  As you will notice our dockage doubled in 2023.
• Telephone was the same.
• Bike upgrades went down in 2023, mainly because this covers the cost of us adding the trunk for our trip out west in 2022.
• Th Insurance category includes not only our motorcycle insurance but also insurance for the boat and daughter #4’s car.  Our insurance cost has gone down 4% in 2023, however the way the billing works out we pay for it in December so it is prepaid a year in advance.  I still don’t fully understand this one yet.
• Our healthcare went up 1% since we changed daughter #4’s healthcare to the University plan which is more expensive than having her on our Obamacare plan this year.  Our insurance went down in 2023 and will drop again when she starts adulting post-graduation.
• Electronics was up since Ron had to buy a new phone in 2023 because he threw his old one into the ocean.
• We spent more in the Everything Else Category by far again as an entertainment mostly during our off season.  We certainly could get this back in check this coming off season.

Being a budget nerd and an early retiree, I think it is important we keep a pretty short leash on our budget.  Ron and I have reviewed this together and are looking at this coming off season with some major changes.  Initially we will have an investment in the RV but we should be able to get an ROI on this compared to our housing & travel costs in a maximum of 7 years.  Exploring the southern Caribbean the next few years will certainly pay off in the boat storage if nothing else.  With 2 more kids graduating college here soon they will drop off our support ticket which will reduce the healthcare, insurance, and everything else categories by a nice chunk.  I am excited to see what our 2024 comparison looks like in January!  More to come!