The rising cost of embracing life.

[nealeST]

I don’t have a Telegraph subscription, this from yesterday 23rd June:

 

Edited June 24, 2024 by nealeST
Date is yesterday’s

[blackrose]

It's funny how anyone posting anything from the Telegraph or Daily Mail these days feels they need to make it clear they don't normally use these media sources. 

 

Are you sure you're not a Tory? 🤣

[Victor Vectis]

Wrt reading the Torygraph......

Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

😜

[nealeST]

Until recently I lived permanently in Sweden for 25 years. I promise you the Swedish tax system wouldn’t appeal to Tories…..😉 I guess now nobody wants to own up to reading the Telegraph!

[Sea Dog]

£1100 a month for a mooring at Car Thief? Something amiss methinks. Either the sign writer was lost or this boat is mooring in Chelsea, not the S&W!

Apart for that, those two (perfectly lovely folk, I'm sure) look pretty unlikely "free spirits" - or maybe they feel their new bus pass has set them free?

Who wrote the article? They  must surely be using an inappropriate stock photo for the text.

[robtheplod]

Living in London is expensive... on a boat or otherwise......

[MtB]

Blimey, painting that tiller is probably one reason the boat was so expensive!!

 

 

[Tacet]

Someone at the Torygraph has used a stock picture.  The couple shown neither live aboard nor pay £1100 pcm to moor.  Come to that, I very much doubt £130k was paid for the boat.

[Higgs]

1 hour ago, Tacet said:

Someone at the Torygraph has used a stock picture.  The couple shown neither live aboard nor pay £1100 pcm to moor.  Come to that, I very much doubt £130k was paid for the boat.

 

At that price, it is more than double what its worth is. A link to the article would be a useful addition to the thread.

 

Paywall, can't read it.

 

'Our canal boat cost £130,000 and mooring is £1,100 a month – it's not cheap any more' (telegraph.co.uk)

 

 

Edited June 24, 2024 by Higgs

[matty40s]

Looks like Andy Tidy should sue for defamation...wide beam...

[jonesthenuke]

I too do not believe Andy Tidy pays 1100 pounds a month to moor.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

Deleted as the headline has nothing to do with the boat or the couple in the picture from what I’ve just read further down.

 

 

 

Edited June 24, 2024 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I can’t get on to read it,

could you cut and paste some of the article to give us a glimpse what they on about?

cheers

[john6767]

6 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

I can’t get on to read it,

could you cut and paste some of the article to give us a glimpse what they on about?

cheers

I have no problem in seeing the article on the link provided above.  If you look at it you will see that is contrasts two sets of people, the one that the headline figures come from is a widebeam based in London, the other being Andy and his wife and their preserve business, based of course in the Midlands.

[Arthur Marshall]

The article:

 

Calypso Rose was in a café with her husband James in Haggerston, east London, after a fruitless morning house-hunting when a man covered in paint came through the door.  He told them he was in the process of painting his narrowboat.  Fed up with fighting dozens of other potential buyers making offers on overpriced houses Calypso and James made their decision immediately.  “We said that was what we were going to do,” she says.  “Just like that. I sold my business, sold the house, sold all our stuff and bought a boat. I was 30 and it was a big declutter.” 

That was 12 years ago. Now Calypso and James live with their son Hendricks, eight, and rabbit Enzo on Osbert The Great, a 12ft by 63ft widebeam on a residential mooring in east London.  For their first couple of years aboard, the couple were among London’s band of constant cruisers – roving boaters without moorings who move from pitch to pitch every fortnight. Calypso Rose and her husband James live permanently on a houseboat after becoming disillusioned with house-hunting in London - Heathcliff O'Malley 

Their first boat, Osbert, cost £55,000. Over the following six months the couple gutted it inside and out, making at least £60,000 of improvements. Other costs were low.  “It was a widebeam, 10ft by 55ft,” she says. “Fuel costs – diesel, gas, coal, wood – were probably around £200 a year. Our licence was about £880 a year, which is much less than it is now. Insurance was about £400.  “You need insurance to get the licence and you also need a Boat Safety Certificate [like an MOT for boats, checking gas and fire safety], which is renewed every four years.”  A survey costs around £200 up from around £150 it cost 10 years ago. 

The constant cruising lifestyle worked well. Calypso started a new business, The Indytute, which curates gift experiences such as wine-tasting events and rooftop cinema. But the arrival of Hendricks changed matters.  Having acquired two residential moorings after a chance encounter on the towpath, they sold Osbert for £130,000 and had a larger boat built in Liverpool for the second mooring.  “We had Osbert the Great built 10 years ago and it was the most stressful thing I have ever done,” she says.  “The hull was only £35,000 but with the fit-out it cost about £130,000. That would be considerably more now as the price of steel has risen a lot.” 

Many people have embraced the constant cruising lifestyle as an alternative to renting in an increasingly unaffordable city.  But what has previously been thought of as an affordable way to live is getting more expensive. It remains a cheaper option but the costs are unpredictable and steadily increasing above inflation. 

  “Our mooring fee is £1,100 a month and was around £890 when we started,” says Calypso. “It’s quite a big chunk but it’s cheaper than renting. We pay council tax of £104 a month.  “Where we win is electricity – our bill is about £20 a month. Diesel and wood averages out over the year at £50 a month largely concentrated on winter.  “The licence fee is £1,700 a year, so that has doubled.”  That equates to £1,274 per month and £16,988 per year in expenses.  Increases to the licence fee are causing concern among the boaters of London, with additional rises levied on larger boats like Osbert The Great. This is partly to alleviate the strain on London’s waterways. 

The upfront costs can be high too: while a boat can be bought for £30,000 to £60,000, one on a mooring will sell for between £150,000 and £200,000.  That needs to be paid in cash, as boat mortgages are near impossible to come by.  Boat prices are rising, mostly because the cost of materials to build them has soared recently. They also depreciate in value; £1,000 a foot is a good rule of thumb. ‘The acronym for BOAT is Bring On Another Thousand’ 

A more frugal existence can be found outside London.  Helen Tidy has been boating with her husband Andy since their children were young.  Now grandparents, they acquired Wand’ring Bark – named after a line in Sonnet 116 – in 2004 for £34,000. It is a smaller boat – 42.5ft – but with a good engine and hull.  In 2017, Andy took early retirement and the couple downsized. Helen and Andy Tidy have downsized, spending half their summers aboard Wand'ring Bark.

They spend winter in a two-bedroom terrace in Walsall and summer cruising the canals of the Midlands and North, selling home-made jams, marmalades and chutneys using ingredients foraged from the towpath.  After suffering a bad fall, Helen began to make jam to sell from the boat, initially as therapy.  She was soon selling enough to start a company, Wild Side Preserves. 

They pay £100 a month for a permanent mooring in the Midlands – “very cheap even for the Midlands, because it’s an unfashionable and relatively inaccessible part of the network”, says Helen – and a licence fee of £1,140, up from £780 in 2017.  They also pay a licence fee of £345 for their second boat, an unpowered 27ft “spare room” called The Jam Butty that they tow.  Costs are kept down by the limitations of boat life. You can’t just order something on Amazon, and even if you did there would be nowhere to keep it. Andy’s DIY skills allow him to handle the regular challenges a boat has to offer, saving thousands in labour. 

“The acronym for BOAT is Bring On Another Thousand,” says Helen. “You really need to be able to do practical stuff because it can cost a fortune to have somebody else do it.”  Andy highlights the challenges of trading from boats, which is very seasonal. Aboard the Jam Butty tow, Helen and Andy Tidy sell homemade jams, marmalades and chutneys ‘It feels like an ancient way of life and allows you to make time’  Helen estimates that Wild Side Preserves creates enough work for one person, which they divide between themselves to make for an easier life. 

However, even outside London the rises in licence fees alongside the wider increase in the cost of living are having an impact.  Energy prices have risen – gas can be as much as £50 for a 13kg bottle, up from £17 a decade ago. Diesel is stable but coal has doubled in price to £15 a sack over the past decade.  “Because of changes in government funding, the Canal & River Trust are having to take more back from boaters,” says Andy.  “With the boating population outside London skewing older it’s getting to a tipping point where some are thinking it’s not worth it anymore.” 

Those looking for a cheap and easy life should be prepared. Calypso Rose Calypso Rose loves feeling like she is in 'the country in the middle of the city' – even if it isn't a cheap way of living - Heathcliff O'Malley  Maintaining a boat requires diligence; corners cut will come back to haunt you. Think of the regular outlays needed to maintain a car or house, combined in a single vehicle – and then add water.  Repairs and replacements can easily hit £2,000 a year with a new engine closer to £10,000.  “If something goes wrong, you need access to cash,” warns Andy.  There’s also the regular cost of blacking – taking the boat out the water and covering the hull in protective layers of bitumen.  This is done every two to three years and can cost between £400 and £3,000 depending on the size of the boat, price of the drydock, the process and whether you are prepared to undertake this unpleasant task yourself or pay somebody to do it for you. 

But even with rising costs, neither Calypso nor Helen would change their lives for the world.  “It feels like an escape from reality,” says Helen.  “If people tell us there’s a crisis we tell them they will have to manage as it’s going to take us three weeks to get back.  “It’s very rhythmic with the seasons, you look at the trees and plan accordingly. It feels like an ancient way of life and allows you to make time for things you’d never usually do.”  “I feel like I am in the country in the middle of the city,” adds Calypso. “We still take the boat off the mooring for four months a year.  “Boating is not a cheap option anymore and if you go for a cheap option you will have costs down the line, but it is a huge adventure and you meet great people. It makes me really happy.”

Edited June 24, 2024 by Arthur Marshall
Cut repetitions, pasted from an alternative source (not the Telegraph)

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

Seen this couple moored at Alrewas T&M a few weeks ago with “Jam Butty” still kicking myself that I never stopped and bought a selection of their Jams & Chutneys, heard lots of recommendations from people who have tried them. Hopefully will pass them again soon and will stop this time.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

37 minutes ago, john6767 said:

I have no problem in seeing the article on the link provided above.

I could follow the link but I didn’t want to go past what someone earlier called a ‘pay wall’ and subscribe to the Telegraph. 
 

Cheers Arthur for sharing. 
 

Seemed like a fair article. Interesting read. 
What it does comfirm is the difference in the South to everywhere else. 
Only the South would do ‘Indytute’ and deal in ‘the gift experience’. Where as the real world does Jam (or cheese, Ice Cream, coffee and so on). 
Not that I’m knocking them for it, fair play to ‘em and good luck. 

 

 

16 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

Seen this couple moored at Alrewas T&M a few weeks ago with “Jam Butty” still kicking myself that I never stopped and bought a selection of their Jams & Chutneys, heard lots of recommendations from people who have tried them. Hopefully will pass them again soon and will stop this time.

I think it was 2017(?) when they did the BCN challenge and gave us all a small pot of their Jam. Very nice too 😋

but never crossed paths to buy any since

[nealeST]

4 hours ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

Cheers Arthur for sharing. 

Yes thanks! I’m currently moored the railway side of Bunbury reading this!

[marksbrown]

Definitely illegal to sell foraged produce.

[ditchcrawler]

On 24/06/2024 at 09:30, Sea Dog said:

£1100 a month for a mooring at Car Thief? Something amiss methinks. Either the sign writer was lost or this boat is mooring in Chelsea, not the S&W!

Apart for that, those two (perfectly lovely folk, I'm sure) look pretty unlikely "free spirits" - or maybe they feel their new bus pass has set them free?

Who wrote the article? They  must surely be using an inappropriate stock photo for the text.

I dont think the boat in the photo, young Andy @Capt Ahab and his wife actually go with the text, they were just a nice photo

On 25/06/2024 at 09:05, marksbrown said:

Definitely illegal to sell foraged produce.

Best stop eating Samphire and truffles then 

[agg221]

3 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Best stop eating Samphire and truffles then 

I suspect the person on this forum who would be most impacted by that restriction is @Tony1

 

Alec

[Capt Ahab]

On 25/06/2024 at 09:05, marksbrown said:

Definitely illegal to sell foraged produce.

Unless you have the landowners explicit consent to do so.....