Where did you get the cash for your narrowboat exactly?

[Lady Muck]

An Aunt of my partners in Australia died - she was rich and left his mother lots of money meaning we suddenly had money for a deposit. We have a marine mortgage with RSL. The boat was bought on its mooring. I think we were really lucky, TBF.

[nbtafelberg]

I sold my house and bought her with the profit.

[Smelly]

I put down 20% and financed the rest with a mortgage....

 

As did I.

 

It's worth noting that I work in the public sector but don't run a car so could save up some money and borrow a lot more and still be able to afford a night or three down the pub (although not this week!)

[dove]

We bought all the bits over 6 or 7 years then, saved up for the steel, rented some land and built our own, 32k total.

 

Andrew

[Pennyless Too]

Thanks for all these genuine answers folks ..

 

Looks like I was dead wrong that the 'majority' of boat owners were baby boomers enjoying the fruits of cheap houses and property explosions in later years ..

 

Suprising number of folk citing damn hard toil and relentless saving, still more loans and mortgages (a little hairy for me but meritable!) and even theft. Impressive.

 

Seriously though, thanks a lot for sharing .. keep it coming!

[charles123]

Combination of things

 

Nearly all of our savings (we are 50+)

Unexpected windfall from will of friend

Loan on equity of house

Buying boat in part finished state and completing it myself over a year

 

Will be completely paid off this month, boat now 3 years old

 

Charles

[Keeping Up]

We moved house to a much smaller one and used the difference to pay for our first narrowboat which was a 17-year old ex-hireboat in need of a great deal of TLC. We phoned the solicitors in the late morning to confirm that we were to exchange contracts at mid-day; then went into the pub with the boat's owner, agreed a price over a couple of beers (no refinement of having a survey or anything like that) and gave him a cheque for the full amount before driving back home.

 

Our next phone call was to the solicitors, who told us there was a slight snag: at the last minute the vendor had decided to double the price, did we still want to exchange contracts?

 

Our next phone call was to the bank manager, to beg him to honour the rather large cheque that we had just written. Luckily he agreed.

 

4 years and a lot of TLC later we sold that boat for double what we'd paid for it, and commissioned "Keeping Up" by massively increaing the mortgage.

Edited August 11, 2008 by Keeping Up

[Bones]

I am guessing almost all of you narrowboat owners sold a house or made a fortune in the twenty year property ladder boom ..

 

I can't quite see how anyone would accuumulate fifty plus grand to buy a narrowboat otherwise?

 

Sure you could have inherited it or indeed be ludicrously over paid (GP, Operations, Sales etc) but that will be the few.

 

I am wondering because, quite frankly, tens of thousands of pounds is fantasy money to most twenty somethings, and many thirtysomethings. If you're not in the housing market, and pretty much all of the late 70's> generation/s have no chance of obtaining mortgages unless they earn 40k+, how do you ever realise that much?

 

Of course some of you could have saved for ten years, very very hard given the 90's recession and the impending economic misery, but again how few?

 

I notice a vast majority of narrow boat owners are grey haired and (returning to my original point) it has to be property or inheritence e.g. parents properties sold off etc?

 

Or is fifty grand not a lot of money? Maybe I am just crushingly poor .. !? I know there are thousands upon thousands of twenty grand plus cars on the road, but how many of them are owned and not leased/credit?

 

How did you raise the funds for your boat?

[Tim]

Sale of share boat share, savings and increased mortgage.

 

Tim C.

[Orca]

Fifty grand is indeed a lot of dosh - but it depends on your approach to getting it (short of cloak and dagger stuff of course!). I paid cash for my boat @ £47k with only a small(ish) loan of £9k required, but only because I rejected all the 'norms' in society and kept my responsibilities very low over a number of years. Don't have kids, expensive cars, exotic holidays, that thrice weekly visit to the boozer etc, etc - you'll be surprised what's possible!! Many would say that isn't living, but it's a means to an end like most things...

[RichardH]

This is a great thread which sums up something one of my former bosses used to say - 'we all have choices'

 

The responses have proved this.

 

I have both bitten my tongue and taken the bait over the years when people have said 'you're lucky because you have x, y & z'

 

Very little luck and lots of hard graft. Whilst my mates at were out getting p*ssed I was working behind the bar still having a good laugh - when I finished in the pub I delivered newspapers to wholesalers through the night. I've never been out of work and for much of my working life had 2 jobs.

 

I put a massive amount of effort into getting the best deals on everything, don't smoke, tend to drink at home and have never had a package holiday

 

So would say I am boring but....I want to retire as early as the kids will allow and enjoy the world with my lovely wife

 

I would love to be a life finance coach but I have always wondered how the people who are in the sh*t would pay me !

[Bones]

very true! Lots of people may envy those of us who have a boat, but I doubt they would envy the way we got them!

[Pennyless Too]

How did you raise the funds for your boat?

 

My boat cost £1800 ..

 

I basically didn't have a girlfriend or any chemical addictions at the time.

 

EDIT: The good news is, I still don't have a girlfriend.

Edited August 11, 2008 by Pennyless Too

[carlt]

Thanks for all these genuine answers folks ..

 

Looks like I was dead wrong that the 'majority' of boat owners were baby boomers enjoying the fruits of cheap houses and property explosions in later years ..

I must confess, my answer wasn't 100% genuine.

 

I am not quite a "baby boomer", more a product of the "summer of love" but my largely itinerant life has been financed by the property explosion of the 80s.

 

Now the market has pretty much ground to a halt it's almost time to start buying again but my head keeps being turned by pastures further afield.

[Bones]

EDIT: The good news is, I still don't have a girlfriend.

me neither, but I expect it might be better news for me than you.

[Pennyless Too]

me neither, but I expect it might be better news for me than you.

 

That's debatable judging by your avatar.

[LEO]

Hi,

 

Hard work, No Children, buying cheap houses and doing them up and selling them on, second hand furniture and only borrowing money on a mortgage to buy a house, no HP.

 

Wasted a bit on sports cars and too much 'stagger syrup' but can't be good all the time - redundancy payments helped. - That enabled purchase the first narrowboat in 1989, more hard work funded the second in 2005.

 

ALBI

[Jim]

Mine was 13 years old when I bought her and cost £30k. I found half of that from the proceeds of an endowment I'd been paying into for 10 years (Great investment - I paid in £15,000 and got £16,000 out - not quite what was promised!). I persuaded a mate to go halves for the balance, but after three months he wanted out so I had to cash in most of the rest of my savings to buy him out.

 

I'd rather have a boat than a bank statement with lots of noughts on it though.

[blackrose]

I spent 10 years in Tokyo teaching English. I only really started saving hard for the last 6 years, but then I was sending back about £15 - 20k/year - so much that my bank wrote to me and asked me where it was all coming from. They were concerned in case it was dodgy money being laundered.

 

I could have doubled my money had I bought a house as soon as I came back to the UK, but everything's easy in hindsight.

[StoneHenge]

Thanks for all these genuine answers folks ..

 

Looks like I was dead wrong that the 'majority' of boat owners were baby boomers enjoying the fruits of cheap houses and property explosions in later years ..

 

Suprising number of folk citing damn hard toil and relentless saving, still more loans and mortgages (a little hairy for me but meritable!) and even theft. Impressive.

 

Seriously though, thanks a lot for sharing .. keep it coming!

 

Mine was also a house sale and the boat brought with the profits as are a few here.

 

I'm 35 this year so not grey yet, but do feel very lucky we sold the house at the right time.

[mayalld]

I am guessing almost all of you narrowboat owners sold a house or made a fortune in the twenty year property ladder boom ..

 

I can't quite see how anyone would accuumulate fifty plus grand to buy a narrowboat otherwise?

 

Sure you could have inherited it or indeed be ludicrously over paid (GP, Operations, Sales etc) but that will be the few.

 

I am wondering because, quite frankly, tens of thousands of pounds is fantasy money to most twenty somethings, and many thirtysomethings. If you're not in the housing market, and pretty much all of the late 70's> generation/s have no chance of obtaining mortgages unless they earn 40k+, how do you ever realise that much?

 

Of course some of you could have saved for ten years, very very hard given the 90's recession and the impending economic misery, but again how few?

 

I notice a vast majority of narrow boat owners are grey haired and (returning to my original point) it has to be property or inheritence e.g. parents properties sold off etc?

 

Or is fifty grand not a lot of money? Maybe I am just crushingly poor .. !? I know there are thousands upon thousands of twenty grand plus cars on the road, but how many of them are owned and not leased/credit?

 

There is no one answer in most cases!

 

I'm 39, and a combination of NOT having an extravagant lifestyle, whilst working hard to climb the promotion ladder at work allowed me to save enough to put towards a boat, and to have enough stable income to get a loan on the rest.

 

You may suggest that I'm overpaid, but I've spent 20 years getting to this lofty overpaid position, so I regard it as payback for the early years when I was underpaid!!

[Bones]

That's debatable judging by your avatar.

 

this is the modern age you know, it isn't just girlfriends who can cook.

Edited August 11, 2008 by Bones

[Machpoint005]

I've spent 20 years getting to this lofty overpaid position, so I regard it as payback for the early years when I was underpaid!!

Good point!

[koukouvagia]

Bought a cheap Springer shell in 1987.

Spent two years doing it up.

Swapped it for a sunken josher in 1989.

Spent next 15 years restoring it to its former glory.

No fancy holidays and slave labour from the rest of the family.

Result? A much admired boat.

I do get annoyed, though, when people say, “You are lucky,” as if the boat somehow restored itself.

[Bones]

we are lucky though, we own boats, but perhaps the way we got them wouldn't be regarded as lucky.