Gary William

Thanks for the response. The way I see it, buying used is the only option unless someone has exorbitant income. It is salt water, and we literally could be happy with a tin box with an engine on back. I can find an abundance of boats (without engines) for extremely reasonable costs. Would it be best to buy a brand new engine though? It's the engine cost / engine maintenance cost that scares me. I need to build/demonstrate a low-cost scenario for my own peace of mind and for my Wife to even consider it.

That doesn't help 90% of us. I should have specified that the kids are non-negotiable. A big part of the pleasure we would get out of a boat is the time in it together, time working on it , maintaining it, etc.

I think the best advice I read since posting this is:

This is a completely serious question. How do you guys afford your boats? We are a family of 4. We live in a house that cost us about half of what we were approved for. We drive economy cars, and don't spend a lot on clothing, eating out, etc. I consider us well off. We earn about 130k combined per year. Kids are 6 and 8. We're in Canada so we're taxed more heavily than Americans, but don't pay for Medical care, etc. We have a cottage on the ocean, but have not yet made the leap to boat ownership because no matter which way I look at it (new, used, repairs, maintenance, financing, storage, etc) ... boats seem WILDLY expensive to the point at which I wonder how anyone on a normal professional income makes it work. Would love opinions/enlightenment on how it can be done while not going into big debt or forgoing retirement contributions, etc. I should note that I am somewhat mechanically inclined, but for any serious maintenance or repairs, I would need to pay someone with experience.

Not sure if things have changed, but I agree with all those who said marine engineering is wildly different. I am 5 years into ownership of an ocean front cottage - and the salt water environment is unbelievable. A simple swim raft with proper anchors and chains that wont corrode and rust cost about 4 times what the uninitiated would estimate due to the materials involved. Great discussion.