MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – DECEMBER 2022

December was a great month for us regarding our Great Loop Budget! From affordable marinas to getting a free boost of speed going down the Tenn-Tom thanks to some recent rain, we were able to stay fairly close to our monthly goal budget. Little did we know that the cold would follow us until the very end of the month. We hope by sharing our monthly expenses, you’re able to better plan and prepare for your Great Loop experience. Included in this report is what expenses to expect on the Great Loop to how much we spent exactly in one month.

TRAVEL SUMMARY – DECEMBER 2022

Before I dive into our December expenses, it’s important to understand where we traveled, how far we cruised, and some specifics in our particular loop experience. We began our travels at Goosepond Colony Marina in Alabama and traveled 627 miles to Navarre Beach, Florida. To finish the year we completed our last oil change on our Great Loop as part of our routine engine maintenance. We packed in long cruising days, celebrating holidays on the boat, and a quick but short trip home for some doctor’s appointments. Here’s our Nebo travel summary:

We spent most nights at a marina this month, but thankfully they were all affordable. We would have liked to anchor out more. However, we didn’t find many great anchorages on the Tenn-Tom Waterway, and due to the freezing temperatures over the holidays, we knew we wanted to prioritize being on a dock for heat and ease of taking Ollie out in less than freezing temperatures. It was a small price to pay, but it was all worth it, thanks to the affordable dockage.

We created a course, How to Anchor and Love It which includes 2 hours of video content over 15 modules, a 16-page workbook, and our Great Loop Anchorages and Free Docks spreadsheet to help you anchor with confidence.

GREAT LOOP MONTHLY EXPENSES – DECEMBER 2022

We spent a total of $3,092.44 on our Great Loop expenses for December 2022. Prior to starting our loop, we set a rough goal for about $3,000 per month, so each month we get close to $3,000, we’re pretty pleased. This list does not include our healthcare, phone bills, personal subscriptions, and business expenses as those all vary from one person to another. All expenses are in USD.

Our greatest expense this month was groceries for a total of $1,111.77. Most of the meals we eat are cooked on our boat, making this a reoccurring high category for us.

Our second greatest expense was fuel for a total of $883.46. We fueled up once at Colombus Marina, which was priced at $5.95/gallon for diesel.

Our third greatest expense was marinas or dockage for $528.63. We had some fairly inexpensive marinas in the month of December thanks to the weekly rate at Colombus Marina since we needed to leave the boat for doctor appointments and a flat rate at the Grand Mariner Marina.

A few of the remaining categories were pretty close to what we had hoped for. In many of our past monthly expenditures, we haven’t been as close to our ideal budget as we would have hoped. This month we were pretty close! Considering we celebrated Jen’s birthday, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve this month, we are pretty pleased with how much we spent. It’s all part of being flexible. Our budget was meant to be flexible just as things come up, delays happen, and we all just need to pivot sometimes.

OUR GREAT LOOP BUDGET RESOURCES

We hope this post provided you with some insightful information on how much it costs to do the loop on a budget. Share this post with a friend if you think someone else might find this information useful. If there is something you would like us to include in our January Great Loop Expenses that we missed this month, let us know in the comments below!