All of the posts about the respective costs of living on a boat v's a house are very much based on personal circumstances and preferences. Marina v's online v's continuous cruising. 40 foot v's 70 foot. Single/couple/family.... they all impact, and that's before you look geographically as well as if you like a 24c boat/house temperature or 18c.
I can say it IS categorically cheaper living on the boat 'v the cottage - notwithstanding we have both to pay for right now. I base this purely on the fact we pay community charge and water rates that far outstrip the cost of mooring and boat license - even in a marina ! A few boaters have raised the unfairness of the energy rebate not been given to them, but they have not seen the steller rise in electric and gas - ok maybe a bit on Calor and coal but nothing like the standing charge rise and the unit cost rate rise homeowners have had to face - but if you are struggling or on limited income I get it hurts.
The reason for this post is we've just had our oil tank filled up. In the last three years our oil use has been pretty much the same
This is the costs for the last 5 years - columns are:
Year
Total ordered
Total cost
Comparison on cost to previous year
Average cost per litre
You can see what the pandemic did to oil costs - shame we didn't have a 5,000 litre storage container that year !
Of course this is just for heating and hot water - electric is another scary statistic. I'm not posting for sympathy, we could live in a much more insulated and sensible home but we love the cottage - but it comes at a cost. Posting to put living on a boat - in my world into perspective.
But we are doing something about it - the Rayburn now does not run on oil rather 100% renewable electric, we have an induction hob and air fryer. Many boaters harvest the sun and wood. I do the latter if there is windfall wood on my walk it has been own to come home with me - I was burning some last night - yes coal in not included in our running costs.... and I am beavering away on a self install house battery and solar system - that will run part of the house on cheap and free electric.
We are doing our bit we could all do more but if everyone did their bit so much the better. For perspective Katie Price is in the papers saying she is spending £3,000 anonth on oil for her 19 room farmhouse - and she's fighting bankruptcy (unsurprisingly). It does depress me sometimes the vast variation not only in wealth but attitudes to climate and the planet that wealth seems to trump. Again I'm no saint but even to have an awareness of waste has to be good ?
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