Is It Really Cheap Living On A NARROWBOAT? Self Converted Floating Home

we're Danny and Joe and for the past 3 years we have owned this 50ft narrow boat which we call Lady Penny bun it was a completely empty hole when we bought it and yeah we've converted it to our little tiny home on water for the past 3 months we've been living in and around London and this has actually been our first winter aboard the Nar booat properly without leaving at the marina and buggering off abroad so thought share our actual cost with you um we made a video over a year ago now um where we compared the cost living on a boat to a house um but I think we got a few of cost wrong cuz now we've actually spent some money on logs coal bit more diesel and stuff um it's a bit more expensive than we first thought so in this video we're going to cover the costs in regards to sort of like heating the boat but also uh the new CRT SE charges which are going to be increased from April yeah it's a bit controversial because there's a sech charge um on top of ccer like continuous cruises like us so if you constantly move your boat and you don't have a home more in you're going to eventually pay more and more than someone who has a home home base so we'll cover that as well sorry if we keep looking down we've Jo's written it all out on the laptop which you can't see so there there's a lot of numbers in this year so the first cost for the boat was obviously buying it we spent £12,000 on our boat it was completely empty and we've put probably about another 15 to 20,000 into it now obviously we didn't have that money just there and then we previously lived in a converted Sprinter and when we sold that that was the money that we had that got us the boat really and then a little yeah not very much and then from then it's just been paycheck to paycheck completing the boat which has taken us about a year about a year from buying it you reckon or a bit more yeah to to moveing on I mean we still had loads of stuff that we were doing whilst we lived on it but yeah I would say about a good year of making it liable to some degree mhm um obviously there's lots of different ways that you can do that some people don't want a project which I can completely agree with you and you can just buy one obviously already done they do vary a lot in prices quite subjective isn't it whatever your taste is to whether you are willing to pay for that um what would you say they vary between so like really roughly anywhere from £30,000 for something that's livable um that needs a bit freshen up or whatever up to like way over 100 grand for something brand new and with all the option I think a narrow about you could probably spend almost 200 Grand on now if you want full electric and stuff so and also I think the weight in list so if you thought oh yeah I'll just buy one you if you had that kind of money not many people do you wouldn't even necessarily just be able to buy one like that it's a weit list for all the builders like that it's a real art to it you know they're all bespoke to whatever you want and what kind of Windows you want but yeah so that's sort of like the options there are um mortgages aren't there there's like all like loans and stuff which a lot of people have so if you had that then you'd have to bear that into your monthly cost which is almost yeah like a mortgage but we're um we obviously don't have that because we paid for it as we went because it was just completely empty so once you've bought your boat the first large monthly cost is going to be your boat license which is almost a cross between car tax and council tax so that pays for our boat to be on the water on the canal River trust Waters um and that covers your bins recycling when there are recycling points water anything else that's about it I think that's it but equally when we came up to London we went on the river temps and that is a different license so if you stayed on the river temps you don't actually pay CRT you pay EA environment agency yeah is that just for London or is that other rivers I think they might have a few other rivers um and there's also um like another one I think it was National Trust which is in Guilford um but yeah we're basing this off of CRT cuz that's the majority of it and also in London so start from when we first had the boat our first ever license was £ 88631 P per year for a 50ft narrow booat that was in 2021 yeah and our most recent one um which expires in August was £ 1,065 79p um now onto the slightly controversial topic essentially um the government recently announced it was going to cut funding to shock uh canal and River truck in general I think or was there ever is anything this what would the canals be like Railways can in um alternatively yeah in regards to that from 20207 this year but it's 2027 oh the funding gets cut so yes that's when the funding completely gets cut we might be a little bit wrong on that but yeah I'm pretty sure it definitely is getting cut so in the meantime CRT are making cutbacks like slowly but equally increasing um are license aren't they yeah and the the basically the controversial bit is there's going to be a search charge because we don't have a home more in um every year it will rise by 5% on top of the standard base rate if they've got a home war in um so by 2028 there will actually be a 25% increase on the base rate and it's rising over inflation as well so at at the minute that's looking the first one sorry from April which is when the first increase comes in our new license price is actually going to be 1,248 66 so that's roughly 200 quid more in one year a equally that like we said with the license in the first instance it is based on the length of your boat um so people that have wide beams are really going to be hit by that because there's an additional SE charge for them as well which is increasing every year what two sir charges so I'll put a table up see2 put a table up which shows it quite well so there's like different bands and if you got a wide wide beam which is over 10t I think so there's a wide beam category and there's a wide wide beam so up to like the 12T ones the huge ones um that's got like a double whammy search charge on it I think that's going up to 50% above the base rate which is quite a lot yeah um yeah I'll put the table up cuz it it does show up quite well so if you think you're going to be moving onto a boat to save money this is definitely something to bear in mind now it's not just to take it as yeah this is the the boat and this is how much it's going to be because it is going to be in inreasing as everything is but yeah it's just increasing quite a bit depending on the boat that you get yeah so like both sides of the argument in regards to se charge if you're a continuous Cruiser like us then we are using the facilities a lot more than people that perhaps just take out at weekends or in the summer you know they aren't using those facilities and they're using probably the marinas that they're paying for um the other side to that though is you know if you don't use it you lose it sort of thing and we can experience that from the slow arm you know that is not getting used at all I mean it's obviously a dead end but yeah the more you know the even in London was like even in London itself you know if the water if like people AR moving the weeds like build up and stuff and yeah so there's two sides you know um we'll stay neutral on that one next monthly cost is going to be boat insurance which I still think is really quite reasonable when you think this is an entire house and it floats and it's still less than our car insurance yeah thank you craft insur um our insurance per year is £235 do you want to talk about the gas cuz you're the one that use the bath all the time God in our video that we did about a year ago in regards to gas we were way off well Joe was way off and gas is probably we've not even got through our first bottle yet and we've been using gas for about 6 months so maybe two of those so our gas is what we use to heat our hot water and also is what we use to cook so I love baths we love cooking so yeah we we've used a lot more than we thought we did but I still don't think it's bad no so total that we use is 113 kilo of Cala I think it's it is propane um that's but depending on where you pick it from it's about 45 to 50 Quid the prices vary but per mon plus per month one whole bottle per month almost to the day I think it was to the day as you ran out exactly but that is over the winter you know we've like been making wholesome meals sometimes we've like had the oven on for hours Joe likes baking which you have to heat up the oven so yeah we we do we do cook a lot we gas hungry aren't we and that's all of our hot water now we're a little bit unusual we don't have a calorifier which is when you run your engine um that heats water for you um so we're solely on gas for hot water so some people probably have that bill I would imagine yeah let us know what yours is if you you know how much gas you use if you're on a on a boat I don't know I don't know if that's a lot or not but that's your B when we were when we were in it before when we did this thing before we were still sort of in and out of mariners so although you thought that's what we use every night that we were away from the boat if we were staying with family or away from friends like you realize you know you're not cooking are you or you're trying to have shower somewhere else which we and there were showers in the marina as well so yeah but yeah one bottle per month 45 to 50 GD our main source of heat on the boat is still our L burner um we have used roughly during the real cold patch we're using about one bag of coal per week you could use more you could use less um we sort of tying that in with some logs and a bag of coal um it's smokeless coal it's not real coal it's going to cost you about 20 quid from the fuel boxs in London um whilst we've come slightly further out with lesson to1 1850 per bag um that's roughly per week so that can add up um especially for the cold patches for us and then with the logs we managed to get a bulk bag my friend Sam went picked one up for me um so that we've been sort of picking from that as and when and we still got a few left um and that was yeah 120 quid I think yeah um for the bulk bag still got a few bits left you got to bear in mind the bulk bag is obviously amazing we're very grateful for Sam for having that as an option but if we didn't have somewhere to store it there's no way we could have had a bulk bag and also it's obviously a bit more expensive being in London but we didn't have the car for the whole time we're in London so you might be able to get a cheaper in a shop somewhere or you know but it's the it's weighing up the options of then having to get it back to the boat like you can't you're not going to be carrying it on the Underground we were we I think it was twice just a tire so we did buy a couple of little sacks of logs from the fuel booat and they were £12 each but they're like kill dried and they're perfect just to keep us going the log burner doesn't quite reach the bedroom it helps with the bathroom a little bit but if we want a shower in the morning whilst it's is coldest then we'll put the diesel heater on and then just warm up the bathroom so not the edge it really does so diesel on a boat we get that from the fuel boat as well and it's divided into two rates which can get a bit confusing um basically for any diesel that you use when you move the boat AKA propulsion that's charged at the full vat rate even though it's colored red diesel um they all changed quite a few times and stuff I think that's still correct and then any that you use for heating is at a discounted rate um so normally the fuel boats I think is 6040 um but obviously over winter if you're moving less and using more for your heating um then you can have more of the cheaper rate if that makes sense um so it's roughly pump price and then some of it's a bit discounted for your heating um we've been using roughly 50 L per month for heating and propulsion combined so 100 L would last a couple of months roughly we have obviously moved quite a significant way from the West country to London and then we went the whole way around London which you know most people in the winter just wouldn't be doing so now we're bit further out of London we are going slower because of stoppages not out of um you know not cuz we want to but we haven't used that much um we haven't been cruising that we well we can because stoppages yeah which has never SE So when you say was red diesel but are you paying full price as if you were with a car though I think so I'm someone correct me if I'm wrong but yeah so anything for propulsion um is about the same same as pump I think so even though it's been dyed red because then when you go to use it we did when we were coming into London we did stock cuz normally this is the only time we've ever really used fuel boats we normally either have the car and we go get it or we've stopped at marinas on the way we did stop at one Marina but yeah other than that we've been using the fuel fuel boats which is lovely it's nice to see old tradition the boats are just stunning so they're really good to use cuz some days when you don't want to move they're still out and about like 365 days a year almost they do work hard as some of you will have seen our batteries died right at a really bad point um it was some of the darkest days some of the coldest days and we couldn't run the engine because that was leaking coolant really badly so we had zero power even the LED lights that was tough that was that was not what I needed to get me into the first winter of just being continuous Cruisers that was not okay it was hard going um so we bought a generator which a lot of people rely on over winter because you're not getting any solar which is in general where we get all of our electricity in the summer um because we couldn't run the engine and we just weren't moving as much um generator was a lifesaver so I've put down a little bit of money for petrol as well because we top the batteries up for a couple of hours you can use a couple of liters of petrol and it does add a little bit of cost um especially onto a winter boat like which this is we're mainly focusing on how much just cost over winter so I've added a bit of Petrol in as well some people say we could have got a cheaper generator as well but again it's all about being convenient when you're on an AR boat so we had to get one that we could get delivered somewhere rather than no pick oh pick up sorry rather than getting it delivered so yeah that was the reason why we chose that and it's been great it's been a good generator hasn't it but I'm sure they were cheaper gen how much did you pay for that gener it's about 4 I think it's 420 quid um and I could get a similar spec one online for just over 300 but we needed it there and then and Screwfix had it convenience isn't it it was convenience that's like when you're on a boat and you don't have a car and you don't have easy Road access or an address there are things that you will have to pay more for um even buying things from certain marinas and chandel and stuff you need spare bits on the boat that you can't get delivered there is a premium there and that that's definitely something to consider yeah um maintenance boat maintenance so we are coming up to time with slight overd actually tell the truth by about a month um our blackin is due which is basically coat in the bottom of your boat in bitchin protects a hole from rusting um every two to three years you're supposed to do it and we are in our third year now so we're going to book that in we're going to do it soon we wanted to do it because being purist we sort of have done everything else on the boat but we've rang around a couple and a lot of them don't let you do DIY um black him which I can't say I'm too sad about to be honest so I think we're going to pay someone to do it um and maybe go on holiday for a week who knows um we do yeah I think we'll do it one year won't we I just we're not too fast to be honest but what were the pricing for that so depend the further towards the Midland you get the less London tax there is um anywhere from 600 Quid uh up to O over ,000 for basic blackin and then there's two pack um which is meant to last a lot longer um could be like double or triple that so we I think the where we're going for is about 750 all in plus anodes which are about 100 quid each and they are sacrificial bits of zinc I still can't quite comprehend basically rust away before your hold us they're like sacrificial um they they're just melting away I can still see them in the water whereas Ben and R are friends theirs wasn't even on there so I don't feel too bad that our boat's still in the water yeah we' still got a bit of zinc left there um so that's something to consider because that is something you have to do every 3 years um so divide if you didn't then it would cost more in the long one wouldn't it like there'd be more things you know' be more um welding and stuff eventually it will it will start to rust your hole um so I've divided that back into like a monthly cost based on that and also just things go wrong don't they I know you don't necessarily think of the cost of that when you live on a in a house but things go wrong I guess you need a boiler tested and different things in a house don't you so it's similar to us having maintenance yeah true um and then there's boat safety certificate which lasts 4 years and that's just 180 quid normally so it's cost us per month 90 for the license £50 for gas £ 20 for insurance £80 for heating £60 for diesel 20 for petrol um and then the maintenance divides back to roughly another 30 um so £350 per month is our general outgoes just for maintaining and living on the boat and that's obviously over winter so we wouldn't use as much gas probably in the summer or I know we won't use as much gas in the um summer and also being in London itself we didn't have the car which was a blessing and a curse it was great not having the car not having to worry about moving it every time we moved the bow but equally then we paid a lot for the underground or the public transport every every day that we wanted to do something didn't we um so that's something to bear in mind if you're going to be in London as well so when our batteries were dying we obviously couldn't use the washing machine that's a very big power source um which is part of the reason why I love having a generator now that we can use them as much as I love the um culture in uh washing no long Dr sorry like they're just all very different aren't they it's very funny atmosphere to be in there um it adds up they are very expensive um you kind of want to make it worth it while so you sort of wait till everything till you haven't got any more clean clothes left and I would say they vary quite a lot in London um I found we probably went to about five different ones I would say the cheapest was probably about 1010 and that's me using the dryer but I don't want to use it too much cuz I'm worried that everything's going to shrink so then we would still have to have the big old thing up here in the living room um and that was at least every two weeks I would say at least and it's not only paying for it you've got to take your big bags are clothes all the way along the toe path sometimes it's raining but you need clean pants so you're going to have to go yeah um that was the cheapest as well some of them are over like 20 like some people get it I think what's it called like a service where you take but yeah no we never done that but that's definitely something to bear in mind we've got a washing machine which I'm very grateful for it's only three and a half kilos uh kilos but it's just nice to keep on top of it so that is quite a luxury on a boat most people do have to rely on laundr um so for us and it's time as well like time is money isn't it and that takes a good like 2 hours out of your day I would say so you know if you're working full-time you know in a office job or something you got to move the boat if you haven't got a moing then you've got to do you know your washing like all of these day-to-day tasks that in a house you probably don't think of cuz you press one button and you don't have to worry about the power they just they just fill your day doesn't it and water because it uses quite a lot of water and then you've got to move the boat to fill up with water yeah there's definitely lots of things to consider if you are thinking about moving on to a boat I know lots of you messag us saying that we've really inspired you to go and get a boat and stuff let us know how you're getting on if you're watching love to hear honestly love to hear some of your stories yeah so it's funny isn't it even your friends and stuff have literally upped their lives yeah and then moved onto a boat because they seen that we we sort of moved on to one so yeah it's nice and and and to be honest like these are all costs and obviously you've got to way up if you've got the time to do all of these things cuz in regards to Mo rings in London they are few and far between and they are so expensive like some of them are over ,000 a month and that isn't including all the rest of these bills that we have so you'd still have that on top of you know having your boat um yeah but it was a beautiful way to see London if we were to you know spend three months in London in a flat there's no way that we would get one for free 350 a month um so yeah so grateful we got to live in London for a short amount of time see loads of different bers explore it's such a beautiful city we really enjoyed it didn't we yeah I must I was dreading it a little bit because so many stories of break-ins and stuff and you are very vulnerable on the c um but touchwood we had zero instance in three months which I think was apart from maybe the duck that went missing but Joe tells mean that it fell in the water someone spotted that we didn't have it the other day I think someone maybe I someone Wen duck off a roof that's okay that's okay I can deal with that but no it was such a great way and yeah maybe we'll go back to London in the future it was yeah it was nice yeah it'd be nice to see it in the summer I'm sure it's even busier yeah it's a very busy place and Morin is a bit of a nightmare yeah um but I think once you you adjust to it and you know that you're going to be mored alongside someone and you just got to walk on people's boats yeah just get real cozy of your neighbors quite quickly yeah yeah apart from that we had a great time there isn't many Moorings uh Marina sorry in London itself as well so if you were thinking of moving onto a boat and you've got a job in London I would sort of look into you know cuz some of the boats that you buy with a moing you are paying basically for the moing it's not because the boat is got all this fancy equipment and necessarily you are just paying bu your way into it yeah basically our camera battery is about to die but I think we've covered everything let us know if there's anything you think we've missed off obviously we've still got just day-to-day things everyone has like our food um our phone bills and we're moving quite a bit we're moving a bit um yeah just things like that that everyone has but we didn't include them but oh I forgot Wi-Fi but I guess a house has it yeah Wi-Fi do we pay more for Wi-Fi not really no so ignore that no we would like starlink so Elon if you're watching this um yeah let us have a box or whatever it is I don't even know what it looks like it's like a satellite Let's us have a satellite um but yeah 350 a month let us know if that's what you thought it would be um yeah we're obviously not glamorizing this lifestyle there's lots of things that are hard and just watch some of our videos when our batteries died and stuff it's not for everyone no it's definitely not and there's just mud in here constantly all the time the toe path is not okay right now uh yeah thank you so much for watching thank you to our patrons and we'll see you next week maybe we've moved another foot who no J I think I think we can actually move a good 2 miles this time I just I just want to get on the Move we just want to go to Birmingham now and then we'll probably moan about the city there and how busy it is bye a [Music] bye [Music]

Channel: Danni and Joe

Views: 225,956

Keywords: narrowboat, narrow boat, canal, barge, England, British waterways, london canals, houseboat, alternative living

Id: URx_tOvhNRQ

Length: 24min 9sec (1449 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2024