I have it now, I just need to figure out the most economical mooring option.
Make sure you do that in the broadest sense, not the narrow sense of just what the mooring or slip costs. Add in the commute cost and time. Factor something in for pleasure.
As an example, take 2 slips.
Slip A is a 30 mile commute, 1 hour and 10 minutes, but $300 per month.
Slip B is a 5 mile commute, 10 minutes, but $500 per month.
So A initially appears $200 cheaper.
However, add 50 miles per day x 22 workdays per month for 1100 miles at a conservative 25 cents per mile and that is $275.
Then add in the time of 60 hours a month. That can force you to pay for some work you could do yourself, could make you pick up dinner from a restaurant rather than cook, and just generally worsen quality of life. I'm just going to assign it a value of $10/hour although certainly you value your time more than that. So $600.
Now, Slip B is actually $675 per month less expensive.
We tend to underestimate the cost of commuting as we look at gas only, but there are all the variable costs of operating a vehicle including maintenance and tires and the depreciation of the car plus lowering of resale value.
As to time, we tend to way since we're not using that time for work it doesn't carry a value. But that's just not true. First, it's got lifestyle value, the value of time to relax and enjoy. Second, it does force us to pay to get work done, we could do. Third, is eating habits and that's both a health and financial issue. Preparing your own meals, you can probably eat for $10 per day, maximum of $12. Drive through for three meals will cost you at least $14 per day. Picking up a decent dinner or eating in a restaurant and your daily meal cost goes to $20 per day or as much as $30 per day. Surveys have shown that most workers value time more even than pay and if given a choice between 10% fewer hours and 10% more pay would take the fewer hours.
