Crew and the Cost of Living Crisis: Save or Splurge?
Episode 6, Feb 18, 2023, 06:23 PM
Are you a saver or a spender? Are you being more careful with your wages now that there’s a global cost of living crisis? Or do you feel nicely insulated from it on Planet Yacht? In so many countries bills, fuel and groceries are all shooting up in cost, inflation is going up – it’s all feeling a bit apocalyptic. The war in the Ukraine is affecting the cost of so many things, it’s been a bit of a crash course in just how dependent our countries were on resources, fuel and crops from that region. It’s also been a lesson in how unpredictable the modern world is.
Should we be more careful? Or go all-out to enjoy life for the moment? As crew it’s easy to feel a bit detached from it all, isn’t it? Living on board with bills and food covered, minimally or untaxed earnings…for many yachties life hasn’t changed that much. Does the news cycle rolling on the crew mess TV freak you out and make you want to save your money for the future? Or does it make you want to dash out and run up a massive bar bill?
I wish I’d saved my yachting money. I mean, I do have a great selection of sunglasses and some amazing photos – but I should have a lot more than that to show for all my graft. I wish I invested in property ten years ago like my cleverer friends, but I never got around to it. I try not to give myself too hard a time over it - I did pay off student loans, have supported myself and all my endeavours for a good few years and built up a decent wedge of savings. But if anyone says the P words around me I get pretty frazzled. I have no property and no pension coming my way at all, and that makes me feel a bit queasy.
All this talk about unpredictable futures has been the thing that has finally focused my mind on the dull world of financial security. But it’s a bit late for that now, most of my money has gone. I know many crew have been far better than me with their money, but to be fair some have been far, far worse.
It is easy to lose the plot financially in yacht world. There is a double assault on our sense of reality – being surrounded by yacht-owner levels of wealth can start to seriously distort our idea of ‘normal’ and then the large amount of disposable income can start to make big self-indulgent purchases into a regular occurrence. Even just spending a few weeks in Monaco can start to make bumper to bumper Bentleys seem normal.
For the full written article:
https://www.onboardonline.com/superyacht-news/features/crew-and-the-cost-of-living-crisis-save-or-splurge/
#Yachting #SuperYachts #YachtCrew #CostOfLiving #Save #Splurge #TheKFlag #OnboardOnline
Should we be more careful? Or go all-out to enjoy life for the moment? As crew it’s easy to feel a bit detached from it all, isn’t it? Living on board with bills and food covered, minimally or untaxed earnings…for many yachties life hasn’t changed that much. Does the news cycle rolling on the crew mess TV freak you out and make you want to save your money for the future? Or does it make you want to dash out and run up a massive bar bill?
I wish I’d saved my yachting money. I mean, I do have a great selection of sunglasses and some amazing photos – but I should have a lot more than that to show for all my graft. I wish I invested in property ten years ago like my cleverer friends, but I never got around to it. I try not to give myself too hard a time over it - I did pay off student loans, have supported myself and all my endeavours for a good few years and built up a decent wedge of savings. But if anyone says the P words around me I get pretty frazzled. I have no property and no pension coming my way at all, and that makes me feel a bit queasy.
All this talk about unpredictable futures has been the thing that has finally focused my mind on the dull world of financial security. But it’s a bit late for that now, most of my money has gone. I know many crew have been far better than me with their money, but to be fair some have been far, far worse.
It is easy to lose the plot financially in yacht world. There is a double assault on our sense of reality – being surrounded by yacht-owner levels of wealth can start to seriously distort our idea of ‘normal’ and then the large amount of disposable income can start to make big self-indulgent purchases into a regular occurrence. Even just spending a few weeks in Monaco can start to make bumper to bumper Bentleys seem normal.
For the full written article:
https://www.onboardonline.com/superyacht-news/features/crew-and-the-cost-of-living-crisis-save-or-splurge/
#Yachting #SuperYachts #YachtCrew #CostOfLiving #Save #Splurge #TheKFlag #OnboardOnline