How Much It ACTUALLY Costs To Buy & Live On a FLOATING CABIN: Our Monthly Expenses + Initial Costs!!
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- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
- We used to try to keep this secret to ourselves… But we’ve decided to spill the tea & share our real cost of living on a houseboat / floating house!! After all, all the best things are better when shared!
We get a LOT of questions about how much our floating home costs, how much our “rent” in this harbor is, how much we spent on the renovation, etc. We’re doing a little math & answering all these and more on this week’s episode! We think you might not expect what the total comes out to be!
Chapters:
0:00 Disclaimer!
1:04 Rent/Mooring Fees
1:44 Cost of Utilities
3:36 Cost of Logistics
4:58 Ways These Costs May Vary
5:52 Initial Investment + Renovation Costs
7:15 Unexpected Costs Are a Guarantee on Boats!
HEADS UP - this obviously doesn’t include any personal costs unrelated to the house itself (think: groceries, car payments, medical insurance, etc). This also intentionally doesn’t include the cost of the boats we drive, because A) we share these boats with others in the harbor and thus don’t own & didn’t actually pay for either one of them, and B) it’s not necessary to have a motor boat! Any ol’ kayak from walmart or inflatable raft would do just as well. Cost of dinghy boats are more personal preference than living necessity & so we lumped that in with personal costs!
Lastly, as with all real estate & resources, this is all very location-specific! We live in a very rural area with relatively few amenities. Living on a houseboat in San Francisco, for example, would likely be 10x more expensive than living on the exact same setup where we are! Remember to always factor location into how much you are looking to spend.
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Contact email: floatingonfontana@gmail.com - Розваги
My rent was 2200 a month. Now my wife and I live on a house boat 16x61 3 bedroom in ky lake Cumberland. Now all my payments are 200 dollars more then my rent was. But the boat my triton and two new cars. 5500 for the slip pay once a yr. My wife job pays all the bill my job as a trucker pays for all the fun and a lot of time off . I get to spend more time at home these days .wouldn't give it up for. Nothing. Nice thing I can be in town in 10 minutes. Lake time is great.
Awesome, Mike. Living within your means and having money leftover for fun and free time is the way to go! Houseboats can be a great way to do that 🙌👏
2400? On some luxury houseboat or like them?
Just the fact of the garage door not hanging up sold me :)
😂🙌 right?! Sometimes the little things are big things!
Nice to see how one couple makes living within their means work in their life. Everyone has different circumstances and opportunities, but just knowing that something like this is possible will be helpful to many. Wishing you all the very best from California (the land of high rents! LOL)
Ooof definitely the land of high rents over there! 😆 so glad you enjoyed & appreciate the comment!
So glad you're story popped up on Google news. Lol. I love your home. Thanks for sharing.
Well that’s news to us!! 😅 was it the article that TinyHouseTalk did? Either way, thanks so much 🤗 we appreciate you joining us for the journey!
Enjoying your videos emensly. Looking forward to the next one.
Aww so glad to hear that. Makes us happy. Thanks for watching!! Many more to come.
Hi folks. I watch your videos as often as I can. We used to live in WNC and visited Fontana as often as we could, staying in the village and loafing on the lake. I truly love that place and hated when we had to leave WNC due to health issues. My dad worked on Fontana dam and Douglas dam when they were built back in the early 1940's. I envy your life style living there and wish I could enjoy that with you. Enjoy your life and never look back. Jim L
Thanks Jim!! It is absolutely a special corner of the world, we are lucky to live here 🤍🙏
Love the videos!! Both y’all are great!!
Awe! Well thank ya!! So happy you’re enjoying them! 🙏😋
Great lifestyle and a bonus of all the money you get to save!
Absolutely!! 🙌🙏
Hi Sarah! It's Kiera from the TN Veg Crew. I'm loving your vids. They're super well made and entertaining.
I hope to work with you again before my term is over in June!
Hey Kiera!! Thanks so much 🤗 & definitely!! I’ll be back the week after next so I will probably see you super soon! Can’t wait!
Awesome!! We would love that life style!!!
Found you! Thanks for breaking down the costs. Between farming with others on a few acres or living on the water (lake or ocean), your explanation goes a long way towards working out my next steps. Peace and health to you and all~
So glad this was useful! 🫶 cheers
Earned you another sub, awesome job you guys!
🤙🌊 welcome aboard!!
Great video guys. I live at a dock in Tennessee now. $90.00 per month including water/electric. Then I drive my houseboat from there. Never seen a Marina chare separately for water and electricity. Although it may happen.
90 bucks ain’t too bad!! That’s awesome, where in TN?! we are just 10 miles or so from the Tn border.
not all marinas have both water & electric for all slips! some only have one or the other (or a mix of slips with both and slips with neither lol). just depends! 😊
I used to live in a houseboat in the 90’s at a marina in San Diego. I would love to live in a float home some day.
How fun!! I bet you have some great memories from that time. Nothing beats living on the water. Fingers crossed you can get back to it sooner rather than later! 😊
That is no longer possible in CA marinas..marinas are against liveabroads ..being from CA..I am force to consider a mfg cabin on water..
Nah nobody forcing u anything
I just joined love watching you too. Hey are you’ll still at your spot in the lake. And is this this year 2024
Great info 👍 so
glad you enjoyed!
Very cool, the Smoky mtn times should do a story on yall.
Thanks!! Hey that would be pretty awesome ☺️
Thanks!
You bet!
Good Talk 😁
😅😅🤪
In future talk about types of floats..in Portland OR...they use old large timber trees...I was told hard get loan..with timber...vs cementblocks...to steel floats...thanks about the insulation info. As I said before going back to Holland Friesland..to consider..again..I will rent to see about issues...the floats and maintenance concerns
We’ve got a video where we are adding a float to the house & share more info on the floats if you’re interested in learning more in depth! 🙂 In short, the standard on this lake is encapsulated styrofoam blocks, or pontoons. Virtually 0 maintenance, just need to be replaced after several decades. 🙌
5 minutes of research squashed this idea for me. New Floating cabin building permits are no longer allowed so now every existing permit will eventually become a super expensive airbnb cabin which most sell for $200,000 - $500,000. All of the existing affordable cabins like the one in the video are being referred to as "eyesores" by the airbnb owners and are being bought, destroyed and replaced with unaffordable "luxury" cabins. Space is extremely limited so of course this is the future of floating cabins. Airbnbs helped price us out of homes on land and now will follow us into the water lol
There is not a single airbnb on our entire lake. Maybe your 5 min of research was on a different lake? There is also not a single house that could possibly sell for $500k. The one we bought here, like all of the most affordable cabins on the lake, was in complete disrepair. Unliveable, unsanitary, also trashing the lake as it falls apart. When people buy the cabins like that and fix them up, that is inherently a good thing. Houses falling apart into the lake is inherently not a good thing. Furthermore, we are literally the only people of the 465 permitted homes on this lake that live full time year round on our floating house. These are ALL (with the singular exception of ours) vacation homes already. The fact that the owners use them for their own vacations instead of renting them out to the public for their vacations has no bearing on the idea of being “priced out,” because this is not a primary housing market at all. It’s already a vacation home market, and always has been since their existence. The only people who could be priced out as prices go up are those who can’t afford a second home / vacation home… which is not exactly a problem lol. That’s a luxury in the first place.
More advantages than disadvantages👍⚓😊
Absolutely!! 🙏🙌
Here from tiktok ehhe
Hi there Mr Mrs Jones I live in a float house too it doesn't costs much because Iam off grid so my fuel costs for the month is about 75$ I have wood heat from a pellet stove and it cost about 50 $ per month and no pumpout cost composting toilet Iam located in a small harbour on Vancouver Island but it cost nothing
Awesome!
I heard you talk about needing a cut out in floor. And you are surrounded by national parks. My question is where would a guy find all this information... Rules regulations, what lakes/rivers that I can have cabin on for each their states? Any help would be appreciated thanks
www.tva.com/environment/shoreline-construction-permits/floating-cabins here is TVA's website on floating cabins, they're the governing body on this lake and 17 others in the southeast that allow these. I'm not too sure about other rivers and lakes outside of those owned by TVA, you'd just have to search on a case-by-case basis. I think Duke power allows these sometimes on their reservoirs, other entities might as well. Unfortunately there isn't just a "master list" or central authority on any of this. Hope that helps some though!
Are there rentals in the area?
Not in our harbor but several miles down the lake there are a couple! One is in Sawyers Creek & it’s on VRBO, the host’s name is Gaylene. A search for “fontana lake floating cabin” would likely bring it up. Another is a rental through Prince boat dock/marina, so you can call their business to ask about it. It’s possible there are more but those are the only 2 we know for sure!
@@KeepingAfloatWiththeJoneses thank you 😊
Mo money, mo problems. 😎
bring ‘em on then 😎😂
let's talk disparue
$400 a month. That's not the norm
Couldn’t ask for much better! Of course that’s not including other life expenses like our cars, phones, groceries, car & health insurance, etc. But as far as housing expenses go….we’re grateful!!
That was good deal.
Dude, before making a video asking for people to separate themselves from money - comb your hair, get a shave, and find appropriate business clothes. How you handle the little things in life tells me everything I need to know about how you will handle the ‘big’ things.
Dude, 100% no. Wow 😂 Did you even watch the video? We are not selling you or anyone else anything here. This is two people in the comfort of their own home, being generous enough to let curious folks in on some personal information about their own lives, hopefully for the benefit of many as they go and plan for their own dreams. We are offering you FREE information you can’t find anywhere else, asking for nothing in return - you have nothing whatsoever to offer us, least of all a snarky comment, so your opinion about our clothes how we “handle” anything is… unwarranted at best 🥴 If you want suits & ties and salesmen, there are a lotttt of channels out there that might be a better fit for you than 2 lake rats sharing their own unique journey for free. 👋
@@KeepingAfloatWiththeJoneses I love your response. 😂
I never knew learning something could be this damn funny... WHY... couldn't schools make it fun like this.... STUPID!!!
P.E.A.C.E
🤣🤝 happy to be of service. cheers!