A few months ago we saw this beautiful sailing catamaran pop up on craigslist. This is highly unusual for a vessel like this to be available so close to home. Generally we see sailboats like MiMi in Florida or Annapolis, sometimes Charleston but even that would be a few hour drive.
We couldn’t pass this opportunity by! We called and arranged the tour, and to our surprise we fell in love! This catamaran was exactly what we have been dreaming of and she will be the yardstick to which all future boats will be measured against.
If you haven’t realized by my tone, we were not able to buy her, although we very much wanted to. We were very open and honest with her owner and we explained this was our goal! Sadly we are not yet in a financial position to make this kind of purchase. We hoped she would still be for sale in a few months and we could be ready to purchase her, but she has found a new owner. This is definitely the one that got away!
More about the finances… . MiMi was listed at 220,000.00. For a boat loan you will need about 20% down.. about 44,000.00 for this boat (give or take). He told us the price was 20,000.00 higher because he had listed it with a broker so the original asking price was about 200,000.00. We thought maybe we could get it for 180,000.00 or so because we have heard many times that large negotiations often take place. But even with the agreed price of 180K (which we hadn’t tried) we would still need 32K. We don’t have it… yet.
As you may recall, we have been putting all our extra money into our student debt so as to pay it all off. We don’t have a nest egg. Also, we are thinking more and more about a different business venture to allow us to make money without a traditional employer / employee dynamic.
At this time, sadly, we are not ready to make this kind of purchase. Simply put, we don’t have all our ducks in a row yet. We are hoping for a F. I. R. E. lifestyle:
