paying mortgage interest if you don't have to makes no sense to me even with the tax deduction (e.g., if you pay $5K in interest a year and tax income rate is 20% you're getting $1K off on your tax bill but you're still forking out $4k), but obviously a house is the largest purchase most people make and most can NEVER pay off a mortgage.

mortgages are actually just a bigger more expensive racket hassle. but since hardly anyone can afford to buy homes and other property outright, they are a necessary evil, and they do allow people to leverage themselves, which adds risk, but big rewards if one can hang with it over the long term. as i said, while i did pay off my home (amazing peace of mind even if 'dumb' financially, open to debate), i did recently borrow against it to buy another property, but hope to have that paid off too in a couple of years. one thing i find about borrowing for a purpose, for me at least, is it 'pushes' me to save/repay loans as aggressively as i can and therefore not 'waste' money on other things. but like everything there's a balance and trade-off that each of us is comfortable with.

you have a boat, which i presume you paid cash for, but i consider a boat (not my quote) a hole in the water in which to pour money. i've rented a few boats when i've wanted to go out on the water. works for me, no towing, no ramps, give it back after, done.

didn't say or mean to say they were false statements, i just said they don't apply to me, or i expect most people who lease. doesn't mean they're false or never apply to anyone. peace.

i'm not even aware that i paid any security deposit on my lease. as i said, next time, i'm getting you or someone else on here to do the deal for me!

 

I'm a boat owner too, and you're not wrong. Boats are a PITA, but they're not a necessity to get from point A to point B so it's not the same as cars to me.

But owning your own is pretty cool. I just need to do like 2 easy things to mine and I'll be out on the water. It's cost me zero dollars so far this year to get the process started. The ramp is 5 minutes away, nbd.

 

Same with us. We bought our boat used.

Again..owning your own stuff gives you options. Gives you freedom to do whatever you want

 

Renting a boat for a day ain't cheap either. And those new boat club things where you pay a monthly to have access for anything, full of catches (e.g. you still pay through winter) and cost a freaking fortune.

 

You probably didn't, most don't require one, but you can pay deposits to bring the MF down.

I will definitely negotiate your deal for you! I do it for people all the time.

I find it interesting people who own boats scoff at leasing cars as a waste of money lol. See, its all relative.

I've never owned a boat but my dad had one (41 ft Hunter sailboat). I like boats, but I would never buy one, its just not a big enough interest to me to be worth the expense. I drove 160 miles today all over the place between appointments and enjoyed every second of it in my car. So, well worth the expense to me.

 

Leasing a boat is a total waste of money.

 

Who said anything about leasing boats? Can you even lease a boat?

IMHO owning a boat is a total waste of money. See, its all relative. You enjoy your boat though so its worth it to you.

 

I agree with you.

 

Exactly. There are different things that are important to you than are important to me. Boat is important to you, so you choose to spend money on it. Having nice new cars and replacing them every few years is important to me, so I choose to spend money leasing cars. Neither of us is wrong.

I'd like to have a boat too, its just not important enough to me to go to the expense. I'm sure its similar for you with new cars.

 

Even if you're spending money to keep a boat up, at least it's yours. Like I said, I spent a decent amount of money ($1600) on mine to fix everything up a couple years ago and just haven't fooled with it since. But in theory it should be ready to go. I hope to be out this weekend. All it's going to cost me to run is gas and oil.

That said I'm not sure if I'd be on the boat bandwagon either in an area as huge as yours, things would be much more of a hassle.

 

There's also a difference between what sort of boat we're talking about and where you live. Any boat I bought would have to reside somewhere other than my home, and boats I would be interested in would be sailboats and things that would need a slip in a marina, etc. Lot of cost, hassle and concern there.

 

Ohhhh yeah. The dock down the street wants over $300 a month for a 19 foot boat. Pshhh. I'm sure DC metro would be more.

Plus if you're talking about a larger boat like a cabin cruiser-- wayyyyyyy more cost.

 

So when my Dad had his 41 foot sailboat the slip was $1,100 a month in Annapolis, and that was 13-14 years ago!

 

I actually bought my boat a year used in 2001 and for some odd reason I ended up getting a loan for it from a credit union and paying it off the next month. Can’t recall why I did that. It’s been a great boat and has required minimal maintenance and only one minor mechanical issue for 20 years. It’s a Sea Ray SunDeck 240 which I call the Toyota Camry of the lake. Tons of them out there, very reliable and not the hole in a water many boats can be. Our marina has dry warehouse storage for the boat and it’s roughly $2k per year on average for my berth (counted as a 26 ft boat because of the swim platform on back).

(somewhat back to thread topic) I do think I will use it a lot less after Covid. The marina has always been good and get my boat down quickly, I can show up with friends any time and not wait long to be out on the water. With Covid they have an app to schedule your launch in advance, cant just show up and ask to pull it out, special procedures for less contact with deck hands, fuel, boat return etc. We've used the boat somewhat less over the last few summers since we are at the racetrack more often and combined with tougher access that might be enough to give that little luxury up. Plus we and our friends are 20 years older than when I bought it, lol and we break more easily so a lot less time tubing, kneeboarding etc. And more just floating drinking and hanging out.

 

^^^^I suspect that, with the pandemic, we will see a lot of used boats up for sale.