My brother and SIL bought a very large boat several years ago. They live on it and cruise all over the place. They sold the big house and all their other fancy stuff when he retired and bought a tiny condo in a marina that they rent out when they are gone for long periods. I choke on the gas bill for that thing. Not for me, but they love it. Bro says they plan to do this for another year or so, then he’s trading it in for his dream cabin in the woods so he can hunt and fish for the rest of his life. I DO plan on visiting the cabin, especially if there’s venison on the menu. 
I think I’d plan on visiting them on the boat, too, before they trade it in. I wonder, though, if it’s actually cheaper than maintaining their big house and all the rest of it, to live on that boat. Low electricity/gas bill, no property taxes.
Pretty sure that boat’s not cheaper than anything. I get badly seasick, so no boating for me.
Nah, it’s not like that.
His boat cost around $500K I believe. Who knows how much he’s put into it over the years. He and his fiance just finished a major house renovation. He’s got an amazingly stocked wine cellar. They travel… believe me he is not miserable. Or that miserly. 
Okay, that’s good. I guess he just likes to complain, then.
My mother used to call it “poor-mouthing”, because the term humble brag hadn’t been invented yet.
Exactly. He is just reminding everyone of how much money he has to spend.
Since he doesn’t have to work, he and his fiance founded, run (and make substantial donations to) a fairly large charity that benefits a lot of people. He’s a pretty normal guy, went to his local state U, started a business and made it big. He made a bunch of people a bunch of money (sadly, not me 
). He’s not humble-bragging… sometimes I think he forgets how much money he has compared to everyone else and just gets irritated like everyone else when something costs more than it should. And on a boat, that’s pretty much everything.
Starting a high-tech company and cashing out is a pretty good retirement plan if you have the skills to do it.
Getting your sailboat’s electronics fried by lightening and $$$ in damages - understandable why one would complain.
It’s actually kind of interesting, if you find these kinds of things interesting.
The lightning hit the top of the mast where a couple of radio antennas were mounted, and completely vaporized them. There was literally nothing left but the charred socket.
It traveled down the wire to the antenna into the electrical system of the boat, and every plug that was plugged into a socket got welded into the socket.
The charge arced from a wire into the metal sink, and from there got into the refrigeration system, which got fried. He thinks it exited the boat through the bilge, and on the way took out the generator and water-maker. Even stuff that was unplugged got fried as the current jumped around to anything with metal. He’s been told anything with wiring in it needs to be replaced, because even if something seems to work now it will fail soon because of internal damage that is not visible.
He’s very lucky there was no fire. And if they had been on the boat when it got struck they could have been electrocuted.
i’m surprised he didn’t have a boat that size grounded, or did the system fail?
Good question, I’m not sure how that works on a boat. The boat was not in the water when it was struck.
Wow on the boat/lightening story. Scary stuff. Can that happen when a boat is out at sea?
“Both realize they have been given a gift of graduating college w/o debt.”- Aint that the truth!!
Mine both realized it through undergrad, but it is really hitting home through grad school as they listen to/and observe their friends who must carry debt.
We have started to look for a new pontoon before H retires.We have a lake home that has been in the family for 26 years. The pontoon is about 20 years old. I am suffering from sticker shock! We don’t want all the bells and whistles…showers, grill, fancy sound system or fishing gear. We have kids and dogs that come on board so I don’t want top of the line finishes. It is very hard to find what we want.
I never knew pontoon boats had showers! How about one of those slides, though? 
All the pontoon boats I’ve been on have essentially been floating picnic tables. Didn’t realize they can be pimped out!
I googled around, saw some for north of $75K! Holy smokes! Some inexpensive ones for $12K though.
$75k? Holy guac. That’s like the cost of our floating freeway bridge!
I wonder what people “not from around here” would think of all the posts in this thread. It’s fun reading all the diversions, or whatever we should be calling them
Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes so there are lots of pontoons around here! We don’t want all the fancy stuff, don’t need a big motor(we have a ski boat) and are budgeting around $40,000 and we are stiil having trouble because most of the marinas have fully loaded models that have stuff we don’t want or need. We want the “party barge” size with simple finishes. We are more about size rather than glitz.