TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Splitting food + liquor costs

Last time we chartered, my husband and I picked up the tab for everyone (it was us and our kids). Easy peasy.
For our upcoming charter in November, we're sailing with another couple and a single friend. We've split the boat cost 5 ways.
Looking for ideas on how to share the cost of food and liquor. It seems we all drink different things. One guy drinks gin - I won't touch gin with a 10 foot pole. I drink rum. Other gal doesn't drink rum. We all drink wine. That kind of thing.
We want to pre-order liquor from Caribbean Cellars. How would you split things up? How logistically do you pay/split costs?
I'm thinking we'll shop when we get there and split the cost of food at the store. Stupid question: does one person pay with a credit card and the others chip in cash?
Then there's the cost of ice, water, mooring balls and fuel. Any ideas for that?

Everyone here always has such great advice - thanks!
Julie

aside from the liquor, pooling money always works great for us. the grocery store will split credit cards, we have done it may times. After your liquor and food costs are settled. Assign one person as a purser who can handle all the petty bills. You all chip in $100 and start with a $500 pool. He or she can take car of mooring balls, ice, water, and taxis.

I would recommend just splitting the food and liquor 5 ways just like the boat. Liquor is dirt cheap so the cost should even out.

For ice, water, mooring, dock, tips, fuel, etc I would use a boat kitty. Have everyone chip in $100 on the first day and put it someplace accessible to everyone so they can grab it as necessary. Or you can designate a purser who uses the kitty to pay for everything. If the kitty depletes, everyone throw in another $50 or $100. On the last day, spend the rest of the kitty at the bar...

+1 on have a boat or kitty treasurer keeper of the purse. Always better to break down the tasks so everyone knows what there duties and roles are. One owns payments and collections, another can be dingy, painter, wipe down captain.... A master of the windless also does not hurt.

We always do a simple split for food and booze. Everyone keeps a little log for incidental boat expenses like moorings, ice, and picking up the tab at lunches and dinners. At the end of the charter, we add all those up and split it evenly - done deal!

We take turns buying everything, write it on a tablet and at the end of the charter we divide by the number of folks, exchange small mounts of money to even it up.

This is what we do. Just split it all evenly - might be a little uneven if someone drinks more..etc.. but its pretty minor and we've never had a problem using this method. I use a spreadsheet for it. Happy to share if anyone wants it.

We had one person pay for almost everything, food, drinks, moorings, fuel,etc. At the end of the trip, he would go through receipts and let you now what you owe. It worked well for us. Everyone was responsible for buying their own souvenirs.

Great ideas - thanks!
I think I was overthinking it. Everyone (besides my husband and myself) are new sailors on this upcoming trip. I just wanted to be sure I was covering all the bases and making things fair. And I think our friends are going to be fine splitting things evenly.
Great idea about the boat kitty!

We split the provisioning equally and have a boat kitty for mooring fees, etc. For activities or eating out, we use a smartphone app called Travel Money (Android - I'm sure there i versions). You put in the people (or couples) and then when someone pays a bill it automatically splits the charge among them or you can specify a different split if you want. It keeps track of who owes who how much. One person can pay and have everyone reimburse at the end, or what we do, is rotate payments and try to keep it roughly even and then settle any differences at the end (which is usually very minor. It's really very easy to use.

We split evenly and do a boat kitty. One of our crew wants to put everything on her credit card that she can, so she gets fuel and things like that. I run a spreadsheet and do a statement and folks send me their checks and I write checks to folks who get a refund. We don't invite folks who are whiners or who obsess about whether the should have to pay for individual items or ingredients.

Cheers, RickG

This is what we did as well - worked out great. Saved all receipts and settled everything evenly at the end of the trip.

All the liquor and food is split evenly by the number of people, no matter what you drink or eat. My husband doesn't drink, but we still include him in the split. I put this all on my credit card, along with any rental cars, fuel, insurance, etc. When we get home I let everyone know what they owe and we settle up before my CC is due. This way they don't have to bring as much cash with them.

We have a boat kitty, start with $100 per couple, that we use for all mooring ball fees, ice and extra provisions.

Everyone pays for there own food and liquor on shore.

Works out well

For all you pirate fans and fantasy players...

"A pirate Quartermaster would - like every other Lord aboard a pirate ship - be elected by the crew on a ‘one man, one vote’ basis. His duties would be to represent the interests of the crew and stand betwixt captain and crew in any dispute, to maintain order and discipline, settle all quarrels and distribute food, drink and other essentials. The Quartermaster was responsible for all supplies aboard the ship, which no-one could take or use without his permission. The Quartermaster would take part in all battles and was expected to be the first aboard a prize to find and declare everything to be taken and secure any plunder, which he would divide into equal shares and distribute or supervise distribution. He would have to decide using his knowledge of the available storage space and the nearest market-place which if any of the prizes bulk or cargo to take, and supervise the shipping of any cargo off the prize. In the case of ‘discipline’, a Jury drawn from the crew would decide any case, but in slight cases of infringement of the Articles, only the Quartermaster would be responsible for any punishment. If two or more crewmen had a disagreement with each other, the Quartermaster would attempt to resolve the issue."

Every boat crew should have one or a pair that work very well together.

I pay for the boat and tell everybody what they owe for that. I also pay for all the provisioning. We all try to pick up different dinner checks, grocery bills and what not. We log it all into a little notebook and add it it up based on the couples. I've never asked anybody to pay more as it usually ends up fairly even..we're all friends, if I thought somebody wasn't/wouldn't paying their share, I wouldn't invite them. That said...I'm really looking forward to going with just my wife again. It would be nice to just do what we want to do. It's been quite a long time since we've done that.

We love sailing alone. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Cheers.gif" alt="" />

This January each member of our party of ten will put $200.00 in the kitty. These covers everyone's alcohol, food, mooring balls, gas, etc. Anything consumed on shore is your own responsibility. This money also pays for our two rental cars for the two days after the charter when we spend on Tortola as well as the one day before. It makes it nice getting provisions and picking up people at the airport. We drop off the cars at the airport as well so it saves money on taxis going and coming from the airport.

We were a little short last year so we bumped the amount from $175.00 to $200.00 for this next trip.

We love our trips just the two of us and love them with others as well. Seems to work out we have at least one of each every year. The biggest difference is that the costs end up much lower when we have others, which is always nice.

Matt, you're right. Last spring was expensive for us but also a once in a lifetime trip with both kids and others. Doing this with friends who can share the costs lets us do it more than once a year