We Faulkners are not real night owl people, so our New Year Eve's evening ended around 9pm. A dock party was thrown on our dock and we enjoyed lots of food and conversation from 6pm until it began getting cool and we began yawning. My seafood crostini appetizer was a big hit... I'll have to take pictures and post the recipe at some point. We turned in at 9pm and met the New Year bright eyed and bushy tailed. We had 'Just A Minute' over for a lasagna dinner and celebrated the January 1st with old friends. Such a pleasure!

This morning I find myself doing the books. Our first cruising year cost the Faulkner Family $16,761.25 USD. This includes costs for everything... from having 'Windfall' hauled out and painted to buying a 5 peso taco. This makes our average monthly cost $1,414.18 USD.

Take a gander at our largest cost? Our largest cost was GROCERIES at 35% (I keep saying to myself that I don't really eat THAT much). Actually, our grocery number also includes household items such as cleaning supplies, personal hygiene supplies and dogfood. If we go to Walmart, for example, our bill may also include things like batteries, beer, school supplies and hardwares. Frankly, breaking the receipts down to record 'food' and 'household' takes too much time and I need peace and quiet to be able to concentrate... not likely to happen on 'Windfall'.

Our next three largest annual expenses were: BOAT EQUIPMENT ($1,793.99), DINING OUT ($1,137.25), and BOAT REPAIRS ($1,487.14). Jim's going to help me export the Excel spreadsheet to a webpage in case anyone is interested in details.

The photo is of Jodie (Smoke-n-Blues) and Marcia (Juniata) using the shopping cart escalator at the MEGA grocery store in Mazatlan. We were packed down with groceries after that trip and barely made it home without a having a hernia.