‘I swapped a house in Kent for a narrowboat. It's saved me £900 a month'

Telegraph

27-07-2025

At the start of the year, I began living on a narrowboat, partly due to high house prices, but also because I yearned for a more peaceful pace of life.
The last few months have involved moving my boat at a leisurely pace from Worcester to Bedfordshire, taking a lengthy detour via Birmingham to avoid a closed section of the canal.
It was a very scenic trip, and taught me a lot about the value of taking things slowly and looking for the simple pleasures in life. We really do live in a very beautiful country and there are few better ways to see it than by pootling along the canals at 4mph.
Most of the challenges came from the unusually hot and dry months of June and July, where the canal water levels dropped significantly across the Midlands. Many sections of the canal are still rationing water, with locks only open at certain points of the day.
As a result, more than once my boat ran aground. On one occasion, I had to deploy all my powers of persuasion to convince two Chinese tourists, who spoke very little English, to come and stand with me on the furthest side of the boat so we could rock it off the mud.
Somehow, they were not deterred by the strange, sunburnt man doing lots of pointing and amateur sign language, and they then stayed with me for a few hours as we cruised into the middle of Birmingham. By choice, I should add, before anyone accuses me of kidnap or piracy.
Fortunately, most days were far less dramatic.
On a typical weekday, I get up, walk my dog, check work emails and do half a day's work. The remaining half of the day I fire up the engine and aim to do five or so hours of cruising before finding a scenic place to moor up for the night. On weekends, I cruise all day.
The exception to this routine is in very bad weather. I don't mind moving the boat in the rain, as this can make for a quieter day on the water – wiser boaters decide it's a better idea to stay below deck and put the kettle on.
Wet conditions do increase the risk for a single-handed boater when doing canal locks because you end up climbing up wet ladders and having to walk on the slippery roof and sides of the boat.
My risk appetite is too low to tolerate the prospect of slipping and falling into a lock with no one around to help me, so on very rainy days, I prefer to stay put unless I can do a few hours' cruising lock-free.
A lower cost life
The rainy days give me a chance to work out some of my finances, and how living on a boat compares to the cost of a house.
When I lived in a house in Kent, my outgoings were around £1,760 a month, and would now be higher due to mortgage rates rising.
This includes train fares of £540 a month, £200 on groceries, £100 on petrol, £225 on my share of assorted bills like council tax and water, £200 for the monthly share of annual bills like car, pet and home insurance, and £500 on a mortgage, thanks to a super-cheap fix.
On a narrowboat, my monthly outgoings are considerably less. From March to July, my monthly spending averaged £840 a month, so £920 less than living in bricks and mortar. Some months, I spend as little as £500.
My typical costs include around £60 a month on diesel, £200 on groceries, £50 on my phone and internet, and maybe £50 on sundries, like when a storm blew my chimney cap into the canal, never to be seen again.
The £840 figure also includes the monthly costs of big yearly bills. I now spend £250 a month on mooring fees, as I decided I wanted to have somewhere to leave my boat when going to visit friends and family.
These fees are optional, but the alternative is to move the boat at least every two weeks, under canal rules, which I thought could become tricky if I had an extended trip planned.
My annual boat licence costs £1,118.64, which works out at £93.22 a month, and also includes my water bill. My boat insurance is another £30 a month, car insurance is £50 and pet insurance is another £50.
I also spent £51.23 on oil and filters to service my engine, which needs doing twice a year at least, so another £8.53 a month.
The cost of running my boat does go up in the winter due to the cost of smokeless fuel, which I burn in a stove to heat the boat. From January to March, I ran that stove nearly 24 hours a day which added £192 to my monthly outgoings.
This means a total of £1,033.75 a month at the coldest points of the year, dipping a bit during periods where I only need heat in the evenings and overnight.
The curse of 'sticky diesel'
But living on a boat, while overall far less expensive than a house, does not necessarily mean a constantly low cost of living. Rather, I have come to view it as a succession of fairly cheap months punctuated by the occasional eye-wateringly large bill.
A case in point came one chilly morning in March. I was heading towards Birmingham when I noticed a faint hint of white smoke coming from my exhaust.
This is not unheard of when starting an engine in cold conditions, but it got steadily worse as the day went on. Eventually, I moored up and called a mechanic, who tinkered about with my engine and informed me that my diesel injectors had gummed up and would need professional servicing.
Cue a seven-day sojourn stuck by the towpath with no power, waiting for new parts and a £700 bill, plus an extra £600 to get my tank cleaned out.
This was an expensive way to learn that the additive I'd been putting into my diesel tank to prevent 'diesel bug' – microbes that contaminate fuel – can backfire by causing 'sticky diesel'. This clogs up the narrowest part of the engine, the needle-like injector nozzles.
There have also been some one-off renovation costs, such as a new sofa (£200) and varnish and paint (£200).
These occasional large bills will certainly continue, although some of that will be by choice. I have some planned expenditure to get the boat how I want it. This will include £1,000 to get solar panels installed to give me constant electricity, at least outside the darker winter months.
Currently, I get electricity by running my engine, so in the long run, these solar panels will cut my diesel bill considerably. They should last for at least 10 years, so will pay for themselves.
I also want to lay some new lino for the floor, which is still very much in vogue on the inland waterways. This will probably be another couple of hundred pounds, and I will get some new curtains made up which will cost around the same.
My spending now feels more purposeful
Financially, I am certainly better off month-to-month for living on a narrowboat, although this needs to be weighed against the fact that it will not increase in value over time the way a house should.
But I also feel I am getting a greater quality of life for my money, and my spending feels more purposeful.
When I lived in a house, I did resent the fact that part of the higher bills we all pay are due to the neglect and oversight of others, leaving the poor old homeowner or renter to pick up the tab. Energy bills, water bills, council tax – it all seemed a case of 'pay more, get less', with no alternatives available.
Our higher energy bills cover the cost of dozens of firms that collapsed due to unsustainable business models, for example, as well as the failings of a national energy strategy too dependent on unreliable overseas power.
Recent plans to raise water bills are in part due to decades of shareholders creaming off profits that should have improved our failing infrastructure. And don't get me started on council tax bills and how local authorities manage their finances.
Living on a boat does not completely insulate me from all this, bar council tax. But because I am now off-grid, it does mean that most bills are more likely to be a result of my own decisions or incompetence rather than someone else's, which sits a bit better with me.
It is not a life that would suit everyone. For me, there have certainly been more joyful moments afloat, but many tougher ones too. There are always jobs to do, which involves constant triaging. There is also much less convenience, as I have no postcode and therefore cannot easily order things online – though many supermarkets will deliver to car parks and canal bridges, much to my delight.
But for me, the trade-off has been worth it. Life on the canals has brought a level of calm, clarity and adventure I had not even realised I was missing, and I feel 10 years younger. And for now at least, I have no plans to go back.