&%*$£@# Putin!

Rampant Cost Inflation

I don't think I could have chosen a worse time in the recent past to do a project like this. With rampant inflation on core items I need (like wood, steel, copper), even thought I did a careful, detailed budget  with plenty of contingency factored in, I am shooting past it before I even start. thanks to the rampant post-covid cost inflation on everything.

Mindful of this and aware that there are also shortages of a lot of things, I have ordered quite a few items already, some months before I even need them. The generator and motor are sitting in a warehouse since I purchased them last November. And in the last couple of weeks I have ordered the lithium batteries from China.  Dealing directly with a reseller in China (via Alibaba), who came with a good recommendation on a solar forum is saving quite a bit of money than buying in Europe, but even then, lithium costs are through the roof and the batteries I wanted were out of stock when I enquired and when forecast to be back in stock were materially more expensive than from when I first made a note of prices last year (about 75 % increase). For the batteries I have ended up ordered slightly lower capacity batteries and also I have had to order 'factory seconds' rather than grade A. They came from Shenzhen in China and were dispatched by the vendor just before that city was put in lockdown by the authorities. It is a couple of months to ship by sea, so I am hoping that they got to leave before everything ground to a halt. 

I also ordered the electronics for charging and discharging the batteries and the solar cells for the deck. I begged the vendor not to deliver before April (as Adam's furniture and stuff is still here), but not totally unsurprisingly, he said that a lot of my order was out of stock and would have to be ordered in anyway, so it will take some time.  Barclaycard blocked my card several times, as I have gone from spending virtually nothing on the card (when I was living in Vienna) to now touching the total credit limit and they thought it was possibly fraudulent usage. 

The real kicker came on Friday afternoon. It was an email from Colecraft informing me they are going to have to increase their steel input prices by 47%!!! The cost for the basic boat was already about 30% more than my original quote due to previous steel price increases post covid. Now thanks to the maniac in Moscow and commodities going even crazier, prices have shot up even more to previously unimaginable levels. Frustratingly, the email noted that boats currently under construction would not be subject to the increase. Frustrating, as if there had not been the delay that I had previously been relaxed about, my boat would be under construction now and I would have escaped the increase. More worryingly they will review again in May.  I was told in February that my build slot was now in April, but when I asked recently if this was still the case I was told, somewhat ominously that I would be told when my boat was due to start (a rather evasive answer). If it is going to slip in May, as well as the actual delay, I risk yet ANOTHER price increase.  With this recent raise, it already is going to be about double as when I started out on this project. Even more and I might have to draw a line on it and rethink if I even go ahead. 

Feeling I had better get the wire (copper) ordered sooner rather than later.

Not a good way to start the weekend. I have to say, a good chunk of me is starting to wonder if quitting work and going on a spending spree was such a clever idea.