The kitty on a sailing trip
Before the first trip with a new crew, sooner or later someone asks how the shared costs for diesel, harbour fees and provisions will be paid. For a long time the answer was an envelope of cash that everyone puts the same amount into at the start, and that was also the simplest way. Today a kitty that runs on cash alone is usually the most work, because some of the spending inevitably bypasses it and makes the settle-up at the end tedious, for instance when the marina only takes cards or someone buys something ashore on the spur of the moment without going to the envelope first.
In short:
- A cash-only kitty works only as long as every expense goes through the envelope, which rarely happens once cards and spur-of-the-moment purchases come into play.
- Cost-splitting apps do the maths for you, but they rely on everyone paying what they owe at the end, which isn't a given in a new crew.
- A deposit at the start gives security while the crew don't know each other yet, and logging expenses digitally along the way catches everything not paid from the envelope.
- If you use an app, let everyone enter what they paid for the crew themselves, so nobody has to chase receipts and messages.
How does the kitty work on a sailing trip?
The kitty is the crew's shared money for everything the trip costs as a group. What comes out of it and what everyone pays for themselves, such as dinner at a restaurant or an excursion ashore, is best agreed before the trip, along with the rest of the trip planning.
The classic kitty with cash
At the start of the trip everyone puts the same amount into an envelope or a tin, and one crew member looks after it as treasurer. The treasurer keeps a paper cash book, collects the receipts in the envelope and hands out money when someone goes shopping for the crew. Anyone who went shopping without cash from the kitty brings back the receipt and gets the amount paid back.
This works well as long as every single expense really goes through the envelope. In practice a few receipts usually go missing, and at the end the cash and the cash book don't add up, because nobody remembers who paid for the diesel at the fuel dock and whether that money already came out of the kitty.
Why cash alone is no longer enough
More and more often you can't pay cash at all along the way. The marina office takes cards, berths are booked online in advance, and electricity and water on the pontoon come from a machine that only accepts cards. Then there are the spur-of-the-moment purchases ashore, when nobody goes back to the envelope on board first.
It often starts on the very first morning in harbour. Two early risers go to fetch bread rolls from the bakery on the town quay while the others are still asleep. The envelope stays on board because the treasurer is still in their bunk, and the bakery only takes cards anyway.
So the rolls get paid for privately, and from then on there are two sets of books, the cash in the envelope and a growing pile of private outlays that are only noted in someone's head or in the group chat. On the last evening someone then has to piece together the cash book, the chat and the bank statements.
Cost-splitting apps do the maths for you
Apps for splitting expenses get rid of the double bookkeeping because there is no envelope any more. Everyone pays however suits them at the time, enters the expense with the amount and who it was for, and the app keeps track of the balances. At the end it suggests who pays whom, so nobody has to do the sums.
Among friends who know each other and will meet again after the trip, this is usually the simplest way. It does rely on trust, though, because whoever paid a lot along the way ends up with a large credit and has to collect the money from the others after the trip. In a crew that only met on board, for example through a crew-finding platform, as working passage crew or as friends of friends, the risk stays with whoever paid.
Deposit plus digital bookkeeping
For a crew that don't trust each other yet, combining the two works best. At the start everyone pays a deposit into the kitty, in cash to the treasurer. Along the way every expense is logged digitally, whether it came out of the kitty or went on someone's card, and an outlay is then paid back from the kitty or offset against the deposit.
Most cost-splitting apps, however, have no concept of a shared kitty and only split each amount between people. This setup needs bookkeeping that handles both, the kitty as a pot of its own with deposits and expenses, and alongside it what each person has paid out and been paid back, so the two can be offset against each other.
Tip: the treasurer is not a gatekeeper
The treasurer doesn't need to approve every entry or enter it themselves. It is simpler when everyone in the crew enters what they paid for the crew as soon as they pay it, so nobody has to collect receipts and messages. That leaves the treasurer with checking that the entries are complete and sorting out any discrepancies with the crew.