Down to $15.59/Lobster

I updated the Balance Sheet finally.  It’d been a while, I know…

Frankly, we’re doing significantly better than I ever would have expected. We’re actually at the $15 per lobster threshold. You see plenty of menus offering lobster dinners for anywhere between $15 and $25.  So 15 bucks invested in gear, gas* and incidentals for each lobster we’ve hauled doesn’t sound THAT bad by comparison.

But take into account current market prices, on the other hand, and our record isn’t all that great either!

Commercially, lobster is selling for around $6.99-7.99 per pound; wholesale it’s selling at a near record, industry-crippling low of $2.25 per pound – that’s “less expensive than hot dogs,” says one lobster boat captain. Assuming that a lobster with the minimum legal carapace length weighs no less than one pound, I would guess that the average weight of our haul has been around 1.125-1.25 pounds per lobster.

By those numbers, I think we still need to get in the ballpark of $8 per lobster for this to have made ANY economic sense.  But of course this doesn’t make any sense, because I haven’t included opportunity costs (I could have spent my time becoming a mistress of fly fishing? or we could have vacationed in Mexico??)  or the fact that we NEVER would have wanted to eat this much lobster to begin with:)

*Note: our itemized expenses and total costs now include gas, which we had previously overlooked. Though it’s a minor expense given that the motor (which hopefully will be back up and running soon, poor guy!) is only 20 horse power and gets good fuel efficiency, it does begin to add up.

See our updated itemized expenses on the Balance Sheet.

See our cost per lobster chart from July 5, 2009.