2/17/11 HAWAIIAN DOLLARS
People often ask me how much more expensive is it to live in Hawaii. I may not be the best person to ask since our lifestyle tends more towards self sufficiency and simple living than most, but here is my take on that question.
The first cost exposure that visitors get is a stroll down any supermarket aisle where milk is $4.50 or more a gallon and eggs are $2.50 - $4 a dozen. Our first approach is to adapt. We only buy soy milk by the case when we can get to Costco for about $14 / dozen quarts ($3.50/gal) and I only buy eggs when they are on sale and we use less of both. The other way we adapt is to use what we can grow or forage. We make coconut milk by shredding coconut meat in the blender then steeping it in boiled water and squeezing the result for a rich and creamy drink. We toast the dry remains for adding to baking or cereal. Coconuts are available most times either from our own palm (one producing and several will start in three or four years) or from the lower edges of the local sports field. Eggs we’ve greatly reduced our use of (and hopefully our cholesterol levels) by switching to cereal more often in the morning and fish more often at supper.
Starting this summer we will be harvesting around 70 pounds of tilapia from our back yard pond annually at a cost of about 100 pounds fish feed. I still hope to grow a larger percentage of their food in the future but I’ve found that difficult. The store bought fish food costs around $1/pound and our other cost (besides the capital to build the pond) is the small air pump to keep the pond aerated and most of our electric we solar generate. A valuable side benefit is the fertilizer rich water that is gravity fed to our gardens.
But, back to the beginning question, I estimate very roughly that groceries cost 1/4- to 1/3 more here. Clearly this Island at least could produce all its own food if the people had not been conditioned by good times or by food stamps to expecting convenience food instead of basic unprocessed local food. And we include ourselves in this expectation. Even though we grow, forage or are gifted most of our fruit and vegetables we still spend $100 – 150 per month on groceries. We probably also spend $100- 130/ month on gas even though Myrna’s Insight that she commutes to work in gets 60 m.p.g. So far this year gas has been around $3.69/gallon on our side of the Island and average $4 on the west side (we have the refinery in Hilo). So you can imagine why I’m planning for an electric car soon after we finally sell the house in Chattaroy. But since we’ve lost so much on last year’s false sale, I may be building an electric conversion car instead of buying a new one. Another price example, a round bale of grass hay costs $300!
The uncertainties of selling a house on the mainland are another of the expenses of moving to Hawaii that I’ve learned a great deal about lately.
The housing “bubble” caught many people with a house for sale on the mainland and a house to pay for here. We were better prepared than most because our house on the mainland was paid for and Myrna had a good paying job here that although stressful was not impacted by the changing economy. Unlike many people stuck with two homes we’ve not had to surrender one of them to the bank but we have seen our “investment” declining in value. Just this week I finally got back the deed from the owner contract “buyers” who I let into our home in Chattaroy for a ridicules low down payment last fall and then never were able to make payments. Now I guess I’ll need an appraisal to try to price it right to get a quick sale. Both renting the house in ’09 when it didn’t sell and moving out the renter to prepare for the buyer in ’10 required an expensive and lengthily trip and this spring will probably be the same.
Another added expense of living here is all those items that we want but are not stocked here on the Island. In Spokane County if it is not stocked it can usually arrive on a truck from Seattle or Portland in two days at no extra charge. Here shipping might take one week from Honolulu or two weeks to two months from the mainland. The shipping charges are astounding. When shopping on line if it says free shipping in the U.S. we will usually encounter a suddenly added LARGE shipping charge for Alaska or Hawaii when we get to the LAST page of the transaction. Or at the Sears parts store, as I was yesterday, when I only need a tiny drive belt for my belt sander, which weights one once and could be put in an envelope and mailed, they tell me that UPS charge will be $23!!! Sears, like a surprising number of large businesses, refuses to ever use the USPS. Even so, I frequently order on line but need to spend a lot of time searching for a company that offers free shipping or uses USPS because things are so expensive here.
As a lot of people my age need occasional medical care that is only available in a large city, trips to Honolulu or the mainland can be an added expense. I have Medicare advantage with Kaiser which covers flying to Honolulu for anything they don’t do here. As I remain basically healthy I think the fact that people here live an average of 2 years longer plus the fact that I gain a month of productivity every year that I don’t need to shovel snow and chop firewood makes retirement in Hawaii a great deal!
Here on the eastside the forecast is for a temperature range the next 5 days of 65 to 82, a passing shower and sun each day. Kona side is usually 5 degrees warmer and Waimea area (2,000 ft) 5 degrees cooler. Aloha!
No comments:
Post a Comment