Why is rent so high in Kihei now? (fit in, find a job)

[winkosmosis]

Look what I found today! Biggest I've seen in Hawaii

[MitchTempo]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

Look what I found today! Biggest I've seen in Hawaii

Oh they get bigger alright.

However I'm more weary of the smaller blue ones since those have a greater chance to get staph infections from =P.

[Rido]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

Look what I found today! Biggest I've seen in Hawaii

[Sherwoody]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

Look what I found today! Biggest I've seen in Hawaii

Baby killer!

[davephan]

Originally Posted by 72andsunny

Wink, all these people telling you to live in a place you don't love and work in a job you may not like so that you can one day afford Hawaii are full of crap. That is no way to live. They regret not "having had the opportunity" to bum around Europe in their twenties, and are always thinking things will be better in the future. Every minute of your life is important, don't get stuck wasting 30 years like they did.

I should note: I am considering leaving NZ because saving for retirement means working until you are 80. But really, I would rather work a day or two a week in my seventies and live in Godzone than retire at 60 in Minnesota.

That's exactly the attitude that gets people into trouble in their lives. I see it all the time. Young people want immediate gratification. This comes in the form of avoiding hard classes in school, going for the easy major instead of hard major that offers much higher financial rewards and a much higher probably of finding a high paying job. It also comes from working a job you love, but pays low wages, no benefits or poor benefits, no pension, and frequent unemployment during your working years.

Bumming around after college is a huge mistake! After you graduate, the clock starts ticking. If you don't have your first job after college within a year from the graduation, then the value of the college degree is significantly eroded. If you wait a couple of years after graduating to attempt to find a job, the degree you worked on for years to complete, has almost no value at all to employers. You are being compared by the prospective employer to other applicants to did not bum around Europe or anywhere else for a year or two.

Spending all that you earn, no matter how much you earn is a serious mistake. You need to live below your means. If you can work at a high paying job, you can live on 50% of what you earn. We live on about 25% to 30% of what we earn. We live in a nice area and own a nice house. We don't own luxury cars. Since we live below our means, we live debt free. We can save a lot towards retirement. The key to be able to live debt free and save a lot of money for retirement is the high paying job. It makes a huge difference if your spouse also made the sacrifices when they were young and also has a high paying job. When we retire, we will have the financial freedom to live where ever we want to live, including Hawaii.

You can flip that story around to reflect the way a vast number of people live their lives. Go to school and take an easy major. Find a job you love to do that doesn't have benefits and has low pay. Save little to zero for retirement. Live in a nice climate where the cost of living is very high. Since you don't have the income it takes, you live hand to mouth every day. Anything that happens, such as your car breaking down is a major crisis in your life. Your gas tank is always near empty because you never have enough money to fill up your tank. Your refrigerator is almost always empty. You're always walking around broke, although you are walking around in a nice climate. Since you don't make enough money, you get part time job(s). Now you're working seven days a week, maybe 12 hours a day. That's not much of a life. Your still barely scraping by, not saving anything, but your a little farther from the edge. It's hard to enjoy paradise when your life is a mess.

The longer you live your life like that, the harder it is to dig yourself out of the hole. By age 40, you can still turn it around, but it's tough to do at age 40, speaking from my personal experience. It is nearly impossible at age 50. It is probably not possible by age 60. Saving enough for retirement is geometrically harder the older you are when you start saving.

When you get older and want to retire, you cannot retire, because you can't afford to stop working. You may think back and wonder if you should have made sacrifices in your life when you were young. By then it will be too late. Your future is then set in stone. Eventually, you won't be physically able to work and you will then have to retire in absolute poverty. You will then be living at or below the edge, maybe fall into homeless and despair.

[whtviper1]

Well said Dave. For every 20 something bumming around Hawaii "living the dream" and actually make it work there are 10 horror stories where they never really recover. And if they would have had a little patience could have thrived out here later in life.

[Jonah K]

Originally Posted by MauiPartTimer

Rounding down from 73.88% to 70% to account for taxes was probably insufficient. Wink said his "take-home" (i.e."net") was $2360 and all the number you quoted were gross pay.

Wink,
Compare your own gross earnings to the numbers Jonah provided for an appples-to-apples comparison.

Considering that a certain percentage of one's income should be set aside for savings and retirement, I stand by my original calculation that Wink needs to increase his income by at least 70% to be "on par" with what fully-employed males in Kīhei are earning. Keep in mind that we're discussing "median income" figures based on a 5-year estimate covering the years 2008 through 2012 and that the inflation rate in Hawaiʻi during that time period ranged from low of 0.5% to a high of 4.3%.

[Texan Hula]

Rido and Wink - sorry to hear about both your dads passing. I hope all is well with you in HI now. Leaving Houston is the best thing the both of you could've done. I've been here for 2.5 years and hate every minute of it. Moved here for family, which promptly fell apart, and got stuck in a dead end job at a Houston hospital system (oil and gas are very picky about who gets to work for them I found out). I took a 40% pay cut from my cushy job in SF to be with family, and it was only worth it for about a month. Distance was better for our family after all. I will not miss much in Houston, the traffic sucks and there is way too many fast food joints here. I've gained the houston-30, thanks to my laziness. I live in the Heights, so my house value almost doubled in 2 years - that's what going to keep me afloat in Maui when I move there in April. It is miserable here - too many people and too much violence. I wake up to the news than contains no less than 10 murders/shootings a day - and I used to live in NYC and it was no where near the crime. Lots of unemployed and mean folks too. Maui is special - you have to really want to be part of the family of the island. I'm glad to see that both of you have made it out of this pit of Texas (being a Dallas native, it's sad to be in Houston). See y'all in a couple of months!

[Futuremauian]

Originally Posted by Texan Hula

Rido and Wink - sorry to hear about both your dads passing. I hope all is well with you in HI now. Leaving Houston is the best thing the both of you could've done. I've been here for 2.5 years and hate every minute of it. Moved here for family, which promptly fell apart, and got stuck in a dead end job at a Houston hospital system (oil and gas are very picky about who gets to work for them I found out). I took a 40% pay cut from my cushy job in SF to be with family, and it was only worth it for about a month. Distance was better for our family after all. I will not miss much in Houston, the traffic sucks and there is way too many fast food joints here. I've gained the houston-30, thanks to my laziness. I live in the Heights, so my house value almost doubled in 2 years - that's what going to keep me afloat in Maui when I move there in April. It is miserable here - too many people and too much violence. I wake up to the news than contains no less than 10 murders/shootings a day - and I used to live in NYC and it was no where near the crime. Lots of unemployed and mean folks too. Maui is special - you have to really want to be part of the family of the island. I'm glad to see that both of you have made it out of this pit of Texas (being a Dallas native, it's sad to be in Houston). See y'all in a couple of months!

Your comment about "hate every minute of it" made me smile. My closest friends were transferred from California to Houston, and they too, hated every minute of it. They had to stay 5 years until he could wrangle a transfer back. The good was that they were able to buy a mansion in Kingwood (6000 ft.) for what a nice home costs here. Their son excelled in the great public elementary school but they hated Houston and the arrogant attitudes they encountered, especially on the highways. My friend swears he will quit if they try to force him to go back there. I enjoyed my visits, especially the Papa's Restaurant Chain. We visited the Houston Space Center, Kima, Galveston, etc. We also met every Christmas in Maui/Kauai/Hawaii or Grand Cayman, and Spring Breaks in Louisiana/San Diego/Disneyland/Maui/Florida, etc.. They have been back here for nearly 5 years now, and I believe they will follow me to Maui after he retires.
Best of luck in Maui. I will be there later this year.

[Rido]

Originally Posted by Texan Hula

Rido and Wink - sorry to hear about both your dads passing. I hope all is well with you in HI now. Leaving Houston is the best thing the both of you could've done. I've been here for 2.5 years and hate every minute of it. Moved here for family, which promptly fell apart, and got stuck in a dead end job at a Houston hospital system (oil and gas are very picky about who gets to work for them I found out). I took a 40% pay cut from my cushy job in SF to be with family, and it was only worth it for about a month. Distance was better for our family after all. I will not miss much in Houston, the traffic sucks and there is way too many fast food joints here. I've gained the houston-30, thanks to my laziness. I live in the Heights, so my house value almost doubled in 2 years - that's what going to keep me afloat in Maui when I move there in April. It is miserable here - too many people and too much violence. I wake up to the news than contains no less than 10 murders/shootings a day - and I used to live in NYC and it was no where near the crime. Lots of unemployed and mean folks too. Maui is special - you have to really want to be part of the family of the island. I'm glad to see that both of you have made it out of this pit of Texas (being a Dallas native, it's sad to be in Houston). See y'all in a couple of months!

I still think people in Houston were nicer than dallas. Idk, I guess I adjusted to houston so me staying in shape was cake.

But... Texas is one of the states with the lowest unemployment. It may just be your general area of unemployment. Do you have family here in Maui?