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For our home in Hawaii we do have an electric hot water heater.. but we installed a timer. It only goes on for 2 hours a day once in the early AM an hour or so before we wake for the day and then again in the late afternoon for an hour. We have plenty of hot water for all day during the day and it did make a big difference in the electric bill. If we have company then we can override the timer and kick on the water heater for longer if we want. Cost of the timer was under $40 and was a real easy install.
For our home in Hawaii we do have an electric hot water heater.* but we installed a timer. It only goes on for 2 hours a day once in the early AM an hour or so before we wake for the day and then again in the late afternoon for an hour. We have plenty of hot water for all day during the day and it did make a big difference in the electric bill. If we have company then we can override the timer and kick on the water heater for longer if we want. Cost of the timer was under $40 and was a real easy install.
Same on the BI. Some folks go even simpler and just put in an on/off switch with an indicator light. With modern high-gain heaters it only takes maybe 10 minutes before you're good to go on taking a shower. Of course then you have to remember to turn it off again.
Best of all may be the tankless instant-on water heaters, which only heat when you are using them. The propane kind seem popular with off-the-grid folks, to supplement the solar water heating as needed.
*Note that currently the building code requires a solar water heater in new residential construction, unless you get an approved waiver.
Thanks so much for the comparison. Lived on Oahu for 5 years - traveled to the Big Island and loved it - always planned on retiring there. Then had the opportunity to live in Alaska and loved it. Now that the kids are grown Charlie & I are moving back to Anchorage in April with plans to snowbird in Hawaii once we retire. Your post was very helpful!
One of the most prominent mantras sung on these forums are about the high cost of living on the Big Island. Having moved to Hawaii from SE Alaska, I have to agree to disagree:
Real estate: Real estate prices in West Hawaii are commensurate with prices in Alaska. Real estate prices in East Hawaii (mostly Puna) are a bargain, roughly 1/2 or less of the prices in Alaska. But to clarify, where I moved from there are no 3 or even 1 acre parcels even available for purchase in Alaska. When I use the "roughly 1/2 price" it is comparing a comparable home on an acre in Hawaii to a home on a 1/5 or 1/6 acre in Alaska. For all its vast size, less than 1% of Alaska is privately owned and large lots near towns are rare.
Energy: This is a complicated comparison. In East Hawaii, gas prices were 2 cents a gallon more expensive than Juneau and 70 cents cheaper than Wrangell. Prices were higher in West Hawaii. 2 cents doesn't seem like much, but the longest road in Juneau is 47 miles long and everything else is reached by boat or airplane. I spent more on gas in 4 days in Hawaii than I spent in 2 months in Alaska. That didn't come from 2 cents per gallon, it came from the fact that THERE ARE ACTUALLY PLACES TO DRIVE TO. That has an incredible value, being able to drive places versus spending hundreds of dollars to catch a floatplane to get to the next town. So, driving within 40 miles in Hawaii costs 2 cents per gallon more. Driving more than 40 miles will cost you several hundred dollars less than a comparable distance in Alaska. I'd have to say here that the clear winner is Hawaii. Electricity is also complicated to compare. Hawaii is slightly more expensive per KWH than non-rural Alaska, but you use less of it. (rural Alaska is about 3x more expensive than Hawaii) Alaskan homes MUST be heated 8 months out of the year. Many months they must be heated or the pipes will freeze and burst and the occupants will freeze to death. Hawaiian homes don't use heating fuel. Our last bills in Alaska were roughly $400 for electricity and $200 for heating fuel (per month). Our rental here in Hawaii averages $111 per month in electricity. Hawaii is the clear winner.
Food and commodities. Where do I start? Yesterday I bought 6 organic farm fresh papayas and 38 key limes for two dollars at the Keaau market. In Alaska I could buy 1 half-rotten papaya barged in from South America for $5.00. We also got a dozen farm fresh brown eggs for $4.50, about two dollars less than Alaska. Fresh items are so unbelievably cheap here we stop at every farmers market and roadside stand if nothing else, just to look at what is available. And how do you place a value on freshness? And variety? There is no comparison! But let's get away from the fresh markets and compare store prices since that is what most people do. Store prices vary a lot in Hawaii- from the high prices in Volcano to the lower prices at KTA or Costco... but again you have options compared to the basically 3 stores we had. Based on what we have bought in Hawaii in the last year, I would say store prices of food and other commodities are 10-20% lower than SE Alaska.
Cars: For purchasing cars, it's a wash, they are the same in both states. For car maintenance, it is MUCH cheaper in Hawaii. Most Alaskan garages charge nearly $100 an hour for repairs and Hawaiian garages charge half that. You can get an oil change, tire rotation, and service check for about 1/2 the price of just an oil change in Alaska. Plus, you don't need both snow and summer tires in Hawaii, and you don't need a 4WD.
Taxes and utilities: It may seem strange to mix these two categories, but when something is free because it's covered by tax revenue, they become intertwined. Just talking straight taxes, there is no comparison. Alaska has virtually no taxes at all, and residents get money from the state every year at PFD time because of oil revenues. Local communities charge property and sales taxes so it depends a lot on where you live. In Juneau, property taxes run about 5-10K for the average property, higher than Hawaii. 5% sales tax in Juneau (which is across the board including services, medicine, rent, heating fuel, etc) is similar to the general excise tax in Hawaii but doesn't apply to as many middlemen. In Hawaii, taxes are expensive EVERYWHERE. BUT... for comparison, in Juneau the smallest water bill is $105/month (for zero to 7,000 gallons on a meter, or slightly higher on a non-metered property (depends on your property)). Garbage and recycling is about $60/month. It costs $35 minimum to take anything to the dump and larger loads are charged by the pound. Cesspools and septic systems are illegal in Juneau, except septic systems are permitted only in a few rare areas where CBJ hasn't ran the pipes, and when they come, you are REQUIRED TO PAY THOUSANDS to hook up to them and then pay the monthly fees. Of course catchment and cesspools do require maintenance, nothing is truly free. Even with the "freebies" in Hawaii, Alaska is cheaper in this category, mostly because the insanely high Hawaii income tax.
Health care: In Juneau, my daughter got salmonella with complications and was medevaced to Seattle and it cost over $108,000.00 just for the transportation. Thank God we bought insurance for that. Juneau doesn't have a cardiologist, a dermatologist, and many-other-ologists. They, and the nearest cancer treatment is a 1,000 mile plane ride away. A last minute airline ticket is almost exactly $1000 each way per person (my wife had to see a specialist in Seattle on short notice and the RT airfare for both of us was $4000.00 but fortunately we had airline miles). So your options are to fly to Seattle or Anchorage for treatment or if it is not an emergency, wait for the visiting doctors to come (usually every other month). Not all take insurance so you have to pay out-of-pocket and file your own claim with the insurance company and then fight them for about 20 months to make them pay. Their MO is to automatically deny the claim and then try to wear you out with endless paperwork and appeals- it is usually several hours of work spread out over a year to get them to pay a few hundred dollar office visit. It is so bad a lot of people just pay. Some of us waste our time "out of principle". This is a "hidden cost" of health care in Alaska. Truthfully, I have never used healthcare in Hawaii. So you will have to draw your own opinions until I have a chance to update this. But I know it does not cost 4k for a husband and wife to get plane tickets to Oahu.
Frustration: Hawaii government has raised bureauocracy to an artform. Government in Alaska is pretty efficient. In Hawaii you need to go to one location to register your vehicle, another location to get a driver's license, or a third location to get a state ID. And plan on waiting, waiting, waiting, to get anything done. In Alaska you can all these things at one place in just a few minutes. And most of it online. In Alaska at worst you can show proof of insurance by printing out an ID card on your computer. At best you can show it on your smartphone. In Hawaii they only accept proof of insurance sent through the mail printed on special security paper. Pretty progressive if it was 1912. Not so progressive in 2012. Alaska wins this category hands down. All this red tape increases cost of government, which of course increases taxes.
In summary, of course cost of living is relative. It cost more to live in Seattle than Kansas. It costs more to live in Manhattan than either Alaska or Hawaii. But I felt the need to put things into perspective. I have been all over the USA and people make it sound like it's impossible to afford living in Hawaii. It's not. Different, yes. More expensive, maybe. Depends on what you are used to.
After spending more time on the BI I feel the need to update this thread:
Energy- We installed a solar hot water heater and we line dry 90% of our clothes. Neither are options in Alaska. Our electricity bill in Hawaii is 1/4 what it was in Alaska. Gasoline: When I originally posted this gas was 2 cents more in Hawaii but since then (I've been keeping tabs for comparison) I've noticed that the gasoline in East Hawaii is consistently cheaper than what I was paying in Alaska. With my Aloha gas card I get an automatic 8 cents per gallon discount making the gas about 20-30 cents cheaper than what I was paying. My overall fuel bill is much higher because as I mentioned before, there are places to drive to.
Health Care- I see this topic rear its head frequently, usually negatively towards Hawaii. For 2012, Hawaii rated as the #2 healthiest state in the nation versus #28 for Alaska. 2012 Hawaii Health Statistics - Hawaii State Health Statistics brought to you by AmericasHealthRankings.org. I don't think that would be possible if Hawaii had the worst health care in the country as some people have said. But here's something from my personal experience: My wife needed hip surgery and in Alaska there was no surgeon who could perform the type of surgery she needed and we were referred to Seattle. We put it off and found four surgeons on the Big Island who could do the surgery- we didn't even have to go to Oahu! She has recovered from the surgery with a better outcome than the prognosis from the surgeon in Seattle. That being said, I have heard people complain that they can't find GPs who are accepting new patients. This was NOT our experience. Perhaps the problem isn't with the health care SYSTEM, but with the health care insurance options. We are fortunate to have good insurance and I know from comparison shopping that one of the widely used companies does have substandard coverage and requires many services to be obtained on Oahu.
I don't think there is a correlation between the general state of healthiness versus the quality of health care. None of those measures track things like access to medical facilities or specialists.
But lets say there is, the majority of the population lives on Oahu - so, whether you have a heart attack, cancer, a bad car wreck or some other just plain nasty condition - you are an ambulance ride away from the hospital. We also have a lot of veterans in Oahu, with access to military hospitals. For the majority of the population, healthcare isn't much of an issue.
The comments I generally read and have noted myself - is that on outer islands, there are severe limitations to specialists and the type of care that is available. People on the outer islands are airlifted just about everyday to Oahu after severe car accidents - and the time it takes to do that is critical. Have a stroke or a heart attack or complications from childbirth - the outer islads aren't generally your best option.
If you are generally healthy to begin with - moving to an outer island probably isn't a big deal - have a pre-existing condition, then one should do more research.
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