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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.
Last edited by terracore; 06-09-2012 at 01:42 AM..
Ok, so you compared Hawaii to Juneau Alaska. It seems like that's comparing two very similar places due to their isolation from the 48 contiguous states. Most people considering moving to Hawaii come from a very different place and don't experience the higher costs of living that are caused by everything having to be transported over long distances. People living in Denver or Portland or New Jersey don't have to worry about the availability of health care services.
BTW terracore, how do you keep your electricity bill down to $111? Ours is double that!
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE a $222 electric bill. I just got mine...$401 for the month, I'm living alone while spouse is working in HI, we have a gas stove and dryer, we have a smallish refrigerator, I usually take showers at the gym so not using much hot water, don't watch television, only run one wall unit a/c at night in the bedroom to sleep, some security lights, some fans, and this computer.
Ok, so you compared Hawaii to Juneau Alaska. It seems like that's comparing two very similar places due to their isolation from the 48 contiguous states. Most people considering moving to Hawaii come from a very different place and don't experience the higher costs of living that are caused by everything having to be transported over long distances. People living in Denver or Portland or New Jersey don't have to worry about the availability of health care services.
BTW terracore, how do you keep your electricity bill down to $111? Ours is double that!
I think the solar hot water heater is a big part of that. Also don't have A/C or ceiling fans. We have one fan on a stand, but rarely use it. Thinking about all the "stuff" in the house right now the biggest energy hog currently running is the coffee pot. Take that back, the fridge just kicked on. Definitely, the fridge is the biggest energy user. We also don't have a washer or dryer. So I guess you need to figure in laundromat at $5.00 per load as a hidden energy cost.
Speaking of hot water, imagine the energy cost of heating hot water that comes into the home at 35 degrees versus catchment water that comes in at least 70. I'm not going to do the math but that has to be twice the amount of electricity to heat water.
Oh yah, the fridge, sweetie likes to stand in front of it with the door open, gazing in wonder at the foods...and leaves lights on all over the place...takes long hot jacuzzi baths...no wonder our electric bills last summer with him home were over $700 a month.
My experience of 3.5 yrs on the big island of Hawaii is that it's better to be poor there than anywhere else in America. I lived on my acreage with my wife and child, 3 22' tents (2bdrm/kitchen-dining/living rm), solar panel for ac/dc, solar shower, etc... and picked-up water on the way back from Kailua-Kona shopping twice a month to my very cool treed-acreage w/cave. Now the water well has been built in HOVE so it'll be even cheaper when we go back.
EXACTLY what my "poor" friend in Puna said, as she showed me around her acreage filled with fruit trees and chickens running around foraging in the horse pasture. "Isn't this a GREAT place to be poor!" she exclaimed with a big grin. She sells her fruit and eggs on the corner of two roads, is on solar and catchment water, and gets by on disability.
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE a $222 electric bill. I just got mine...$401 for the month, I'm living alone while spouse is working in HI, we have a gas stove and dryer, we have a smallish refrigerator, I usually take showers at the gym so not using much hot water, don't watch television, only run one wall unit a/c at night in the bedroom to sleep, some security lights, some fans, and this computer.
Turn off the water heater if it is electric or at least turn the temperature down and insulate the heck out of it or do both and put it on a timer. That it probably your main energy hog, although the A/C unit could run a close second. Turn the A/C unit up so it doesn't make much cold, if you can just run it as a fan instead of an A/C it will use less electricity. If the refrigerator is older than ten or fifteen years, replace it and the amount you save on your electric bill will be paid back in several months. There is a small meter called a "Kill-a-watt" meter which you plug into the wall and then plug your appliance into it. It will keep track of how much power is being used. It is useful for finding out what's causing the high electric bills.
(And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.) As far as comparing the cost of living between Hawaii and Alaska, I would think that they are much more similar to each other than any of the contiguous states. The Territories, though, would probably have a lot of similar costs of living to Hawaii and Alaska. However, generally, the bulk of folks moving to Hawaii are from the mainland (the contiguous states) since they outnumber us non-connected states and territories by a quantum number and those are the folks we are generally trying to educate. I'm sure most of the folks from Alaska are well aware of the level of education required to have a newcomer thrive in a different habitat than they are used to.
We have a huge number of Alaskan folks who wander over this way during their winters. I guess the aurora borealis can't compare to a sunny beach in January, February and March.
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