Can a family of 3 survive on $26,000 a year on the big island? (low income, rentals)

[Bjbrown2]

The family is consisting of two adults (23 and 24) and a 3.5year old. Basically my company has a new telecommunicating position I could bea part of if I wanted to. We currently live in Florida (moved from Nebraska ayear ago) but we live in on a much higher salary. But we are kind of sick ofthe hustle and bustle life style and I am finding I am happiest when relaxingoutdoors rather than in my big home or driving a new expensive SUV. So wedecided we could get rid of a lot of bills and sell almost everything and hereis what we broke down to as monthly bills in Hawaii and I was wondering if theyare accurate. Take home would be about 1800 a month.[/font]

Home phone/internet: 100
Rent: 1200
Food: 400 (currently spend about 200 so that’s adjusted forinflation of Hawaiian prices)
Water/Elect: 200 (this is very variable, I see a lot ofplaces have it included in rent or use a system that requires no water bill)
Car insurance: 60
(Going to buy a car down there and sell our car here rather thanpay for shipping)
So total would be 1960. Leaving us a little short everymonth, but is this even possible? I see a lot of post on craigslist for cheaprentals (2 bed 1 bath) for like 800-1000? That’s all I need but I assume thesemust be too good to be true so I assume rent will be a little more.
We have about 80,000 in savings but do not want to dip intoit just to live this in Hawaii and end up broke, so we allocated 10,000 for thefirst year ($7000 of that for the move, shipping small stuff and buying a cheapused car.) So that leaves about $3,000 left to make ends meet and help with thedeficit we will face every month. ((Also we hope my GF will find a job within ayear to help with bills but I know that’s a slim chance. We both have degreesbut I realize how difficult it will be in Hawaii to find one and even if shedoes find one it will probably be minimum wage)
So two questions: Is this truly possible? I know we will berelatively poor there but that’s something I am willing to experience.
Second Question: Is it worth it for any one that experiencedit? I thought that making a high salary and driving a Cadillac escalade would makeme happy but it hasn’t. I realized relaxing and enjoying life and nature ismuch more rewarding. I’m afraid we are going to have a huge set back a yearlater if we decide to move back to Florida and probably won’t be able to regainour high paying jobs. So I turn it over to this forum for all financial and spiritualadvice. Lol. Thank you all in advance for any replies.

[Bjbrown2]

Also I pulled copy and pasted this from a word document where I typed it all up, so please ignore the super weird formatting and stuff. IDK it does that and how to prevent it, besides typing my novel directly into this forum space.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by Bjbrown2

Home phone/internet: 100
Rent: 1200
Food: 400 (currently spend about 200 so that’s adjusted forinflation of Hawaiian prices)
Water/Elect: 200 (this is very variable, I see a lot ofplaces have it included in rent or use a system that requires no water bill)
Car insurance: 60
(Going to buy a car down there and sell our car here rather thanpay for shipping)
So total would be 1960. Leaving us a little short everymonth, but is this even possible?

+ gas
+ clothes, especially for the kid
+ medical
+ dental
+ any entertainment
+ car maintenance
+ toiletries
+ emergencies (trip to the mainland/anything)
+ cell
+ likely higher electric bill since you are telecommuting
+ a bunch of other day to day things that are required in life

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

You plan to start off nearly $200 a month short every month? I think it will be a lot more. These are the things that I see missing:
--cell phone
-- gas for the car (currently under $3 a gallon at Costco, but almost always $1 a gallon more than on the mainland)
-- furniture
--cable tv
--depending on whether or not you need air conditioning, $200 a month is very low for electricity.
--health insurance/doctor's visits

Unless you want to homeschool, plan on moving back to the mainland when your kid starts school.

You haven't really said why you want to move to Hawaii, expect that you like the outdoors. I can certainly appreciate your desire to have a simpler lifestyle, but you can do that and enjoy the outdoors anywhere in the country (even Florida). There's no reason why you need to have a big home or drive an expensive SUV unless you are trying to impress someone. We afforded our move to Hawaii by living frugally and putting as much as we could into our retirements.

[OpenD]

For starters, you need verifiable income of 3X to 3 1/2X the monthly rent to get a standard rental application approved here, or almost everywhere these days. And unlike most places, you can't give the landlord additional security deposit to overcome resistance... that's illegal... so that pretty well shoots you down right there. You won't get approved for a $1,200 rental, nor even a $1,000 rental, I'm guessing.

Possibly an $800 rental, but more like a $600 rental, which is likely to be a real dump, IF you can even find one.

Sorry.

[Due]

I seriously doubt you can do this, but I've been surprised before.

Examples:
Our part-time "handyman" charges $35.00/hour (his discount rate). Yard maintenance: twice a month is $450.00.
Maybe you don't these these, but it gives you an idea of costs here.

You'll probably need to dip into the $80,000 of savings... and don't forget to keep some in reserve: just incase you decide to move back to the mainland.

Besides: it can't be fun stressing about how you're going to live on $26,000/year.

[Green_Mountain]

Originally Posted by Bjbrown2

I thought that making a high salary and driving a Cadillac escalade would makeme happy but it hasn’t. I realized relaxing and enjoying life and nature ismuch more rewarding.

I can only share my perspective. I agree with you 100%. BUT. There is no bigger contributor to stress and unhappiness than living paycheck to paycheck and constantly trying to meet the bills. Having 80K in savings will only make that a little better because it'll be stressful to see all your savings slowly disappearing.

So you may trade some unhappiness and get other unhappiness in turn. It is often said that money does not buy happiness. But it's only partially true. It can't buy happiness, but constantly having to worry about it can most definitely cause constant stress and unhappiness. Which in turn will make it a lot harder to enjoy the nature and laid back lifestyle.

I would not give up on the dream but I'd not even consider taking a 26K job a year with a family to move to BI. Not unless you have a backup plan to look for another job and an expectation that you'll be able to find one.

I don't know what type of company you work for but I don't see how any company could ask someone to relocate to Hawaii for 26K. Unless you're saying the job is going to become available to someone in hawaii but that you can take it if you want to.

[davephan]

On the surface, that sounds like a very bad plan. More information would be helpful. You both have degrees, I assume four year degrees, and you are planning to have a family income near the poverty level, living in a very high cost of living place? What's your current family income? How much debt do you have? Are you making car payments on that luxury car? You may take a big loss when you sell the luxury car. Is the 80K in a 401K? If so, there will be huge costs to withdraw that money before age 59 1/2. Have you compared the cost of living between Florida and Hawaii? Since Florida is a relatively low cost of living state, I would guess the cost of living is at least double. There's no state income tax in Florida. There's state income tax in Hawaii, that's another expense. How are you going to afford health care? How can you save for retirement?

It sounds like a very risky proposition to discard high paying jobs for a low income job and an even lower pay minimum wage job. Is it possible to telecomute from your home in Florida instead of Hawaii? Maybe eliminating a daily commute in heavy rush hour traffic would reduce the rat race stress in your life where you live now.

[hotzcatz]

Well, if you've managed to save up $80K, keep at it for a few years, then you'll be able to buy a house and set up a small business in Hawaii. If your house is paid for, then you'd not need much cash flow to cover rent/mortgage.

You could live on $26K a year in Hawaii - if you didn't have to pay for rent or a mortgage.

[Bjbrown2]

Thanks every one for the replies. Im leaning toward just waiting to buy a vacation home there in a couple years then maybe moving there later or retiring early. To address some of the concerns above... The cell phone wouldnt be an issue as we would trade ours for the home phone. Medical insurance is paid in full (no deductibles or even copays) for 2 years. (My company offers the ability to "lock in the rate" for two years if you chose. So I did that. Then they offer a discount if you pay in full rather then the monthly payments so I did that as well. Then there are no co pays and the deductibles are like $1,000 per family but my company gives about 2500 per year on a prepaid card (no matching or anything just free medical money) to spend on out of network appointments or to meet the deductable. (REALLY great insurance, I know) The open position is actually the entry level position I started with the company. They are just now making it 100% telecommuting if you want, so I just saw it as an opportunity to move any where in the word with a promised pay of almost double minimum wage. Seems like it's something worth thinking about.

And now to address the "more information post"...

We both have 4 year degrees. GF is stopping now though but I plan to pursue a MBA (online FSU so can do it from anywhere) and possibly a PHD way later in the future. Both degrees are in business. Current financial situation: Total household income aprox 130k a year. (80 me, 50 GF.) We have no house as we currently rent until we decide where we want to end up. Rent is $1000 a month. Insurance is paid. Max out both of our 401k's with company match of 5% and 6%. No debt except for one vehicle, which is technically not even debt (since its worth more then we owe). Her car is worth 25k (both car amounts are KBB private party sell price) but paid in full. My car is worth 48k but we owe about 10k, should be paid off in 6 months or less. (finances at 2.0% so thats the only reason we didnt pay it off sooner, gettng a bigger return on savings account) No school loans. (both used scholarships and grants 100%) For my masters we have 60,000 aside for that but hopefully I can get a scholarship again. We have a 1 year bills emergency fund. $50,000 and growing in a house down payment fund. Then lastly we have the 80K "no idea what we are saving it for", money. All of these are either in decent savings accounts or very low risk stock portfolios so they are all earning a couple percent points a year. Oh and lastly about 10k and growing (on track to be at almost 300,000 by the time she starts college. She can use it for school and cost of living or hopefully get a scholarship then we can use for her house or something) fund for our kid's college but I dont even count that savigns because its not ours. And I currently live less then a mile from work so the commute is very easy (5 minutes), so no point in telecommuting in florida.

So we are doing very financially well. But we want more out of life then just having money in the bank. I feel like im having a mid life crisis at age 23 lol. But ya it seems really hard to justify taking the cuts to get to Hawaii just to fight my whole career to get back where I am now. I feel like it is a waste of life to save for 65 years just to enjoy life for the last 15-20 years, if you even live that long. Maybe I should just plan an early retirement at age 50 or something. I came from a really poor raising, single parent with 2 kids on welfare, so I always thought money would solve my problems so i busted my ass since i was 16 with work and school to get where I am now but yet still feel like im not enjoying life enough. IDK, thanks for listening and advising my first world problem here.