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I'm guessing that you take road trips with your 3 dogs rather than fly. Getting your dogs into Hawaii is a process you have to start months before your trip. I've heard the cost is about $1.5K to $2K per dog to get them into the state. So, your looking at about $4.5K to $6K just to get them into Hawaii because of the special requirements to transport pets into Hawaii. Maybe there's a group discount for 3 dogs. I don't know if it costs any more than the airfare to transport pets out of Hawaii. I've never read anyone posting about transporting pets out of Hawaii and the costs. If you add those costs, that makes a pretty expensive vacation with your dogs. Maybe you could find a vacation rental that would accept 3 dogs, but I'd guess it would be tough find and maybe only a dumpy place would rent to someone with 3 dogs. The dumpy place might not be good enough for the typical vacation customer, and looking for a desperate vacation rental customer.
You could do a rough estimate. How much money do you live on per year now? You'd increase that amount by the increased cost of living, then add more money for the move and setting your new household. From example, if your current living expenses are $50K per year now, and the cost of living is 50% higher in Hawaii than where you live now, then that's $75K for the first year. That doesn't include about $20K to $40K for moving costs and incidentals. So, in that example, your first year would cost roughly $95K to $115K.
We don't closely budget our expenses but we have a very good idea of how much money we spend each year, and do a pretty good job controlling our expenses. We actually live on fraction of our income. We save a lot of money and we pay a lot of taxes. If you subtract saving and taxes from your gross income, you have a very good idea how much money you actually spend per year. We spend a lot. But we still live well below our means. Most people probably budget the other way, trying to account for each dollar they spend, which makes it much harder to budget.
If you can determine you current budget, you should be able to calculate some rough estimates. If you move during your working years, you might forego a lot of income you could have earned on the mainland, since wages are usually a lot less in Hawaii, plus employment may be less stable with less benfits. You have to be very careful that you don't severely damage or destroy your long term financial future.
If you think you can afford it, maybe it would be the right move for you. You might consider taking your first scouting trip sooner, rather than later, if you can afford it. You might decide after your first scouting trip that Hawaii is not for you. Or, maybe you'll really love it, which might be enough to encourage you to increase your income and reduce your expenses to increase your long term savings to help make moving to a higher cost of living place like Hawaii, a possibility.
^ Thank you! Some great advice there and it seems your lifestyle analogy outline is very close to accurate for our current lifestyle. The notes on long term financial future are appreciated as well as it's definitely crossed my mind that our future savings/retirement investing would most likely take a hit due to increased costs of living upon relocation. This is perhaps a bigger concern than actually affording the move and annual lifestyle as our lifestyle tends to be similarly "under budget", and savings (fingers crossed) have historically been a strong suit for us.
We 100% would not move or visit with our three dogs as it seems prohibitive both in terms of cost and stress for them. But I agree that visiting sooner rather than later would be a good idea. I think this part is where we are falling shortest.
We got here with what started to be a 13-year plan. When the real estate market had nearly bottomed out we bought our 3 acres planning to build on it some day. And if our minds changed, the idea was that the property would have appreciated in value and our future home site would instead be an investment. Fate changed all that and a year after our purchase we wound up moving here because of a job offer. The real estate market was still in the crapper and so we bought a different 3 acre parcel with a house already on it because it was cheaper than building on the property we had. A few years later we sold the original property and made a little money on it.
I certainly wouldn't contemplate a 10-year move here with the first visit being in 8 years. That's not a plan. You need to visit now so you know whether or not you like it enough to come back here in 8 years to start scouting out places you might want to call home. 4,000 square miles is a lot of island to consider. Visit now. You may immediately decide that maybe moving to Florida is a better 10-year plan.
My daughter works in the health care field. There is a HUGE demand for all types of skilled medical workers here, and the demand is only growing.
Have an escape plan. I cannot emphasize this enough. The health care and availability of specialists is minimal at best. I moved here as a healthy 47 year old; I am now 52 and have developed several issues that are more than can be handled on the BI. FYI, a chopper ride via Medivac from Kona hospital to Queen's in HNL is $60K. Includes door-to-door service.
It's an amazing, beautiful place. But it will shock you how little there is in terms of medical (or vet) services. Basics are covered, but most specialists require a trip to Honolulu. My insurance covers the air fare, fortunately. If the specialist visits the island, it's once-twice a month and you get ten minutes with 59 other patients that day. Doctor turnover is rampant; I've had 5 GPs in five years.
There are two tiers of health care: if you have cash, you can see good docs, but they don't take insurance or Medicare. The docs who do take insurance are overwhelmed. So you may have to pay 2-300 a visit to see a doctor you like.
I don't want to diminish your dream. But you never know what life has in store for you.
^ This is great advice and very much appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to open my eyes to it.
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