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I worked at a shop in town today and asked the visitors were they were visiting from. I don't think there's anyone left in the middle of the mainland right now. There were people from South Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Kansas, both sides of Canada and a few from Korea, too. Must be cold over there somewhere.
The poor Canadians are in even more severe sticker shock than most visitors is since their loonies (and there's a 'tooney', too, a two loon two dollar coin and he said they don't have pennies anymore) anyway, their money is worth about 20% less than the US money. So, they're not only paying higher prices, but higher prices plus 20%.
Have you visited a few grocery stores yet? You could compare the cost at the grocery stores to where you live. Check out the prices for common items like eggs, milk, produce, bread, canned and frozen food. You'll also notice that produce is sold by the pound, not by the unit. For example, if lettuce is sold by the unit, you can pick out the largest and heaviest, and pay the same per unit price. Meat and bread are also very expensive. Even long shelf life items, like canned food cost about 50% more. The food prices might take your breath away!
Where I live eggs are 99 cent a dozen and milk is about $2 a gallon. Almost every food item is drastically lower where I live. If your goal is to live in Hawaii, you'd probably want to grow some of your own food to cut down on the costs, or be willing to spend a lot more on food.
Your prices are a lot lower than ours in Oregon, Dave. We pay about $2.50-$3/dozen for eggs, $3.50+ for a gallon of milk, $2.50-$10 a loaf for bread, etc. Yes, we've been doing our own shopping and cooking, since we're staying in a VRBO and not a resort/motel. We're living like we would live if we actually lived here. While I do find some of the items rather expensive, we've also found a lot of comparable to Oregon prices (we live on the central Oregon coast, and we compare our prices there, along with Portland prices, when looking at BI prices for food). Fruits and veggies at farm stands/farmers markets are no more expensive than where we live, and there is a lot more variety! But convenience foods, gasoline, milk, and souvenirs are overpriced (except for some of the arts/crafts we got at Hilo's farmer's maket), at least imho.
Should we ever decide to move here, I LOVE to garden, so fruits and veggies, for the most part, would come from our own yard. I would also proably keep chickens and ducks for eggs, but since I can't butcher animals, I'd have to purchase what little animal protein we normally eat from other sources.
Speaking of moving here... Z actually likes the jungle-y parts of the island as well as I do. After our house in PDX sells, we may very possibly look for a place in the "lowlands" to make our vacation home until my husband retires. While many parts of Hawaii Island are stunning (but not the Kona dry side, unless you mean "stunning" as in "Craters of the Moon"--we spent the day over there, today, and are going again tomorrow, and neither one of us can really see the draw, except for the beaches), so much of it looks like places we've lived or visited (the UK, Ireland, Oregon from sea to shining high desert, California from border to border, etc.), now--why move to an island 2500 miles from anywhere we care about for the same ol' same ol', ya know (gorgeous waterfalls, rolling hills, cattle ranches, hippies, snowy mountains, frying deserts, tall trees, temperate rainforests)? But we love the jungle and the warm, turquoise blue ocean water, even with the bugs and humidity and nasty sharp lava, and if we could find a place fairly close to the ocean, I'd be in Heaven. We've even found the 80-ish degree temperatures to be far more comfortable than we thought we would, at least when the breezes are blowing, which seems to happen most of the time. In other words, we like it here, and high gas and milk prices notwithstanding, we could make a go of it with hard work on our part, we think :-).
BTW, I was overjoyed, as we drove along the west coast, to see well over a dozen whales "blowing" and showing their backs (no breaching, though) as they traveled through your warm waters. It makes me really look forward to our whale-watching trip on Friday . No turtles, yet, though. We'll be back over there to a couple of beaches my daughter recommends, tomorrow, though, so hopes are high :-).
BTW, I was overjoyed, as we drove along the west coast, to see well over a dozen whales "blowing" and showing their backs (no breaching, though) as they traveled through your warm waters. It makes me really look forward to our whale-watching trip on Friday . No turtles, yet, though. We'll be back over there to a couple of beaches my daughter recommends, tomorrow, though, so hopes are high :-).
Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. I live nearby and go there a lot. There are always turtles out sunning themselves on the sand.
Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. I live nearby and go there a lot. There are always turtles out sunning themselves on the sand.
Thanks! We've decided to go there, today :-). I really appreciate the suggestion. Yesterday was LONG (we didn't get home 'til after midnight, and that was going over the Saddle Road), and today's outing sounds a little less gruelling than going back to Kona, which was our original intent. We can hit up the beaches on the Kona side another day.... Besides, there's supposed to be a good bakery in the area you mentioned, and we're all about good bakery foods :-).
Your prices are a lot lower than ours in Oregon, Dave. We pay about $2.50-$3/dozen for eggs, $3.50+ for a gallon of milk, $2.50-$10 a loaf for bread, etc. Yes, we've been doing our own shopping and cooking, since we're staying in a VRBO and not a resort/motel. We're living like we would live if we actually lived here. While I do find some of the items rather expensive, we've also found a lot of comparable to Oregon prices (we live on the central Oregon coast, and we compare our prices there, along with Portland prices, when looking at BI prices for food). Fruits and veggies at farm stands/farmers markets are no more expensive than where we live, and there is a lot more variety! But convenience foods, gasoline, milk, and souvenirs are overpriced (except for some of the arts/crafts we got at Hilo's farmer's maket), at least imho.
Thanks for the price comparison between the Big Island and Portland. That's interesting that you pay that much for food in Portland. The Internet based cost of living sites show the cost of living is pretty close where I live, and Portland, Oregon. However, the cost of food is drastically less here that you report it is in the Portland area, even though the cost of living web sites show the food prices should be about the same. Maybe you go to high-end grocery stores in Portland. We have basically three different price range grocery stores here. I do most of my shopping at Aldi's an Sam's Club, rather than the fancy high-end grocery stores, where the same items are priced much higher.
We did find the food at the Hilo farmer's market was less expensive than the grocery stores in the Big Island. I was surprised how the Walmart on the Big Island sold a fraction of the food that is sold at the Walmarts in Minnesota, California, or Florida. The food at the Hilo farmer's market is significantly more expensive than the farmer's markets in Minnesota, however, the Minnesota farmer's markets are closed until spring.
Did you notice that almost all of the produce is sold by the pound in Hawaii, verses by the unit? If items are priced by the unit, you can pick out the biggest and heaviest produce, and get a much better deal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by leilaniguy
And how's the weather there, Dave?
It's still pretty cold here. The lows, upper teens to low 20's, the highs, low to mid 30's. This Saturday, it might warm up to a whopping 45 degrees. The winters are no where as bad as they used to be 20 to 60 years ago, thanks to the climate change. But the cold weather is still discouraging and depressing. Nearly everyone is tired of winter here, except for a few fools running around that love the cold and snow. My countdown continues. Every day is one day closer to when I won't be here in the winters. It's tough to sacrifice living in the cold climate, but I'm holding out, hunkering down inside, for more money to improve my retirement years.
Thanks for the price comparison between the Big Island and Portland. That's interesting that you pay that much for food in Portland.
Didn't she just say "Oregon" - I don't remember "Portland" but I'm not up for reading every response.
I was just in "Portland" and felt like a kid in a candy store regarding prices across the board including food - the no sales tax is awesome and you aren't even allowed to pump your own gas which was in the $1.89 range.
Want cheap - the Jakes happy hour in the pearl can't be beat.
On the flip side - I imagine outlying areas in Oregon are much more expensive since it is a very large state.
Didn't she just say "Oregon" - I don't remember "Portland" but I'm not up for reading every response.
I was just in "Portland" and felt like a kid in a candy store regarding prices across the board including food - the no sales tax is awesome and you aren't even allowed to pump your own gas which was in the $1.89 range.
Want cheap - the Jakes happy hour in the pearl can't be beat.
On the flip side - I imagine outlying areas in Oregon are much more expensive since it is a very large state.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish Eyes_Mrs. Z
After our house in PDX sells, we may very possibly look for a place in the "lowlands" to make our vacation home until my husband retires.
PDX is the airport code for the Portland Oregon airport, and could be used to reference a city or area in general, so I assumed that the OP lives in Portland, Oregon. For some reason, the cost of living web sites don't back up the claims of high cost food in Portland, but the food might cost that much if a person shopped at the very high-end grocery stores, instead of stores like Aldi's.
A gasoline price of $1.89 isn't bad, although I paid $1.30 a couple of weeks ago at Costco. Since then, the price rose up 10 or 15 cents higher. Although gasoline is a tiny component of the actual cost of driving. Most the cost is actually to purchase, maintain, and insure the car, not the gasoline.
I also found the Puna area to be very attractive. The home prices are significantly lower than the northern areas of the Big Island. But the crime problems often mentioned in the forum in the Puna area are very disturbing, which could easily end up doubling or tripling the cost of housing to avoid the high crime areas. I don't know if gated communities exist in the Puna area, I didn't see any. Maybe gated areas would help reduce the crime problems for the homes inside the gates.
PDX is the airport code for the Portland Oregon airport, and could be used to reference a city or area in general, so I assumed that the OP lives in Portland, Oregon. For some reason, the cost of living web sites don't back up the claims of high cost food in Portland, but the food might cost that much if a person shopped at the very high-end grocery stores, instead of stores like Aldi's.
A gasoline price of $1.89 isn't bad, although I paid $1.30 a couple of weeks ago at Costco. Since then, the price rose up 10 or 15 cents higher. Although gasoline is a tiny component of the actual cost of driving. Most the cost is actually to purchase, maintain, and insure the car, not the gasoline.
I also found the Puna area to be very attractive. The home prices are significantly lower than the northern areas of the Big Island. But the crime problems often mentioned in the forum in the Puna area are very disturbing, which could easily end up doubling or tripling the cost of housing to avoid the high crime areas. I don't know if gated communities exist in the Puna area, I didn't see any. Maybe gated areas would help reduce the crime problems for the homes inside the gates.
The OP mentioned she lives on the Oregon coast. Yes, there is a gated community in Puna, I live there. There isn't much crime but still some, it is planet Earth after all.
so glad you are having a great time. I hope you get chance to see the other islands as well. they are all beautiful and have their own feel.
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. No turtles, yet, though. We'll be back over there to a couple of beaches my daughter recommends, tomorrow, though, so hopes are high :-).
