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"Can this be done with their website or do you have to call their office?"
To get my USAA discount I had to call somebody. I set it up a while ago so I don't remember the exact process. Most of FedEx's business is through some sort of corporate account / negotiated rate. Their regular "walk in" rates aren't as impressive and may not compete with USPS. If you are a USAA member the info is here: https://www.usaa.com/inet/wc/shippin...kredirect=true It advertises up to 40% discount for business shippers. The FedEx ground discount is not impressive. They also have a "freight" discount which means ocean freight. If anybody has experience with it I would like to hear about it.
"Good to know. Would that be Toyota or Honda? Does it matter if you bought from them or not? Any limits on how many days they will hold your car?"
The only place I have experience with is https://www.kamaainamotors.com/ but I imagine they are all pretty much the same if they have a courtesy shuttle. They take trade ins so probably service any type of vehicle out there. I did ask the shuttle driver how long people leave their car there, and he said he doesn't really know because cars sometimes sit in their service lot for weeks and they don't really keep track of them. This was told to me in the last few months but not necessarily today's policy.
Of course, I do my own for a fraction of the cost because I get the oil and filter from Walmart. Sometimes I get the oil at Costco when they have their $10 rebate on 6 quarts. But living in Hawaii means using some "hacks" to make the cost of living comparable to the mainland. For example, if I am going out of town I can take my car to the dealer for an oil change and their free courtesy shuttle will take me to the airport and secure my car for me until I get back for free. When I get back in town I can call them and they will send the shuttle to pick me up. So since I'm not paying to park at the airport, either the oil change or the parking is free (depending on how you look at it).
Shipping to Hawaii is expensive but a lot of people don't know that shipping from Hawaii back to the mainland isn't as expensive. I get a discount through USAA but with a negotiated rate shipping packages FedEx is cheaper than using the postal service (excluding first class and flat rate rates). Their planes come here fully loaded but leaving here, not so much, so they offer better rates on outgoing packages. Plus it gets there usually in 2 days and the boxes aren't all banged up like when the USPS handles them.
Brilliant idea on the oil change/car parking! We usually get our neighbors to drop us off at the airport and pick us up. Since we do the same for them, it all works out.
I'll check out the shipping boxes via FedEx, it never occurred to me that their rates would be less expensive on the way back. Can this be done with their website or do you have to call their office?
The ocean freight route goes from Hawaii on to other Pacific islands, so not a lot of discounted freight options there, I'd expect?
fedex/ups is generally more expensive shipping to/from Hawaii unless you have access to a really good commercial rate.
if it fits in a USPS flat rate box or region rate box that will be cheapest.
"fedex/ups is generally more expensive shipping to/from Hawaii unless you have access to a really good commercial rate."
You are correct that you need a negotiated rate to beat the USPS price, I get mine through my bank. I only knew about it after my friend told me he was shipping surf boards to the east coast from Oahu for $40 and I was like, WTF? And realized I had access to the same discount. Everybody should check ALL their memberships and business accounts to see what they can get (Paypal, eBay, banks, AARP, AAA, credit unions, credit cards, whatever) to see what kind of discounts they get. I recently learned that some credit cards have free roadside assistance including things like up to 10 miles of free towing, 2 gallons of delivered gas, etc. And free automatic doubling of manufacture warranties on just about everything. A lot of this stuff is in the fine print. I recently shipped something to the west coast in the $30 range FedEx that was in the $90 range through USPS. I'm not talking about saving nickels and dimes but SERIOUS savings.
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There is a company called Ship To Hawaii, where you have Amazon (or whoever) free ship to LA terminal, and you pay a charge for the flight here with them. I think they are still in business.
But yeah, living in the middle of the ocean poses problems, and solving those problems usually costs more money.
If you need specialized medical care, it is going to cost you more being on the neighbor islands, also our excise tax is on services and food, which a sales normally isn't in most places. It all adds up.
If a specialist isnt on the island then insurance will pay for the trip to Honolulu (except for Medicare).
I also got a lifeflight membership at $80 a year for the family. Pays for anything insurance wont if I needed an emergency flight to Honolulu. Some of those flights are crazy expensive.
Sad that Hawaii wont do more to retain physicians. The Big Island just lost another couple of primary care doctors, an ENT and dermatologist recently.
Some people with significant medical problems come here to "relax and get their health better" and only then find out they will need to fly to Honolulu to see their specialists.
Brake pads and rotors are here, package ran over by a tank as usual at the post office. At least their package smashing is consistent.
Now just need to find someone who sells a jack stand since I cant find one sold locally and amazon wont ship one here
Doing the rough math other than food and electric, we would be making out better financially living in Hawaii than many other places including Florida and Virginia. Right off the bat my wife would get about a $10K raise teaching there. Looks like she would be in the 7.6% income bracket. Even then, it’s still a significant raise. See, we were discussing a move to Florida as a backup. In case for whatever reason we couldn’t do Hawaii. Anyway, Did a lot of research and the property taxes are kinda pricey, home owner insurance is insane if you are anywhere by the water, and anywhere decent has an expensive HOA. Florida seems to be the land of gated communities. On top of that, my wife would take about a $6,000 pay cut. Now granted they have no state income tax in Florida, but we would still be behind. Car insurance is the third highest in the nation and they have a 6% sales tax. We would also have to run the AC almost year round, especially if living in southern Florida. Neither Florida or Hawaii would tax my pension. Without any HOA, I figured we would be spending about $600 more a month on a $300,000 mortgage in Florida compared to Hawaii.
Several other big issue with Florida is teacher salaries are performance based. So from year to year your salary can change based on your performance and only 4% of Florida teachers were rated highly effective. The pay increases from year to year are not guaranteed either and are minimal (couple hundred dollars a year). They also told my wife that there is no guarantee of her contract being renewed from year to year. There is no tenure and no continuing contracts. Some people told me they can lay her off and then rehire her as a long term sub to save money. Teaching in Florida appears to be very risky, especially financially. In Hawaii I see the pay schedule increases up to a couple thousand every year of experience and that it is contractual and after three years there is tenure. Job security is important.
We were interested in Florida because it has a climate that we almost really like and has decent beaches. We want to get out of the winter all together and be by beaches and the only two places we can think of was Florida and Hawaii. The other thing is the lifestyle in Florida would be close to identical to what we have now and the past 20 years being so hectic, we want to slow down big time and just relax and take it easy. I think we can somewhat get that in Florida, but not like we can in Hawaii.
So I guess it all depends on a persons situation if Hawaii will be more expensive than not. Mortgage, property taxes, home owner insurance, and HOA’s are things you really can’t control. Electric, clothing, and food consumption are things that you can control.
Last edited by Nyfinestbxtf; 06-19-2019 at 05:46 AM..
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