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Some of my wife's relatives from the Big Island just finished visiting us here in Oregon. Several conversations with them about our desire to move to the BI after my wife retires, combined with ongoing research, pretty much convinced us that it ain't gonna happen, short of some unexpected windfall. We probably could do it, but at the cost of a significantly reduced standard of living, and we decided that we don't want to spend the remainder of our lives cutting our expenditures to the bone just for the opportunity to live in Hawaii. Our lifestyle is by no means extravagant, but we're able to eat, drink, travel, and indulge in our hobbies pretty much as we want to, we've gradually been tailoring our house to our liking, and we live in a beautiful part of the country that has plenty to do and see. My in-laws, who have lived their entire lives on the BI, told us that they've talked many times about moving to the Mainland because Hawaii is so expensive, but work and family ties are keeping them there for now. This is the fourth time in the past 13 years that we've started making plans to move to Hawaii, and the fourth time we've been derailed once we started calculating the actual costs and being brutally honest with ourselves about what we are and aren't willing to give up.
So, what would push us to move to Hawaii would be for the cost of living there to decrease significantly, or for us to come into a big pile of money. Neither is likely, so we'll continue with our good lives here, and continue to visit Hawaii.
So, what would push us to move to Hawaii would be for the cost of living there to decrease significantly, or for us to come into a big pile of money. Neither is likely, so we'll continue with our good lives here, and continue to visit Hawaii.
At least you have casino's and the lottery in Oregon - so never say never.
The cost of living is fine, it's exactly how it should be. Of course food is more expensive because 80% of it is shipped from outside. COL is LOWER than where I'm from, Trinidad, and that's a third world country.
Maui and the Big Island are also cheaper than living in mainland cities, and even Honolulu is about equivalent to mainland cities. I have no idea how someone from Portland can visit the Big Island and conclude that COL is too high! Is that based entirely on the price of eggs or something? Add everything up and then see how it compares!
The problem is low pay, not cost of living. I'd move to Hawaii for a job that pays the same as what I would make on the mainland, $55-65k.
Maui and the Big Island are also cheaper than living in mainland cities, and even Honolulu is about equivalent to mainland cities.
Major mainland cities, you should say. There's more variation across the country than you seem to realize. Honolulu is about equivalent to San Francisco or New York, and they all are much more expensive than the average cost across America.
For example, the average Consumer Price Index in America is 100. Cleveland, Ohio, has a CPI of 84, better than 15% cheaper than the American average. Hilo, on the other hand, has an index of 141, or more than 40% higher than average.
Major mainland cities, you should say. There's more variation across the country than you seem to realize. Honolulu is about equivalent to San Francisco or New York, and they all are much more expensive than the average cost across America.
For example, the average Consumer Price Index in America is 100. Cleveland, Ohio, has a CPI of 84, better than 15% cheaper than the American average. Hilo, on the other hand, has an index of 141, or more than 40% higher than average.
There are a few people i really respect on here for being an walking source of facts and one of them is OpenD, there are others.
The cost of living is fine, it's exactly how it should be. Of course food is more expensive because 80% of it is shipped from outside. COL is LOWER than where I'm from, Trinidad, and that's a third world country.
Maui and the Big Island are also cheaper than living in mainland cities, and even Honolulu is about equivalent to mainland cities. I have no idea how someone from Portland can visit the Big Island and conclude that COL is too high! Is that based entirely on the price of eggs or something? Add everything up and then see how it compares!
The problem is low pay, not cost of living. I'd move to Hawaii for a job that pays the same as what I would make on the mainland, $55-65k.
Um... I've been adding everything up for the past 13 years. My wife is from the BI. We have friends and family there, so we're pretty familiar with the situation there. I've liked a lot of your posts, but this one is pretty arrogant. You don't live in Hawaii, so you aren't any more qualified to judge than I am. You don't know the details of my situation, either. For starters, I bought our house before the housing boom. It's a nice 3 BR, 2 BR house in a good neighborhood, and it's worth about $210K. What would that get us in Hilo? I don't mean on a lava field lot in Puna - I mean a house near Hilo with infrastructure and services. We'd get an older house under 900 square feet - quite a bit smaller than our not-very-big house here. Our electricity costs about 5 cents per KWh, compared to 40 cents on the BI. Gas is cheaper here. We'd have to spend about $10K to move. I'm younger than my wife, so I need to work after she retires. That's fine if I can telecommute, but if I can't, there is no work in my field on the BI, so I'd have to take a huge cut in pay. You can't divorce CoL from pay.
Look at any CoL calculator, and you'll see that Hilo is about 20% more expensive than Portland. We live in a suburb of Portland, which is cheaper than Portland. And what does the CoL in Trinidad have to do with our situation? What does Honolulu being similar in cost to some Mainland cities have to do with anything? We can't afford San Francisco or NYC, either. As I said, we could afford Hilo, if we're willing to lower our standard of living by quite a bit, but we're not. It's a choice. That was my point. We like our lifestyle here. It's not extravagant. We're friends with many Hawaiian transplants who moved here because they came to the same conclusion. There are people on this forum who moved to the BI and are happy living a very pared-down lifestyle. That's fine. But to tell me that the CoL on the BI isn't more than the CoL in Portland when you don't live in either place is just uninformed.
Over the years, I've spent upwards of $10 on lotto tickets, but I haven't won anything yet. It's discouraging.
You have better odds getting shot in portland then winning anything big from the oregon lotto. Indian casinos better odds but still suck unless you a good card player.
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