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Not planning a move in the next month or two, but maybe in a year or two.
About me briefly: early to mid 30s, work as a psychiatrist, have mostly lived in North Carolina(charlotte area), moving to Jacksonville in a month or so. Not thrilled about it but it is what it is for now.
When I was 17 I took a family vacation to both Maui and Honolulu and loved it. Still think about it to this day. Have been on other 'destination' vacations since then, but nothing has compared.
Single, no kids, no responsibilities(except a lot of student loans I'm still paying off).
YOLO, and I gotta think spending a couple years of this brief life in Hawaii is a good thing.
Because of what I do(not a primary care physician where smaller population centers can support it), I gotta figure Honolulu is the only real option. Which is fine I think I would love it there. Right now(and for the last couple years) I've made a little over 300k + benefits from a combination of a main salaried inpatient position and some 1099 contract work(the details are boring..trust me). I'm aware I would have to take a big salary cut that I wouldn't have to ever experience on the mainland. So assuming a *massive* pay cut(let's say down like 35-40% to 175k or so), would I be able to have a good lifestyle on Honolulu? Good lifestyle for me in Hawaii would mean:
-nice apt(doesn't have to be big....a larger 1 bedroom with modern appliances in a safe area and a good view would be fine)
-be able to eat out at non-crappy restaurants fairly often
-money for entertainment, traveling occasionally back and forth between the islands, etc
-wouldn't want to worry about finishing paying off loans or saving a ton(understand that would have to wait until get back to states)
-wouldn't want to have to worry about conserving air conditioner/water and stuff like that
Again, not looking to live extravagantly, and I understand that my standard of living wouldn't be the same as compared to charlotte or Jacksonville on 40% more money. But could I still live a comfortable middle class to upper middle class life for these couple years on that reduced salary in the most expensive(or one of) cities in the country?
You'd do better vacationing here. Since you're only planning on being here a couple years, you'll never really fit in since folks will know that you'll be leaving. It would be fun, and you'd be able to live fairly well on that amount, but it would be a very shallow life. A lot of Hawaii is about family and friends and most folks who live here have been burnt way too often by making friends with folks who then leave. Folks will be friendly and all, but they won't be your best buddy since they know you'll be leaving.
But, if you don't mind being the outsider, then you can live here quite well on that amount.
If you indeed can find a job here that pays $175 K per year and have enough savings to be able to return in case Hawaii doesn't work out for you, I'd say go for it, you only live once. You don't want to regret not taking the opportunity. Not having kids makes it far less risky so I'd say it's a chance worth taking. As far as being an outsider/temporary resident, I think your life will be what you make of it. If you're good at making friends you could probably do the same here, I'm not sure how much of being a new resident affects your ability to make friends. I guess it's all about who you try to make friends with. There are a lot of transplants here, so it's not like you'll be the only one.
Well, that's true, there's lots of transplants and they become friends with each other pretty quickly. Then you can make friends with folks who don't stick around and see why folks who stay put are a bit standoffish for the first several years. This phenomena isn't just for the new transplants, any time anyone moves to a new neighborhood it takes awhile for the folks to figure out that you're part of the neighborhood even if you're just moving from another island or another part of the same island. Unless, of course, you have relatives, in your new neighborhood then these rules don't apply.
Several years ago, well, maybe it's been about a decade or so, but anyway, awhile back we were living in a small plantation village and chatting with some neighbors. One of them was a rather elderly woman. She was talking about one of the other neighbors and mentioned "well, she's not from here, after all". I was kinda surprised, since the person being talked about had been born in the next plantation village about eight to ten miles away. I had thought surely the elderly woman would know this, and sure enough, she continued with "she's from P___, you know," which was the name of the next little village. Not only insularity, that's micro-insularity. Either that or she was just looking for a way to be grumpy at the other person and couldn't think of anything else. Hmm, other than being from P___, the elderly woman had also labeled the other neighbor as a "harlot", too. First time I'd ever actually heard someone labeled that. Strangely enough, the elderly woman had moved over from Oahu, so she was from even further away. I didn't inquire if she had ever been a harlot, too, since she wasn't from around here either, but it didn't seem like it would improve the conversation any.
You'd do better vacationing here. Since you're only planning on being here a couple years, you'll never really fit in since folks will know that you'll be leaving. It would be fun, and you'd be able to live fairly well on that amount, but it would be a very shallow life. A lot of Hawaii is about family and friends and most folks who live here have been burnt way too often by making friends with folks who then leave. Folks will be friendly and all, but they won't be your best buddy since they know you'll be leaving.
But, if you don't mind being the outsider, then you can live here quite well on that amount.
oh gosh I'm not looking to make lots of close friends there. In fact I think that would be a negative. So Im glad to hear that. I'm kind of aloof and don't mind being casually or superficially friendly, but forming deep bonds with the community(really anywhere but especially in hawaii) is not something I'm looking to do.
oh gosh I'm not looking to make lots of close friends there. In fact I think that would be a negative. So Im glad to hear that. I'm kind of aloof and don't mind being casually or superficially friendly, but forming deep bonds with the community(really anywhere but especially in hawaii) is not something I'm looking to do.
Two things that stand out from your description......
1. About me briefly: early to mid 30s, work as a psychiatrist, have mostly lived in North Carolina(charlotte area), moving to Jacksonville in a month or so. Not thrilled about it but it is what it is for now.
2. I'm kind of aloof and don't mind being casually or superficially friendly
So it can be inferred from the above, that you are an aloof, shallow psychiatrist? And, upon meeting you, one wouldn't be smart enough to see past your superficiality? How does one establish new patients with those type of qualities...aloof, unfriendly, superficial, shallow? Just asking.
oh gosh I'm not looking to make lots of close friends there. In fact I think that would be a negative. So Im glad to hear that. I'm kind of aloof and don't mind being casually or superficially friendly, but forming deep bonds with the community(really anywhere but especially in hawaii) is not something I'm looking to do.
Then it sounds like it would be a lovely several years for you. It's hard to beat the weather and you'd have lots of lovely memories.
If you'd be able to live fairly close to your employment, you'd miss a lot of the traffic in Honolulu. Congestion and traffic are the big drawbacks to Oahu these days.
One thing that you don't seem to have fully embraced is the full double whammy you'll get to your standard of living by taking a huge pay cut, and at the same time moving to an area with a far higher cost of living. Honolulu, by standard consumer measures, is 50% more expensive than either Charlotte or Jacksonville.
That means that living on $175K in Honolulu calculates out to something like an $88K standard of living where you are now. That's like taking a 70% pay cut and staying there. How comfortable does that sound to you? And that doesn't even touch the fact that your income estimate for Honolulu might be high.
Obviously your specific details can swing that calculation considerably, but I think it's a useful comparison to start with.
You'd do better vacationing here. Since you're only planning on being here a couple years, you'll never really fit in since folks will know that you'll be leaving. It would be fun, and you'd be able to live fairly well on that amount, but it would be a very shallow life. A lot of Hawaii is about family and friends and most folks who live here have been burnt way too often by making friends with folks who then leave. Folks will be friendly and all, but they won't be your best buddy since they know you'll be leaving.
But, if you don't mind being the outsider, then you can live here quite well on that amount.
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