Do you have to be rich to live in Hawaii?

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

So somewhere on the mainland, there's a place to buy milk at 69¢ a half gallon. Which would make it $1.38 per gallon. Around here milk runs about $5.99 a gallon - not including tax, here in Hawaii we get taxed on food so that $5.99 gallon of milk actually costs us $6.23. We use about a gallon a week. So we pay $324 per year for milk here in Hawaii.

If the mainland store had no tax on food, then we'd pay $71.76 per year for the same amount of milk. If the same tax were added to the mainland milk it would be $1.44 per gallon or $74.88 per year.

This sort of thing adds up when it's applied to EVERYTHING you buy. So, folks in Hawaii buy less stuff and we shop for sales and get creative about how we get things.

We grow a lot of stuff to eat and a lot of folks have food producing trees in their yards. Trees are nice in that they don't need much care once they're established. The orange tree will pretty much give you more oranges than you can eat in the winter time. Tangerine trees give during more times of the year. Avocados are seasonal, but different varieties give at different times so there's generally avocados available about three quarters of the year. Lemons are similar. Coconuts are when ever they fall. Papayas don't seem to have much of a season, pineapples are mostly a summer thing. The other thing with trees is that they give so much that you can't eat it all so you share with everyone. Then, when their trees are giving, they share with everyone, too. So you don't have to have one of each type of fruit tree, you just need a friend who has one.

We don't need a large garden, a very small one will do since it can go year round. We just need enough lettuce and tomatoes for salads so that's only a three or four fairly short rows of leaf lettuces and about six tomato plants. With leaf lettuce, we just harvest the outside leaves and let the plant keep growing. When it gets old and tough, then it's fed to the rabbits who make fertilizer for us.

The hens lay eggs and rooster soup cures crowing. There's fish in the sea and pigs on the mountain and if you don't want to go get them yourself, probably some of your friend's kids are thrilled to sell you some of what they catch. Helps them pay for the gas in the boat to go get more. I buy eggs from my friend to help her along since she's on a fixed income. I don't save any money on eggs, but I do get really fresh eggs from chickens running around eating bugs and grasses so the yolks are a dark orange. We just got our beef order in from our local farmer friend. We only got two thirds of what we'd hoped for since the steer wasn't as large as he'd hoped, but it's enough to hold us for the next year until the next steer.

So, no, you don't have to be rich in money to live in Hawaii. You need to be rich in friends, though.

Once again I wish that I could give you more rep points. A lot of rep points!!

[hotzcatz]

Eh, no worries, what goes around comes around. They won't let me give you any more rep points either at the moment. Sigh! Stingy buggahs, eh?

Folks can live with even less money on your side of the island can't they?

[Rocko20]

Originally Posted by thatguy950

Agreed, some things are a little higher, gas included, and of course housing is significantly higher than in Kentucky or Missouri, but it's not totally outrageous. If you come from expensive west coast cities like LA or Seattle, housing can actually be a little cheaper on Oahu, if you come from somewhere like NYC or San Francisco then housing will be downright cheap.

If you shop at Costco (and Don Quijote) for staples, don't leave lights and TVs on unnecessarily during the day and such, you'll probably find your food and living expenses to be pretty on-par with any big city on the mainland, with a smaller premium than expected.

Agreed and good post.