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People do shop there, but...
Not to sound too snide here, you can not live in a Wal-Mart.
Nor do our Wal-Mart stores here (on the Big Island) come close to comparing to the ones on the mainland.
The grocery section is a joke, and it's a common occurrence for most sundry items to be out of stock with no expectation on when they will be shipped over.
To give you an idea - my home town Wal-Mart in Kentucky where I grew up was large enough that you could fit the Hilo Wal-Mart inside of it twice over, with enough room left over for a few tennis courts.
High rent and low paying jobs. That's what makes Hawai'i expensive.
If you find a way to combat one or both of those, you have a foot above most.
Live small and bring your own money... that's some good advice for the average Joe.
I hear this a lot "high rent and low paying jobs".
You can't compare "Hawaii" to the "mainland" because Hawaii consists of multiple islands where goods can be significantly more expensive than those same goods found on Oahu. And there are parts of the mainland where goods cost far more than other parts of the mainland.
90%+ of the things you buy on Oahu are the exact same price as those goods purchased in any other major metropolitan in the US mainland. If you buy online and it can be shipped to Hawaii, that's 100% of all goods that exactly match those same prices anyone on the mainland enjoys. The beauty of the internet is Hawaii residents pay the exact same cost as anyone else in the US. In fact, some things cost much less on Oahu compared to some states (that have high sales taxes on goods). Quite a few times my friends that live in CA bought high-ticket electronics here on Oahu from big box stores and brought them back home with them on the plane. Sometimes they'd save $50-$100 in taxes on one item.
And outside of online shopping, most big box stores here sell goods for the exact same price as those same stores in mainland cities.
As for housing, that's a different story. Because of limited land and limited housing, high demand for housing and vastly higher cost of permitting and construction, the cost of housing is much higher than most places in the mainland. Our government also taxes rent on Oahu 4.72%. So for every $1,000 in rent, the state takes $47.20. We're the only state in the country that taxes rent... so that only exacerbates the high cost of housing here.
Common over to Chicago where the tax is 10.25% on everything
Including rent as in Hawaii?
Most sundry items in Hawaii aren't any more expensive than comparable sundry items in other metropolitan areas (although all of Hawaii is not metropolitan).
The higher average cost of housing in Hawaii combined with a lower average salary is the major budget killer. Yes, it does amount to "really expensive" for the average person even in rural areas and small towns, compared to the cost of living in commensurately sized communities on the mainland. If you factor in the fact that you're actually paying for less house (smaller building on less land, cheaper structure, fewer amenities) per dollar then it gets even more expensive.
As for housing, that's a different story. Because of limited land and limited housing, high demand for housing and vastly higher cost of permitting and construction, the cost of housing is much higher than most places in the mainland. Our government also taxes rent on Oahu 4.72%. So for every $1,000 in rent, the state takes $47.20. We're the only state in the country that taxes rent... so that only exacerbates the high cost of housing here.
Most cities in Arizona impose a tax on rent.
The 4.7% in tax is pale in comparison to property taxes on rentals in SF and NYC compared to Hawaii that are ultimately passed on to the tenant in the form of rent.
I don't know. What do locals need that haole don't?
When I wrote "local" I meant people of Hawaii; not tourists. Should I have written "kama'aina"? Perhaps, but as it seemed that you were not from Hawaii (no location noted) and your question was superficial I was not certain that you would know the term.
Aloha. Sorry, I just found out you can post to the general Hawaii forums.
I always hear that HI is super expensive. But there are Walmarts everywhere now. Why don't people shop at Walmart? There is no price difference in HI for Walmart, so I don't get it?
Mahalo!
Ohm there is a price difference between HI and the Mainland prices! It was about 7 years ago, but I doubt things have changed much. We were on a trip with our two children, and the airline lost some of our luggage. Fortunately, we tool the advice NOT to pack all a person's belongings in his/her own suitcase, but spread things out among all the suitcases. That way, if one suitcase is lost, not all of one person's stuff is gone.
Ok, we were missing mainly our son & daughter's stuff, so we went to WalMart to re-stock. I had just purchased them some clothes, etc, and found the exact same items there, for about 25% more than I paid on Mainland. I'm a bargain-shopper and remember my prices. The markup didn't bankrupt us, but as I wandered the aisles I saw most everything was at least 25% more than back home
The airline found our luggage the last day of our stay on Kauai and brought them to us. We were so over-burdened with stuff then. Our condo had a w/d so we washed up some of the nicer things and left them neatly folded on the table with a note "For staff. Please take any items you would like" I understood the staff was happy with the donationIf I had to pay such prices on a regular basis, with a hospitality worker's income, I would be happy to get some free stuff, too!
I just went to walmart the other day, I noticed they were selling a half gallon of 2% milk for $5 there. So yes, even walmart is more expensive here. In another thread a while back, I posted up a recent kroger ad that was advertising somethin like a $0.99/half gallon milk. If that happened here, there would be people queing up in long lines before the store opened, and possibly fighting once the store opened, and only the first 10 people actually got the sales price.
granted property taxes in hawaii is cheaper than many mainland locales, but our GET does hit mostgoods and services,
8 states with highest food costs in the nation. any surprise that alaska is #2 and hawaii is #1? And would anyone be surprised that other goods follow the same pattern?
Granted, there may be cities or other localities that may be higher than hawaii, overall state by state, hawaii is higher.
I just went to walmart the other day, I noticed they were selling a half gallon of 2% milk for $5 there. So yes, even walmart is more expensive here. In another thread a while back, I posted up a recent kroger ad that was advertising somethin like a $0.99/half gallon milk. If that happened here, there would be people queing up in long lines before the store opened, and possibly fighting once the store opened, and only the first 10 people actually got the sales price.
granted property taxes in hawaii is cheaper than many mainland locales, but our GET does hit mostgoods and services,
8 states with highest food costs in the nation. any surprise that alaska is #2 and hawaii is #1? And would anyone be surprised that other goods follow the same pattern?
Granted, there may be cities or other localities that may be higher than hawaii, overall state by state, hawaii is higher.
We found Walmart is not cheap in Hawaii, like it can be in other states. I recall that milk was between $7 to $9 a gallon and eggs were about $5 a dozen at the Walmarts in Hawaii. The lowest priced store is generally Aldi's. As far as I know, there aren't any Aldi's in Hawaii, but there are Cost-U-Less stores, which are a lot cheaper than other grocery stores in Hawaii.
We typically see milk is below $2 a gallon, and sometimes it drops to about 99 cents a gallon. Eggs are typically about 99 cents a dozen and sometime drops to 49 cents a dozen. Those are unadvertised prices that normally float between those price ranges on a weekly or monthly basis. No coupons are needed, no memberships required (except Sam's and Costco), no specials, no hassle. There are never "door buster" specials at grocery stores, where people have to line up hours before the store opens. You just go to the store, and the prices are between those ranges. When the prices are at the lower end of the range, we typically buy more.
It's interesting that Florida is #5 on the list. We found that the prices are somewhat higher in Florida and California than Minnesota, but not drastically higher like Hawaii. I don't know why the prices for most food items are cheaper here. The vast majority of the food is not grown here, but it is transported across the county and from other places like California, Mexico, South America, Europe, and Asia. Most are transported long distances over land (from North America), which is far more expensive than shipping by sea.
Common over to Chicago where the tax is 10.25% on everything
You have a SALES tax, we have an EXCISE tax.... it is not equal.
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