Is an affordable retirement possible on Hawaii?

[Ian_Lee]

Originally Posted by davephan

It’s safer to do eye surgery on the mainland. If you have the eye surgery done in Hawaii, and you need to see a different eye specialist on the mainland, you can’t fly for maybe 3 months, you’ll be trapped in Hawaii. It may not be physically possible to travel from Hawaii to the mainland by sea in a safe manner.

There are quite a few Retinal Specialists in Honolulu. I just googled and found 12 Retinal Specialists. Most are located within 30 minutes drive from my home.

Likely there are many more Specialists in big cities like Boston or Los Angeles. But compared with other parts of Mainland where one may need to drive two hours to visit a specialist, Honolulu is actually quite convenient for medical care.

Actually three hospitals are within 5-15 minutes drive from my home.

[respect4pele]

My wife and I bought acreage on the big island last December and will be building either a shipping container home or a small 500sf house to retire in. Our property is on the east side of the island just south and west of Hilo in Fern Acres. We have a nicely wooded two acre 'spaghetti lot 100' wide and almost 900' long.

We know what we are getting into. We hope to be there til we are elderly, but will commit to at least 7 years. I have not decided yet, but we are leaning towards being completely off grid. We will produce our own solar power. We will catch and purify our own water. We will have a septic tank and a compost toilet. We will grow 60% - 70% of our food with many fruit trees and a couple greenhouses to grow vegetables. Chickens for eggs. Garbage disposal stations are free for residential use in Puna, so there's that too.

In essence we will be paying most of our costs up front. We will have no mortgage. We won't have utility bills. We'll grow more fruit and veggies than we can eat. My sister will be living on our property too, so we will have someone there all the time. We will have a couple dogs for security.

Realistically it will cost us $100k up front. I will do as much of the work myself as possible.

Between working on my beautiful pristine virgin jungle acres and going around experiencing the fun of the island and growing our food, we will have plenty to occupy our time.