Quality of life (fit in, transplants, mortgages)

[kani-lehua]

most definitely! see ya around hilo, hawaiiboundnelli.

[HawaiiboundNelli]

for sure! can't wait... :-)

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by maui08

-I ask this question only because as a family who has been renting for years and basically paying someone elses mortgage this along with other reasons are driving us to look to move back to the main land......just wondering if others share the same concerns or are you guys okay with renting forever.

Its just economics of location. You have lifestyle and you have money. If you can't afford the lifestyle you want in particular place, you adjust the lifestyle to what you can afford, or you move to where you can afford the lifestyle you want to live. Hawaii isn't going to change just because you want it to be affordable for your lifestyle.

Your grocery bills are way to high because you are buying expensive because that's the lifestyle you decided to live. If you want to live and eat like you’re on the mainland, you have to pay for that.

[JuliaHuff]

PacificFlifhts, there is NO WAY to eat like on the mainland here! no matter how much money you spend. We used to eat only organic, highest quality, and spent 3 times less on food then here. we used to buy everything, almost everything european or russian groceries, such things dont even exists on Maui! I could not ind even Farmer's cheese here.
Food quality here is VERY low, as well as selection. and farmers markets are a joke-they have nothing there, and what they do have is expensive. I used to go to the farms near New York to buy produce, I would buy a 10lb bucket of ripe peaches for $2, they had 20 different kinds of organic apples, all kinds of veggies, berries, fruit that dont even exist here. The same with meat and fish, the selection is SO limited! I dont even know where to begin. we used to go to Chinatown and buy the freashest, cheapest fish...and veal, and lamb...all you get here is either costo or frozen crap...at 5 times more expensive then mainland.
if you guys want to eat Ramen Noodles and PB and Jelly-more power to you, I only have one life, and I would like to spend it enjoying a nice meal. And i definately dont want my kids to grow up eating peanut butter and jelly..

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by JuliaHuff

PacificFlifhts, there is NO WAY to eat like on the mainland here! no matter how much money you spend.

But that’s because you're not on the mainland. You want to eat like on the mainland, you live on the mainland.

Originally Posted by JuliaHuff

we used to buy everything, almost everything european or russian groceries, such things dont even exists on Maui! I could not ind even Farmer's cheese here.

That’s my point; you’re expecting something that was not, is not and may not be available on Maui. Why are you expecting what you want from a place that offers what it has? This is Hawaii, and she offers what she offers. None of this is a surprise, unless a person didn’t check to see what was here before they arrived.

Originally Posted by JuliaHuff

I used to go to the farms near New York to buy produce, I would buy a 10lb bucket of ripe peaches for $2, they had 20 different kinds of organic apples, all kinds of veggies, berries, fruit that dont even exist here. The same with meat and fish, the selection is SO limited! I dont even know where to begin. we used to go to Chinatown and buy the freashest, cheapest fish...and veal, and lamb...all you get here is either costo or frozen crap...at 5 times more expensive then mainland.

Your points are well taken, just that all these short comings are part of Hawaii and wasn’t offered so why expect what isn’t here? Everything you said is lacking was lacking long before you or anyone else arrived, and it’s likely it will remain that way long after people leave. But that’s what Hawaii has and if that is not for you, maybe you picked the wrong place to fit your lifestyle. If you want to surf, do you move to the shore or to the top of a mountain? You moved to the top of that mountain and expect a beach and a shaved ice stand.

Hawaii is not and will never be the mainland. It is Hawaii with just what Hawaii has to offer.

[HawaiiboundNelli]

Well said PacificFlights

[kaimuki]

Egads, Julia!!!!! Many of us in Hawaii never grew up eating lamb, veal, berries, cheese, apples and etc. I never travel to far away places expecting rice, shoyu chicken, ahi or mochi crunch to be readily available. I simply eat what the locals eat where ever I go.

[hotzcatz]

Again, this is mainland eating and it doesn't work well here. Peaches, apples, most berries and all non-tropical fruit is flown in from a minimum of 2,500 miles away so of course it is miserable and expensive. Those are all things which require a lot of chilling hours each year in order to set fruit so we can't grow them in a tropical climate. Now, you can get fresh luscious papaya, lychee, rambutan, pineapple, starfruit, longan, durian, breadfruit, bananas, etc. etc. Many of these fruits don't show up in the market since they are grown in folk's yards and basically given away to the neighbors. For some reason, Hass avocados are sold in the grocery, I have no idea who buys those small shipped in avos, but somebody must be since they always seem to have them available. Same with coconuts, would you buy a coconut from the grocery when you can pick them up in the yard for free? Apparently, someone does.

As for cheese, there are only two dairies left in the state and no cheese factories, so again, your MINIMUM shipping distance is going to be 2,500 miles and about ten days travel time. The last commercial egg farm went out of production last summer so now all eggs have to be shipped in unless you get them from folks who have a small flock of chickens.

All these folks who want a retirement home in Hawaii are encouraging houses to be built on agricultural land so there is no room for farms anymore and nobody can afford the land to farm on anyway since they are competing with non-farm income folks to get the land. So, farmers can't afford to farm hence your nearest affordable place to grow fresh produce is now 2,500 miles away. The Ewa plains on Oahu used to produce a lot of food but now they are wall to wall housing developments. No food there!

The fishing is also getting depleted. Long liners have come in and now the fishes are much fewer and smaller. They were chased out of several places on the mainland after they fished them out, once our fishes are depleted, they will go somewhere else. The places on the mainland that were fished out haven't repopulated with fish yet, either, because they deplete them so far they can't recover for decades.

[hilobound]

I'm sorry but i didn't hear the question. I have found this website to be very helpful in answering questions when a question is asked. People thought you asked a question miss Maui but you were just complaining much like most people that are unhappy with there lives. I used to complain all the time about where i lived and what i did but not anymore. So if you want answers to your situation then use the information that you receive to help improve your life style or don't post at all. If you want to eat yourself to death with prepackaged meals and sugar laced drinks then I am sure no one will mind but please don't whine when it costs to much. Plus i sure wouldn't work myself more than i had to just to pay for a coke. A persons life is based solely on where there priorities lie.

[maui08]

Originally Posted by hilobound

I'm sorry but i didn't hear the question. I have found this website to be very helpful in answering questions when a question is asked. People thought you asked a question miss Maui but you were just complaining much like most people that are unhappy with there lives. I used to complain all the time about where i lived and what i did but not anymore. So if you want answers to your situation then use the information that you receive to help improve your life style or don't post at all. If you want to eat yourself to death with prepackaged meals and sugar laced drinks then I am sure no one will mind but please don't whine when it costs to much. Plus i sure wouldn't work myself more than i had to just to pay for a coke. A persons life is based solely on where there priorities lie.

Wow. "Complaining"....? You're probably just one of those folks stuffed into an ohana and thinks life is just grand. You've lost all sense of reality and could care less if you go to the grocery store wearing last nights t-shirt with unbrushed hair and teeth. Oh, and your feet haven't been washed in months either. -This is the picture I have. -As far as priorities....my family is my priority and that is why we are planning to move. Hawaii has become a wasteland for people running from their issues or problems (mostly mental) and once they get here....guess what? The issues are still there! Now, instead of those problems going away because they moved to Hawaii, Hawaii now is home to a mental problem. The only normal people on Hawaii are the tourists. Aloha