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Wink, you do seem pretty pessimistic, but I also see your point about needing to be frank with possible transplants (especialy those with kids).
I'm curious about how much you earn on Maui, how you live, etc. Also with how you grew up in Texas. In my experience, once someone develops a certain lifestyle, it's hard to go cut back significantly.
When I first moved to D.C. after college, I earned maybe $200 a month more than my rental costs for a long period. I lost about 25-30 pounds (and wasn't heavy to begin with), but I survived.
I think it's largely a matter of what someone considers necessities vs. luxuries. (I had no television, period, for a year.) It was worth it to me at the time, and I had a great time.
My husband has medical school loans and we have a baby; combine that with a mortgage and two car payments and you're left about average. The cost of living is very high here. You cannot mortgage a home for under $2,000 a month and you'd be surprised at how quickly things add up here. You could live here on $50,000 a year, but you might need a roommate. We are in Wailuku and I like this town because it is the heart of Maui... to me!
My husband has medical school loans and we have a baby; combine that with a mortgage and two car payments and you're left about average. The cost of living is very high here. You cannot mortgage a home for under $2,000 a month and you'd be surprised at how quickly things add up here. You could live here on $50,000 a year, but you might need a roommate. We are in Wailuku and I like this town because it is the heart of Maui... to me!
Taxes on $300K: $100K?
Home: $2K a month = $24K yearly let's say $3K a month = $36K yearly.
Cars: $1K a month with insurance = $12K yearly.
Med loan: $2K a month? = $24K yearly.
Total: $172K yearly.
$128K remaining. That would be over $10K monthly -- far better than just getting by. If you're having any trouble, it must be due to malpractice insurance, which can get very expensive.
Assuming $36K remaining after taxes on $50K yearly, and rent of $1200 monthly ($14.4K yearly), that leaves over $21K yearly after rent, or $1750 a month. Buy a decent used car, pay it off fairly quickly, and you're looking at a good amount of spending money every month -- even after gas, insurance, utilities, and groceries.
You could certainly save even more with a roommate, but it wouldn't appear necessary.
His loans are more than that and his has malpractice insurance to pay for other states. I think you have to carry it for 10 years after you've seen your last patient. And I have some teacher loans for my master's degree. It's all of the little things that really add up here. We leased expensive cars and will NEVER do that again. LOL and lesson learned. We underestimated how much baby formula, diapers and everything would cost here and that was silly on our part; we lived in Honolulu. It's hard to catch-up here. We could do it, but it would take a while.
And our air conditioning bill is about $500 a month. Trust me. I know it's CRAZY. I think we just cannot get used to the warm weather. In my 20's, I didn't have any trouble. Since I hit 30, I cannot stand being hot.
hey, the most important thing in life is happiness, or at least the pursuit of happiness. I am moving to maui in November, have sold everything I own, am quitting my $21 an hour Job with full benefits to pursue a fantasy diving career. I don't. have anything lined up am just going to hit the ground running and make it work. you can accomplish anything if you keep your nose pointed in the right direction. you can't put a price on piece of mind . good luck maybe I'll see you there. :-)
hey, the most important thing in life is happiness, or at least the pursuit of happiness. I am moving to maui in November, have sold everything I own, am quitting my $21 an hour Job with full benefits to pursue a fantasy diving career. I don't. have anything lined up am just going to hit the ground running and make it work. you can accomplish anything if you keep your nose pointed in the right direction. you can't put a price on piece of mind . good luck maybe I'll see you there. :-)
Good luck! I think what your doing is crazy but awesome! I wish I could do that but I have to stick with my 2 year plan One day I WILL be there! Keep us posted.
"Here" could be anywhere is the USA right now. I know that Oregon, Washington and Idaho is infested with meth. These problems are everywhere. It is up to parents to educate their kids, be strong role models and hope for a little bit of luck as well!
When I lived in Plano Texas (a wealthy suburb of Dallas) our local high school was rated one of the 2 best in the state and in the top 50 in the nation. However, there were 20+ fatal heroin overdoses in less than a year. Also, the elementary school (also rated Exemplary by the state) was HORRIBLE to my son with Asperger's. I actually had a teacher tell me that she was too busy to learn about his disability so she could reach him better. Their response was to put him in an art closet and call it in-school suspension. I fought for 2 years to finally get him services he was entitled to under the law. Moving to another school wasn't an option.
My kids have gone to great schools and some not so great schools. Every school had teen pregnancies and drugs. None of my kids got pregnant, got anyone else pregnant, got arrested, overdosed or otherwise in trouble. They are all grown now and happy productive people.
This isn't to say that everything Wink says is wrong or right. Just another consideration. I'm also not trying to say my kids are some kind of phenoms. They are just normal young adults doing normal things. I do think that being an involved parent made a big difference and helped compensate when the schools weren't so good.
hey, the most important thing in life is happiness, or at least the pursuit of happiness. I am moving to maui in November, have sold everything I own, am quitting my $21 an hour Job with full benefits to pursue a fantasy diving career. I don't. have anything lined up am just going to hit the ground running and make it work. you can accomplish anything if you keep your nose pointed in the right direction. you can't put a price on piece of mind . good luck maybe I'll see you there. :-)
You're awesome! I wish you the best of luck and can only aspire to have that kind of faith and pull it off! Please let us know how things go!
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Loans...
One day I WILL be there! Keep us posted.
