What annual salary would be sufficient to live in Maui? (health insurance, how much)

[HiloDiver]

Lol!

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by HiloDiver

That one person's story is not representative of most. It has been recommended ad nauseum, but I absolutely could not relate to it and neither can many others who poke holes in that individual's many errors.

I agree with this assessment. Not to be unkind, but the poster was young and very naive. I still remember his being in awe that a doctor had "McGyvered" a special finger splint for him out of aluminum and foam, when it was merely a standard first-aid item you can buy at CVS for $5.49.

Hidden costs...for me, the electricity is extremely cheap but I come from where it is really horrific.

Well... in Hawai'i it is roughly 3X the rate in states like Texas and Washington. It's one of the items that most commonly causes severe sticker shock for new arrivals. Helco says its average residential customer bill is about $225.

Prepared foods are also very expensive, and although I don't drink it I've been told milk is as well. We find that buying most of what we eat at the farmer's markets is very inexpensive. If you eat healthy you'll be fine. If you must eat prepared foods, prepare for shock.

This is pretty much the dichotomy I see in Hawai'i... eat fresh local, food is inexpensive, eat processed or perishable that is transported from the mainland, food is expensive. Really, it's not a hard concept to grasp.

[HiloDiver]

OpenD, don't you just laugh when just one person's story is tossed out there over and over and over as to why nobody will make it in Hawai'i? I feel sorry for the poor guy but geez, it's not like he represents everyone who moves to Hawai'i.

And I'd be delighted to pay a $225 electric bill...that's about what I paid in Florida and 1/3 what we paid in the USVI.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by HiloDiver

OpenD, don't you just laugh when just one person's story is tossed out there over and over and over as to why nobody will make it in Hawai'i? I feel sorry for the poor guy but geez, it's not like he represents everyone who moves to Hawai'i.

Even more telling, now that he's back in Houston he's complaining that public transit is awful and don't move there because you can't find a decent house for less than $500,000.

I find his story instructive, but not prescriptive. If anything, I think it's pretty much a case study in what not to do.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by OpenD

If anything, I think it's pretty much a case study in what not to do.

I'll agree with you for a change on that - From what I can tell - he lived extremely frugal - had a job lined up day 1 - barely spent any money (because he didn't have any) - the what not to do is move to Hawaii with less than $10,000 and without a decent income because not only does the math not work it doesn't work in real life either. He was way farther ahead than many of the dreamer posts with a $35K job day 1 rather than min wage (or no job).

[serenity67]

Wow... Lots of great tips from all of you! I will check out the links provided to see if the young "case study' did anything that I would accidentally do. Of course hopefully I am not quite that naive.

Does anyone know what the cost of internet and basic cable generally
run? We may chose to go without cable and just do Hulu Plus or something like that. Internet access, however, is a must.

[HiloDiver]

It is highly unlikely that you would be anything like the one who did so many things wrong.

You can get a quote online from the internet company you're going to use. It's easy enough to google which companies are active on Maui, or search these forums to see if it's been discussed before (BI internet has been, don't know about Maui). I "think" we pay about $65-ish for landline and high-speed DSL here on Big Island. We use Amazon Prime for movies. Don't forget the library for borrowing DVDs.

[TwoByFour]

Originally Posted by serenity67

BINGO!!! That is exactly what I needed! :-) Funny you mentioned Amazon... .

Be careful of Amazon. They use lots of 3rd party vendors and really do not know whether that provider will ship to Maui. We ordered a monitor from Amazon, with no indication that Maui would be a problem for shipping. After 3-4 days we got an email saying the vendor of the item will not ship to Maui. It took a fair amount of searching but we got what we wanted, shipped to Maui. But not from Amazon. Cost was about 25% more than the Amazon cost if we had lived on the mainland.

[HiloDiver]

Wow, that stinks. I have never had a problem getting things to Big Island, but I will surely be very careful in the future. Was your problem with plain ol' Amazon or with Amazon Prime? I have found that things that won't ship via Amazon will go Amazon Prime with no problem. Things usually arrive ahead of schedule and surprise us. Great $79/year investment.

[Wegandi]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

I don't know why a newcomer wouldn't be interested in his actual moving costs, his rent and issues for a very small place, electric bills over $150/month, take home pay amounts, his budgeting, unforseen issues like car repair and the costs, the details of how the $6K or so rapidly disintigrated and then literally couldn't afford to get off of the island.

That was the point of the thread. And of course $40K is not enough.

We talking gross or net? 40k Net is plenty enough for a single person to live pretty much anywhere in the U.S. and is definitely not poverty level. I was making ~38k gross and about 34k net or so living in Milwaukee and I was saving ~1,000 a month no problem. Then again, I'm good at budgeting and I live pretty minimalist. I also don't waste extraneous sums of money on things you can do much cheaper and better (E.g., who the hell has cable/satellite TV in today's age...spend 10$ a month and you can get everything whenever you want (Rapidshare, Torrents, etc. + Netflix)).

Not everyone is the same. Some people believe if they aren't eating caviar that they're impoverished. Now, if we're talking a family, that's another story. Kids are expensive....