Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I agree and we have children! We would love to be at $135k on the Big Island! Livin' Large, indeed.
Nope! You can't go there my-friend! My wife makes nearly $40/hour at her job here on Oahu and she was offered a transfer to Kona three years ago to a similar position with her same employer, but the wage drop was IMMENSE! Enough so, that we decided to decline the offer.
The costs of living out there (Big Isle) are fractional compared to Oahu and that includes housing. Shoots, we could buy a RANCH there on the Big Isle for what we paid for our home here! There's simply no comparison.
well I only have 3 kids, 5 total, but you made up my mind for me. I'm going to ask for more based on this and if I get it I'll go and if I don't I'll stay here on the mainland. You've been a HUGE help for us helping to think realistically about the quality of life we'd have there vs. here on same salary. Much, much different to be sure. Much thanks!!
well I only have 3 kids, 5 total, but you made up my mind for me. I'm going to ask for more based on this and if I get it I'll go and if I don't I'll stay here on the mainland. You've been a HUGE help for us helping to think realistically about the quality of life we'd have there vs. here on same salary. Much, much different to be sure. Much thanks!!
Fat Old Man;
I apologize for the error and I stand corrected on the size of your family (5 not 7), but frankly, it changes very little. Its no fun being the bearer of bad news; I fight it every day with my own kids, many of whom fantasize about coming back to Hawaii some day, but there is simply NO meaningful comparison that can be made between the quality of life that you and your children would enjoy there on the Mainland with that kind of salary ($135K) vs. what you would come to know here in the Islands. Trust me on this! I'm doing you a favor here! There is no comparison!
If you simply disregard the losses you'll incur in terms of moving expenses, etc., and you consider it from the outset as a short term vacation or family adventure (with the expectation that you'll likely return the Mainland within 2-3 years), then you'll be just fine here at any salary (i.e., $135K or greater). Don't look to get ahead, don't look to live exceptionally well, and its all good! But you would need to go into it (in my view) with that mindset.
Prior to 2003, my wife and I made $85,000 and $44,000/year respectively ($130K gross) in the desert southwest, and we owned a BEAUTIFUL, three-year old, 2600 sq. ft., 3-car garage home with Pebble-Tech pool that cost us $177,000 ($1800/month mortgage). Then we made the mistake of coming back out here to Hawaii where we made $40,000 and $60,000/year, respectively ($100K gross), and we rented for $2400/month, later opting to buy at $4,000/month. Lunacy! Sheer lunacy! The equation isn't quantum mechanics! Its a straight forward loser, anyway you care to slice it. Blue water, waves and sunshine all cost. Trade winds and ambience cost. Nothing here is free.
Much of what you make out here in terms of annual earnings, they (Hawaii's bureaucrats) will take from you (through excess taxation, increased cost of living, shipping charges, non-reciprocal travel costs, etc., etc.), and whatever you bring with you in terms of resources, they will eventually find a way to take as well. Trust me. If you stay there, you (and your kids) will know a better life, and you'll be able to afford a vacation here (if you choose) every other month with the money you'll save. No joke. Just compare the one-way airfares from the U.S. Mainland to Hawaii (cheap) vs. those from Hawaii to the Mainland (way more expensive on average).
Believe me when I say that I wish you and your's the very best in whatever you choose to do. Good luck.
1) From 2003-2006, I rented the modest, 2-bedroom/2-bath, 40-year old, 1200 sq. ft. home that I currently own here on Oahu at the rate of $2400 per month. In late 2006, in an effort to avoid being forced out by the owner who wanted to sell, I agreed to purchase it for $637,000 and I now pay over $4000 per month! In terms of size, features, age, condition, location, etc., I can say with confidence that this same home would sell in the greater Phoenix or Las Vegas markets for less than $100,000, and further, that relative to the Hawaii real estate market, it is well-below the current median home value on Oahu. So, if your family of seven (7) can live comfortably in a three bedroom home here (2-3/room), and you can pick from a legion of such rental homes priced at <$2400 (as you say), then go for it! But I suspect you'll be talking about somewhere like Ewa Beach or Mililani which will entail quite a commute.
2) No, that would leave $3500 each month for gas, fun, clothes, etc., plus UTILITIES which will be +/- $1,000/month (i.e., electric, land-line phone, cell phone, internet service, cable TV, Board of Water Supply, etc., etc.). NOTE: I know impoverished local families smaller than your own, living in Waianae with 1-2 window A/C units, that commonly pay >$600/month for power alone! Trust me, to be realistic, you'll want to expand your spreadsheet of monthly expenses beyond rent, food, gas, fun and clothes. You'll want to include things like haircuts, vehicle registrations, traffic tickets, school supplies, travel, etc.. If you've raised five kids, you know this already. You know that it goes WAY beyond "miscellaneous".
3) Nope. You keep citing this $135K figure as though it were "net" wages and as though it were somehow "competitive" here in Hawaii. Its neither. First off, its not $135K in spendable funds! Its $90-100K (net), and its $50-60K after housing with utilities or $20-30K after housing, utilities and food. Secondly, $135K per year (gross earnings) is NOT "big money" for most folks here. You can believe that or not, but it ain't! Yes, for a single person or single wage earner, you're doing fabulous, but if its your sole income in a household of seven (7) where you do not own your home outright, then its not. If you own your home or condo already (like most locals do) or you've inherited your home or you've got a dowery of some sort, then great! You're all set. But for the average working couple with 0-2 kids, $135K gross (taxable) earnings is somewhere between average to slightly above average money, period. By example, the Honolulu Advertiser reported in an article here almost a full year ago that the average physician in Hawaii made >$500,000/year, yet that same article stated that physicians were 'flocking' out of Hawaii by the droves (an absolute exodus)! Why? Is that because they're all struggling on an income of $500,000? No. Its because after Hawaii's extreme tax gauntlet and other regulatory measures, they're never seeing anywhere NEAR that figure when all is said and done.
As for whether life out here is worth it or not (given those parameters), I'll leave that to you. Many feel it is and many don't. Keep one thing in mind in your deliberations: Most local families here in Hawaii have extensive family also residing here. In practical terms, this means that they are reticent to leave the islands, no matter how bad it gets (i.e., they resist moving away on strictly financial terms). When (or if) they leave the islands, they leave family members behind, which is not typically true for Mainland transplants, and this is NOT something that is easy for them to do. I'm talking here about Hawaiians, Samoans, Tongans, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Portagee, whatevah! Its too hard emotionally for many of them and its even cost prohibitive for some. Good or bad, this dynamic exists here more than most places you'll ever live or visit, and make no mistake about it, the average employer here is well-aware of this limitation. This is precisely why wages are kept artificially low here (relative to the cost of living), because those folks make up 70-80% of the populus here and they'll work below scale before opting to move away. In fact, one dear (elderly) Filipino friend of mine often says about his State job . . . "they pretend to pay me, so I pretend to work".
So, in closing, yes, you'll be just fine here on $90-100K in your pocket each year with five kids to house, clothe and feed, but you won't be above the median, and you won't be living large.
Good Luck.
1: I don't understand why anyone would compare Oahu home prices to the Southwest? It's a completely apples to oranges comparison and saying that house X in Hawaii would be worth 1/6 as much in Phoenix is a pretty moot point... it was also 116 degrees in Phoenix two weeks ago, I was there, and stuck at the airport for four hours b/c the plane can't leave when the temps get that high.... I'm sure things of that nature contribute a lot to the 'value' that you get out there....
2: OK, so the people in Waianae that you know need to either buy new energy efficient A/Cs, check their seals, not keep it 60 degrees 24/7, or all of the above. Taking the absolute worst case scenario and passing it off as the norm is misleading and not helpful. My parents, in a 2500 square foot house with central air run about $175.00 a month in elec. Their 8000sf yard which my dad brags is 'like carpet' b/c he's super anal about it and waters it like crazy, probably pushes their water up quite a bit but it's still only about $180.00 every other month. Time Warner does HD cable, road runner and digital phone for about $120.00 a month, a cell phone family plan will run about $100.00, $150.00 if you've got blackberrys. Just because it's Hawaii doesn't mean that things like cable, phone, cells, internet etc are going to be exponetially greater. A 6 pack of underwear at Wal-Mart isn't $50.00 more than on the mainland because it's Hawaii.
3. Regardless of the hype, 135k gross, 90k net, is an above average income in Hawaii, period. The question is, will this support a similar quality of life that you're coming from. If you're making less now, and the increase in pay is commensurate with the increase in cost of living in Hawaii, than you'll be fine. If you're making more now, and taking a pay cut, and I believe you said you were coming from SEA, which overall housing is less expensive (unless you're say on Mercer Island, Queen Anne etc), than you may have to really, really think hard about the move. If it makes any sense, I feel quite a bit poorer in LA w/ more income, than I did in Hawaii, so it is a two way street.
I do agree that a lot of people who are struggling in Hawaii will not, or would not consider moving due to family and cultural reasons.
1: I don't understand why anyone would compare Oahu home prices to the Southwest?
2: My parents, in a 2500 square foot house with central air run about $175.00 a month in elec.
3. Regardless of the hype, 135k gross, 90k net, is an above average income in Hawaii, period.
1) "Anyone" DIDN'T compare Oahu home prices with the Southwest. They compared the ratio of income to monthly mortgage expense. Please read the post.
2) Amazing! One of your parents must work for HECO, because the single lowest electric bill we've ever seen in seven continuous years of home ownership here was $142, and that was in the dead of winter for a paltry 1200 sq. ft. home, not the 2500 sq. ft. palace that your parents apparently own!
3) Doh! You're a master of the obvious. I think what the gentleman said was that $135K per year was the sole (total) income for an entire household of five! So what's that got to do with whether or not its "above average" income? Above average personal? Above average household? What? I'll say it again, its not "above average" for a typical two-income household here.
I'm not Yoda but I've come to learn over the years that there is the pessimistic view, the optimistic view, and in between the realistic view. Pessimism, in my scenario, would be a conservative point of view that would serve to protect me and my family from over extending ourselves and/or entering a situation that lowers our quality of life. An optimistic view point, while a positive emotion vs negative, would serve us, again in this specific situation, to ignore, or over look, the financial details with a "pie in the sky" view of "it's Hawaii, sun, surf, life on the beach" as if our entire stay would be a scene out of Sunset magazine. The realistic view, which seems to fit nicely between pessimitic and optimistic, forces me, whether I like it or not, to deal with facts. Now the tricky part is distilling fact from fiction.
Short of going to Oahu first and documenting the price of all the food I would by, the price of gas, the price of cable, cell, etc and then going to a number of neighborhoods and calculating an average expected rent, etc, etc I have nothing to go on except my research on the web and in particular the forums here at City-data which are priceless. THis thread of mine had yielded gold in my mind as I have all of the views which, when I stir them all up, the output is as realistic a view as possible.
What I've deduced really boils down to this:
1) Oahu is wicked expensive in all ways when compared to most other economies in the US, even those on the other Hawaiian islands. I have yet to read a mention of what is NOT expensive there. All though the beaches are "free", they arent' because of the cost of living there.
2) I could live in Oahu with a $135k salary. That has been documented by those that make less. The folks that I've heard from and have had direct contact with, however, did/do not have 3 young children. However, I think we all agree that we could "live" there and not starve.
3) The quality of life of $135k in Oahu is going to be less than $135 in Seattle (BTW for 808n310 who knows the Seattle area, I live on Bainbridge Island which is mooy mooy for this area and we below average for this island).
4) Some more of my information includes:
a. my employment is for 2 years, possibly extendable but still, we're planning for a 2 year "experience".
b. We will not be buying a house. In fact we will not be buying much of anything. We'll have to down size infact to get our stuff to fit out there and will be storing most here on the mainland. Our mindset is that of a 2 year "vacation"/"experience".
c. we do not have TV and haven't since before our children were born so no cable.
d. we do try to eat very healthy, a lot of organic, so expect our food bill to be high
e. My job will be on Hickam although I'm civilian so don't know if I can use commisary, etc.
f. we home school our kids so won't be experiencing what we've come to understand are sub-standard school systems (don't shoot me, just what we've learned)
g. as we ourselves live on an island here we rely on Amazon for a lot of stuff. I've got to assume that shipping to HI will be a LOT more
h. we don't use, because we don't have, AC here so we're used to our house being 80 inside which it is right now infact. We would turn on the AC if we had it to maintain an internal temp of maybe 75 as that is comfortable to us. Don't know how that affects things.
i. We have a toyota sienna which has a V6 so our gas cost will be higher I'm assuming
j. we will not be traveling, at all. This is our traveling so no airfare, etc. We will want to explore some of the other islands though
k. we will want to experience as much of the islands as possible during our 2 years so will be spending on related activities - boogie boarding/surfing, SCUBA, lots of sun block and diet Coke.
l. will require high-speed Internet
can't think of much else right now but wanted to paint a fuller picture as everone here has been so great about sharing so much.
Hey fatoldman,
Welcome to Hawaii in advance! I live on Maui, moved here 5 years ago, so I'll give you my perspective on that and what I've read from this thread.
Yes, pretty much everything in Hawaii costs more than it did in the expensive Bay Area of California. BUT people who are the happiest here seem to be willing to adjust what they consume and also what makes them happy. In California it made me happy to eat out after work with friends. Now it makes me happy to BBQ at home with friends. In CA I knew only a few of my neighbors, and tended to leave home to have fun. Here I know all of my neighbors, and we hang out in the evenings, which makes the days less of a division between work/weekend.
The beaches are free. Yes, everything else costs money, but you are comparing those to the same items already. The benefit of the weather, the beaches, the lovely scenery - those are tangibles that give me a daily appreciation of where I am. Maui has less city than Oahu, less traffic, smaller freeways (only one 4 laner highway here). So I can't say that Oahu is going to be prettier than your Seattle island. But the experience of living somewhere else could be invaluable for your children too. They will learn about another culture, learn to adapt, perhaps learn to surf and snorkel without wetsuits. What an adventure!
My electric bill in CA was average $54/month. Here it climbed up to $500/month for 5 bedroom home. But now it's about $250/month. Energy prices dropped, I acclimated, and also put in ductless zone into my office and the master bedroom. That took care of the spots where keeping cool mattered the most. 81 feels cool to me now, but it isn't the heat, it's the humidity. CA got to 90s, but 90 here is unbearable to me wihtout AC.
None of my impoverished neighbors do, or could, pay $600/month for electricity. They just do without - eat outside, stay outside in the shade talking story until it is cool enough to go inside. My wealthier neighbor is fine with paying $700/month for his electric bill, but he runs it 24/7 (really does) and they have a home daycare with 12 children.
Again, this is probably a Maui vs Oahu difference, but I drive less here. Granted, I work from home, but still and again, I don't have to go so far to be entertained.
You seem to have your head on straight about what things cost. So ask yourself how you are living paycheck to paycheck in Seattle, and are going to move for the same about of pay to a more expensive place to live? Ask yourself what you will give up. You must be buying something that you can do without - is it electronics upgrades? Lots of clothing? Extra food treats? Really consider your lifestyle, and see if you are willing to make a change in what you consume so that you can accommodate a change in where (and how) you will live.
I buy a lot from Amazon, but search for the Free Shipping option items only! You will be amazed at what you can find. Offer your mainland friends a place to join you on vacation, and they will help you send things over via cheaper shipping options. Some items we buy offer free shipping to mainland destinations. Our friends receive those and send them via USPS, which often companies don't offer.
Organic food - find local farmers markets, and grow some of your own.
If you can't shop at the commisary, consider trading your computer geek skills to someone who can. Instead of cash, they go shopping with the same amount and your list.
Interisland flight deals come along, take them when they do. No more ferry.
Shop garage sales for the boogie boards, fins, and other gear. Heck, shop them for about anything you find you need, including coolers, fishing poles, scuba gear, and small appliances.
I wish you well, and would love to hear how you make the transition. Please keep updating us all.
One more thing - you lost your job and house in Seattle, and that was making the same salary in a lower cost area. Remember it can happen here too. Just don't dive into debt. Take it slow on your spending here, and save your cash for emergencies and cheap fun.
4) Some more of my information includes:
a. My employment is for 2 years, possibly extendable but still, we're planning for a 2 year "experience".
End of story! You can and should make the move because you're coming with that 'fixed' (2-year) expectation. But understand that this is WAY different than a young man or woman (or a young couple) hoping to come out here and launch their long-term life together here. WAY different!
I'll reiterate that as a father of several 'thirty-somethings' myself, I have had the very difficult and distasteful task of speaking the truth (about Hawaii and its many challenges) with my own children, regarding their hopes or dreams of one day returning to Hawaii. But keep in mind, these are young people whose lives and careers are just beginning - kids whose move WON'T be prepaid by the taxpayer (i.e., military PCS, etc.) - kids who hope to develop a professional career, maximize their earnings potential, own a home one day, have kids, etc. For them, for those who come out here expecting to never leave, to make Hawaii their lifelong home, I'm afraid the equation in Hawaii makes absolutely no sense, and I submit that it never will.
Lastly, I don't know what type of appointment you were able to secure here at Hickam that pays those kinds of funds (i.e., $135K)???, but as others have duly noted, that's a whopping amount bank for here in Hawaii, and its a whopping amount of bank for Federal civilian pay, period! I know, because I too have worked as a civilian for DoD including a stint here in Hawaii (GS-0415/13) and my pay rate was barely $85K including COLA. So in relative terms, that would place your GS-level at something around GS-24!! Nice!!! What? Are you a nuclear physicist or something? Haaaaaaa!
Anywho, go for it, and good luck to you! It'll be a great adventure.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
