Cost of living…

I have had a few email queries about the cost of living for those considering doing something similar to us. Everyone’s needs and wants are different, but I will give you a rundown of our budget. It helped us to read others bloggers budgets in our planning for the move, so hoping to pass on something helpful.

Firstly, Costa Rica is not a cheap country to live or travel in, especially in comparison to other central and south American countries. All the tourists we talk to from Europe, North America and Down Under remark on how expensive it is. We were aware it was not cheap, but even so, some costs have surprised us, notably food costs.

It is possible for us to live on $2000 Canadian a month here, making a few compromises.

Food costs are on par with the costs in countries like the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Buying anything imported is very expensive, expect to pay at least twice what you would pay in say Canada The trick to staying on budget is to eat like the locals, shop local and seasonal, cook from scratch and waste nothing. It took us a few weeks to work out where was best to buy food, get all the basics in the pantry ,(costly process!), and get into a routine with planning meals etc. As we head towards our second month of being here it feels like we are getting it. We try to be creative and thrifty in our approach to eating without compromising nutrition and taste, we all really love food!

Beans and rice are staples in our house now, cheap, tasty, nutritious and can be eaten at any meal. Rich always has a huge pot on the stove boiling away and is really turning into quite the bean connoisseur !!!!!! I have taken to boiling up all the bones and giblets of any chicken we have to make stock..

yes that is a chicken foot 🙂 Pica gets all the cooked offal which she loves and is great for her, good quality dog food is expensive, so helps out there.

When Edwin gave us a whole lot of bananas, there was no way we could eat them all before they went off, so I froze some. I can make bandana bread now after buying that tin in Punterenes, it will be good for Luca’s school lunches. I brought seeds and have talked to Edwin about a vege garden. Each week we find other ways to cut costs. We are actually enjoying the challenge of it 🙂

We budget $150 Canadian a week for our food, and $50 a week for all the other bits and pieces from the grocery store you normally buy (toiletries, medications, dog food, cleaning products,(dishes, laundry, bathroom) , toilet paper, paper towels, etc etc). It is tight but doable.

Our rent is $US500 a month ($652.80 Canadian). Most people we know pay 2-3 times that. A lot depends on what you are willing to compromise on. We have no hot water, no modern conveniences like a dryer, dishwasher, heater, air con, TV etc, it is very close to the road so can be dusty and noisy, a good 20 minute walk to town, and not in the expat area where a lot of the conveniences and facilities are.

I have just paid our utilities for a month. The commission is what the store gets where you pay the bills.

water 6240c + 500c commission ($15.50 Canadian)
electricity 6115c + 500c commission ($15.22 Canadian)
internet, wifi and landline 15630c + 500c commission ($37.11 Canadian)

Total = 29485c ($67.82 Canadian)

We use a propane gas tank for the oven/stove, have not needed to replace it yet, but costs 8000 clones to replace, ($18.40 Canadian).

Cell phones we are still working on. We inserted a local chip into Rich’s phone last week for 500c ($1 Canadian), and he is still using the minutes from that. We use Whatsapp, which is used by everyone here because it is free! We wait until we get to a wifi zones, try not to use roaming unless we absolutely have to, and have not had to use the actual phone to call anyone yet, hence why he is still using those first minutes. I have yet to get a chip for my phone so have no phone and no roaming but whatsapp works around wifi. Will do a separate post on cell phones once we get our heads around how it all works and the actual monthly costs, but we are not expecting it to be expensive.

We do not count Luca’s school fees in the $2000 a month, we put that aside before we came down ,($10500 Canadian for the school year). We also paid our health insurance for the year before we came down, (see previous health insurance post), so that is not a monthly cost. But we do put $80/month into an education fund for Luca from the $2000.

After the above costs it leaves approximately $380 Canadian to use on anything else that comes up during the month. Luca starts school this coming week and I know he will have extra costs there, how much, time will tell. When we go away we try not to go into our savings, so always planning ahead for those trips.

We have 2 thrift stores ,(op shops), in town that we use for clothing, they are both great and costs are about the same as a thrift store in Canada.

We do not own a car which is a significant cost saver. Buses are really reasonable, our entire journey from here to Montezuma including the ferry cost for all 3 of us was less than 24000c ($55 Canadian).

We have not used a taxi in Monteverde since living here, but a trip into town from our house costs around 1500-2000c ($ 3-5 Canadian), and takes about 5 minutes. We used taxi’s in Puterenas and cost us 5000c ,($11.50 Canadian), the first time for all that running about (see Montezuma part 1 post), and 9000c, ($20.70 Canadian), the second time for about a 30 minute drive.

That is how we are finding costs so far, each week we tweak things a bit, and finding our feet more and more. We are all loving the lifestyle and not finding any compromises a hardship. There is a big trade off we find, between time and money, if you want to earn lots of money you have to work hard for it, and you have less time to do the things you want, every thing is so time structured and rushed.

If you are happy to make do with less money, you have more time, a lot of that time is spent doing a lot more basic things that modern conveniences were invented to take care of for you. We are finding as a family doing these things give our day to day life a satisfying feel, we spend a ton more time together which is wonderful, and Luca is so much more mindful of things like money, the chores of daily living, and how he can contribute to things. He still finds lots of time to climb trees though 🙂

Hope this is helpful for those planning a visit for however long.