Winds and Sadness
The high winds continue. The day hasn't come this week or last when I haven't either seen a downed power line, driven over a downed power line or done without power for most of the day. Everything, and I mean everything in Costa Rica seems like it was put together in the most lazy slap-dash fashion, including things like the electrical grid. There are still places with uninsulated wires and with wires festooned precariously about.
Feeling rather dreadfully ill again as my blood pressure has tanked again, crazy ups and downs. Likely the stupid asthma.
But that is not the only things causing me to have a down day. Other people.
Found out my absolutely closest friend here is leaving. She and her husband are going back Stateside, having major relationship problems with money problems on top. Going back to try and save the marriage.
It's illustrative of one thing, bring plenty of moolah when you move to Costa Rica. There are mostly two different monetary classes of Americans here, the rich, and the not so rich deluded into thinking they'll make money here where they are forbidden to work.
Of the second class there falls my friend and her husband. They came down for positions in a new private school. First she had a falling out with the school administration and was canned. A few months later the same thing happened with the husband. I've watched them strain and scratch for money, with her promoting her art and her home decorating skills and the husband working as a youth pastor and martial arts instructor. Add in that their two properties in the States were trashed by renters, and the hassles of suing and remodeling and rerenting and you have enough pressure to topple the tightest bonds.
They are hardly the only couple like that I know. The family here that did reality television is running into some of the same monetary issues. The trainer guy from the boonies is finding he cannot work as a personal trainer because he is here on a tourist visa. One of the clonies cannot work as a hairdresser, and it finding selling MLM shakes is not cutting it. Another set of guys I know have set up some real estate MLM. One girl tried making and selling tacos at the night market.
The only non-riches/non-retirees I know here doing well work remotely online in positions they held in the States for a long time before coming here.
It's just common sense. You don't move somewhere you know no one, and you have only the sketchiest idea of how you'll pay your bills.Yes, certain things are cheaper here, but electricity, real estate, foods are the same and sometimes more than in the States. Cars cost easily double. Same with any type of electronics. The price of gasoline is double than in the States too. Clothing and just about any plastic or practical item must imported and are quite costly. Eating out is another bigger expense here, but only in the tourist and American places.
You don't really need a car here. Buses are cheap, plentiful and go everywhere you could imagine. When I bus to San Jose, a five hour car ride, it's 13 bucks, cheaper than the gas to drive it. We took the bus several times to Nicaragua from our temporary home in the Central Valley. Comfortable and cheap. Taxis are everywhere. We lived here the first five months entirely on foot, bus and taxi. It can be done.
Cheaper here are fresh fruits and veggies. Our cable and internet bill with the same speeds and all the same channels we got in America runs 30 bucks a month instead of the 130 bucks we paid Xfinity every month. Health care is cheaper. We're going to be about five hundred dollars before submitting to insurance Jim's recent motor pickle snafu, and that's with the clinic scraped, debriding and re bandaging every single day. Things are the bakery and the butcher are cheap. Locally made or grown is cheaper. I just bought locally grown grapes for the first time I've seen them and they were only two bucks a pound instead of the usual 8 dollars a pound imported from the States. Our cell phones run about ten bucks a month each.
Hiring people to repair, build and clean is much cheaper than the States.
You just have to have some common sense, plan everything out and be realistic on how you'll support yourself when you get here. Those are exactly the kinds of things that can throw a huge monkey wrench in any marriage.
There really is no free lunch, at least not here.
Feeling rather dreadfully ill again as my blood pressure has tanked again, crazy ups and downs. Likely the stupid asthma.
But that is not the only things causing me to have a down day. Other people.
Found out my absolutely closest friend here is leaving. She and her husband are going back Stateside, having major relationship problems with money problems on top. Going back to try and save the marriage.
It's illustrative of one thing, bring plenty of moolah when you move to Costa Rica. There are mostly two different monetary classes of Americans here, the rich, and the not so rich deluded into thinking they'll make money here where they are forbidden to work.
Of the second class there falls my friend and her husband. They came down for positions in a new private school. First she had a falling out with the school administration and was canned. A few months later the same thing happened with the husband. I've watched them strain and scratch for money, with her promoting her art and her home decorating skills and the husband working as a youth pastor and martial arts instructor. Add in that their two properties in the States were trashed by renters, and the hassles of suing and remodeling and rerenting and you have enough pressure to topple the tightest bonds.
They are hardly the only couple like that I know. The family here that did reality television is running into some of the same monetary issues. The trainer guy from the boonies is finding he cannot work as a personal trainer because he is here on a tourist visa. One of the clonies cannot work as a hairdresser, and it finding selling MLM shakes is not cutting it. Another set of guys I know have set up some real estate MLM. One girl tried making and selling tacos at the night market.
The only non-riches/non-retirees I know here doing well work remotely online in positions they held in the States for a long time before coming here.
It's just common sense. You don't move somewhere you know no one, and you have only the sketchiest idea of how you'll pay your bills.Yes, certain things are cheaper here, but electricity, real estate, foods are the same and sometimes more than in the States. Cars cost easily double. Same with any type of electronics. The price of gasoline is double than in the States too. Clothing and just about any plastic or practical item must imported and are quite costly. Eating out is another bigger expense here, but only in the tourist and American places.
You don't really need a car here. Buses are cheap, plentiful and go everywhere you could imagine. When I bus to San Jose, a five hour car ride, it's 13 bucks, cheaper than the gas to drive it. We took the bus several times to Nicaragua from our temporary home in the Central Valley. Comfortable and cheap. Taxis are everywhere. We lived here the first five months entirely on foot, bus and taxi. It can be done.
Cheaper here are fresh fruits and veggies. Our cable and internet bill with the same speeds and all the same channels we got in America runs 30 bucks a month instead of the 130 bucks we paid Xfinity every month. Health care is cheaper. We're going to be about five hundred dollars before submitting to insurance Jim's recent motor pickle snafu, and that's with the clinic scraped, debriding and re bandaging every single day. Things are the bakery and the butcher are cheap. Locally made or grown is cheaper. I just bought locally grown grapes for the first time I've seen them and they were only two bucks a pound instead of the usual 8 dollars a pound imported from the States. Our cell phones run about ten bucks a month each.
Hiring people to repair, build and clean is much cheaper than the States.
You just have to have some common sense, plan everything out and be realistic on how you'll support yourself when you get here. Those are exactly the kinds of things that can throw a huge monkey wrench in any marriage.
There really is no free lunch, at least not here.
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