Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!
Gale writes: I’ve lived in Nicaragua (south Pacific coast) and have a 1998 Honda Civic; for about nine years, the only cost per year is for insurance, on a declining scale, which is now around $40 per year. There is no license or inspection fee. Our electricity bill is also extremely low, even though the cost per kilowatt-hour is around 8.5. This works out to appx. $45 per month. In remote Texas, the kWh rate is way lower – but our bill still goes from $150 to $250 per month! With no a/c!
My reply: You’re right. The main reason it costs so much to live in the Unite States isn’t the cost of utilities; it’s the cost of Uncle. My monthly power bill is about the same as yours; maybe about $20 more in the winter (gotta keep the koi from freezing). But very manageable.
My biggest expenses are: Property tax on my place (about $160/month) and the insurance-or-else I am forced to buy to “cover” my car, truck and the bikes (works out to about the same as the property tax on the house). So about $350/month in cost-to-live I shouldn’t have.
And my costs are a fraction of most people’s costs.
Even so, I am compelled to generate about twice the amount of money I’d otherwise need to live … in order to be allowed to live. It’s sickening – makes a mockery of the idea that Americans are “free.”
If you never have to stop worrying about money – no matter how modestly you live – no matter that you’ve long ago “paid off” your home and have no debts – you cannot ever truly be free.
So, I get expating – and have given it much thought. The main reason I haven’t expated is because I’m not 25 anymore and all my friends are here. As loathsome as things have become in this country, the prospect of being a middle-aged stranger in a strange land, without friends or family, depresses the Hell out of me.
And so, I stay.
I know I will probably regret it.
. . .
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Eric,
Be glad you don’t live in the Tampa-bay area. I pay about $230 a month in insurance for an 08 Ranger and 03 Escape, and I am well north of 50 years old. My house is barely 1000sqft, and costs about $600 a year in property taxes and about $800 a year for insurance (Not bad at all). I laugh at the people I know who have to live in a McMansion and pay $3000+ in taxes plus another $3,000+ in insurance a year. I hope they enjoy paying Uncle for their status symbols.
Hi Rush,
Yup. It’s damned if you do… State A has no or low income taxes, but high property tax. State B has high income (or sales) taxes but no vehicle tax. They get your money – just in different ways.
I have found one method of avoidance. I stopped renewing the registration for one of my bikes and it seems to have dropped off their radar. Of course, I risk being Hut! Hut! Hutted! by an AGW if caught, but the odds are pretty low because the bike is ridden less than 1,000 miles each year, if that.
Speaking of bikes, do you ever ride Little Stinker?
Missouri heroes search hospital room of dying patient looking for weed.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/missouri-police-search-stage-4-pancreatic-cancer-patients-hospital-room-for-marijuana-video-shows?fbclid=IwAR22ij8dr8insbKmNxEFShICx4Pkqa3LtRllEASZ3372nBa5PLJHV4exMig