Every year
thousands upon thousands of people come to Costa Rica
and enjoy a vacation that's just unbelievable....
but is it possible to move to Costa Rica and live in Costa Rica on a budget?
Today we're gonna find out what are the facts. What does it
actually cost to live in Costa Rica and is it possible to live on only a
thousand dollars a month?!?!? Let's find out! Welcome to another beautiful day in
paradise. Welcome back! It is another great day in paradise and
today we're going to be talking about the cost of living in Costa Rica.
What does it actually cost to live in Costa Rica and
is it possible to live on just a thousand dollars a month. In other words
is it possible to live on a budget? We are. We do and from our perspective....
we don't spend as much as most people and we've lived
all over Costa Rica but we intentionally spend as little as possible because
we're saving up as much as possible so that we can
purchase our dream property. So today... we're going to give you the actual facts
on what we spend on a month basis and give you an idea on you know some
people come here they can spend a whole lot more and depending on
how you want to live your comfort style you could spend a whole lot less
so it is possible to live on a budget but we're going to find out more as we
go through. So what's the first thing we're going to talk about?
Questions all right everybody's got to eat
and really depending on your comfort level
your rent or your grocery is going to be the most expensive
for us it is groceries. We eat really healthy because we're
mostly vegan not because we don't like meat. I
love a good steak, I love milk however because of the health benefits we eat
mostly vegan so normally in the United States that
would probably cost us a whole lot more. However Costa Rica you got access to
lots of fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, they have lots of Farmers markets all
over the place so you can live vegan a whole lot
cheaper than if you were in the United States.
Yes and especially if you want to grow your own food you can grow food grow
fruits and vegetables. 365 days a year I mean for the fruits
there are seasons but pretty much all year long you can
grow fruits and vegetables. That's right the weather is so nice that
you can actually farm 365 days out of the year.
So that would cut your grocery bill significantly if that's something that
you do enjoy doing. Right so depending on your comfort
level also it's just us and we spend 500
a month however we do have a dog and a cat
and we spoil them a bit you know we mix all of their food we actually buy
meat for for our dog mix it all up and
vegetables meats rice and make her own food instead of
buying. So that does probably cost a lot more than if we were
just to buy cheap dog food okay our catas fault so keep in mind that
you know we're spending a little more than some
own groceries however depending on your lifestyle you might want to spend a
whole lot more in groceries. And if you really like meat tends
to be more expensive in comparison as opposed to. Right meat
is very expensive in Costa Rica so if you like a lot of
meat it is going to cost you a whole lot more
in our opinion. Also if you're very particular about your brands
if you like a lot of processed food things that have to be imported to Costa
Rica those things are probably double the
cost that you would pay for them in the United States because they have to be
imported. Right anything imported in you're going
to have peter pan peanut butter you're going to have tony the tiger
frosted flakes fruit loops you know those things are going to cost
you a lot because anything important does cost a whole lot more.
They do have similar cereals and peanut butters and things like that and
it's cheaper. However just something for you to keep
in mind groceries anything important will cost you more.
Right we've adapted pretty well. Yeah, well I mean we we're eating very
healthy and enjoying. We definitely don't skip on our meals we
like how we cook and how we eat so we eat some pretty darn good meals. Yes>
So groceries probably our most expensive one that's 500
a month but the next thing is going to be your housing.
There is a big variety of a cost in housing anywhere from
I don't know we the cheap basically the the least expensive we've lived is was
for I think 120 a month. Right so our cheapest was 120
a month that was a place in Sabalito right and our most expensive was
in a place in Los Angeles when we first came here however keep in mind that was
500 a month but it was expensive because it
was furnished. So that's always a great thing to keep
in mind when you first come over you want to find a place that's furnished it
will cost you more but after being here for a while what is
really neat you get to meet people, get inside the
community. You're going to find places that you can
rent that's not on websites or anything but you know I've known people that will
rent their house for under a hundred bucks you know and
you really will get the Costa Rican
culture because for something like that you're going to be living in a family
environment where you know there's houses right next
to you so close that you can actually hear them snoring
next to you in some places. So you can find some deals however
depending on your comfort level you can easily spend a thousand fifteen
hundred two thousand a month depending on where
you wanna live. however if you're on a budget you most
definitely the house we're living in right now
it's 200 a month and that includes electricity
and water. But keep in mind if you find a place and
it says includes utilities electricity and water.
Well that's probably because it's in a family environment
that house if it includes electricity. It's normally
because two or three houses are connected on the same meter
and instead of them running another meter and paying for that extra expense
well they just ran wires to the other house and all those houses are on one
meter and they share that expense so that's
something for you to keep in mind if you see something like that
know that you're about to live in a family environment
where the whole family is living right there in very close proximity.
Right in the houses that we've lived in that were
not expensive they did not come furnished at all in fact
it sounds strange but we've had to put the kitchen sink in to
two different homes that we've lived in you know before we could rent
these lower priced homes we had to buy refrigerators,
buy a stove, all the bedding, all the you know everything.
Everything you're going to pay more naturally for
a furnished apartment or a furnished house also
depending on what area you live in if you're going to live down
near the coast near the beach in the more touristy areas the rent is
more expensive there. Where we're living now we're
up in the mountains and we're in just a little family
community. So you we're telling you this because
to let you know that once you're here you
can find places for a lot cheaper rent than what you might find
on the internet you know places that aren't advertised. That's right
now and we live in what people would classify
a typical tico house. Okay you can live in American standard
houses but those are going to cost you a whole lot more
like Rebecca said whenever you're renting a typical Tico house
you're renting pretty much four walls in a roof that's what I like to call it
obviously you have bedrooms and all that but most of the time a typical Tico
house it has two bedrooms, a bathroom right in the middle it's usually only
one bathroom a living room in a kitchen. Okay so
they're typically small but when you rent it you're not most of
the time there's nothing in it when they move out
they move everything out including the kitchen sink
many times so keep that in mind. However once you've been here for a little while
you know to install a little kitchen sink and a little
base all those things you can really turn one of those into a wonderful place
and live very modestly, very cheap in Costa Rica. So
like we said before we really enjoy where we're living at right now
and yes I had to put in the kitchen sink, I had to put in the shower
I had to put in everything that I had to put in shelves in the kitchen
however we really love where we're at right now it's one of the better places
we lived at and it only cost us 200 bucks.
Right so and you don't have things like air conditioning
however you don't really need that which brings us I think to our next topic
of electricity. But before we get into electricity keep in mind
because that's a good topic to bring up we're in housing and so
most of the houses depending on where you're at not going to have
air conditioning so like she said where they don't have a refrigerator or
freezers or dishwashers or anything like that washing machines
they're not going to have air conditioning but most places in Costa
Rica the temperature is so nice you don't
need it. Now however there will be a few places
along the coast by the beaches that might actually have air conditioning
units in there but keep in mind you're going to spend more.
Right. but like Rebecca says brings us to our next topic which is.
Electricity utilities and we normally spend about how much on electricity? About 75 bucks of course depending on
where you're at and how much you use it. Keep in mind electricity is tiered so a
lot of Costa Ricans they never even meet the minimum electrical
monthly price because they mostly just like to the tv
don't use a whole lot. We use more than most and that's because of our
computers our monitors. We have an electric hot
water system. Right. We have the electric shower
system typically called the suicide shower in
Costa Rica by the Gringos we'll talk more about that in another
video but we do have a freezer, refrigerator.
So we do have a little more stuff than most people
microwave we have a lot of stuff that most
typical Costa Rican families wouldn't have. However we
don't use a dryer so we don't have a clothes dryer
we don't have a dishwasher. The first house we lived in when we got here that
was furnished it had a washer and dryer combo
and we were shocked at how high the electric bill is because once you get
over that that usage tier you know whatever the
usage rate is then it gets more expensive it
increases. Right if you're going to use a dryer.
That's right because they it's tiered and in the United States where
the more you use the cheaper it is well it's the opposite in Costa Rica.
You know if you don't hit the minimum it's very cheap but
the more you use the more expensive it gets so if you're going to use the dryer
if you're going to use a lot of electricity it will cost you a whole lot
more. So do keep that in mind most people in Costa Rica just hang
their clothes out on the line and I do I prefer that yeah and of
course it it smells fresh so it's just in Costa Rica the fruit of
the lifestyle and the clothes on the line
although I do know people who just like to have a dryer for during rainy
season. That's right. It is during rainy season
it is hard to get your sheets and candles and things dry
right. Keep in mind that once you get here you can buy
a dryer that operates on gas on propane and so it's not going to cost you
nearly as much so that's an alternative as well.
Right, which brings us to our next utility which is propane.
Most people use that to cook on you can use it to
for your hot water shower you could use it for your
for a dryer so but most people use propane
for cooking and that's what we use to cook. Right,
most of the time and of course you know depending on how much you cook.
For us one propane bottle a five gallon propane bottle or twenty-pound bottle
whatever you call it would last us typically about three
months so depending on how much you cook. I'm amazed at how long one propane
bottle will last and we actually we cook a good bit
and we boil a whole lot because I like to
make my own wine it's just one of the hobbies I have and
so I'll end up boiling a lot of bottles and stuff
so I think we use a fair amount of propane and it does still last
a very long time. So to get that bottle refilled well
geez it's only about 12 or 15 bucks so on average
we're only spending about five bucks a month on propane. So keep in mind
propane is very cheap and so is the water. Water is cheap and a lot of
places depending on where you rent water is free
because like the house we're in now they get water from one of the creeks nearby
water in Costa Rica is cleaner than just about any place I've ever been to.
It's so wonderful. It's amazing how clean matter of fact we
were in Las Vegas before we came here and you know there's
not a lot of water in Las Vegas. I have bought this very very
expensive filtering system and we've cleaned all of our water and
of course you gauge it and you measure it well
I had brought that to Costa Rica not knowing how clean it was
and the coast the water from Costa Rica was cleaner
than the water once it came out of that machine. So that tells you how clean and
how fresh the water is in Costa Rica. It's wonderful. But how much is our water
bill every month? About 15 a month on the high end when
we've had to. That's right. Pay for water. So when we
do pay for water on the high end 15 a month that's
expensive so water is cheap. Now that brings us to
the internet. Internet now depending on your lifestyle for us
you know it's a necessity you know. We do all of our business online and
that's how we sustain ourselves here so we have to have good reliable
internet so depending on where you're at we like to live in the rural areas and
in the rural areas you're not going to find the best internet in
the world. So you have to do some extreme things.
It's not available. Yeah it's just not available
however if you live more in the touristy areas yes you can get better internet
over there. So depending on where you're at and if
you live closer to town you can get better internet
so. If you don't need a lot of internet you could use the data plan on your cell
phone even in rural areas. That's right so.
But we require depending for our business we have to have more dependable
so if you don't need much internet and you're just going to use it to email
hey you can use the internet that's on your data plan on your cell phone
and that would work just great and how much is that because you have a data
plan. Yeah, see so which well that's going to
bring us right into the phone but before we go into that
as far as the internet goes we spent on average about 75
a month. It could be cheaper depending on where you're at there's a company
called cable ticket or cabletica you can get
really fast internet for about fifty dollars however keep in mind
internet is getting better and better and better they're now installing
fiber optic. That will take some time however
internet is getting better so depending on when you come
we've seen huge improved improvements on that front right. So which brings us
back to the question she said you can use your data plan and
my phone plan data plan is only about 35 bucks a month
for my phone which includes my data. So you can get by really cheap on that
so if you bring your phone from home you can buy a sims card
and it's a rechargeable sims card and that's what Rebecca uses. Yes,
I put about ten dollars on my phone and I just when I run out of ten dollars
more. And so. Limit you can put yeah you can
put as much on that as you want you can put
two dollars on that and it lasts a very long time depending on how much you call
so having a phone in Costa Rica and you can buy the little
cheap phones there. You can buy phones here and then you can just put a sims
card on there and just recharge it all the time
or you can do like I do and you can get a phone plan of course that's a whole
other topic because then you either have to know
somebody, be a resident, have a corporation. There's
things you have to do before you can actually get a phone plan. Right. In
coaching. You don't have to have those requirements then you can
just buy a prepaid. You can buy prepaid planning
and they work the same way as a phone plan and the cost is pretty much the
same. Okay so the phone plan is going to be
pretty cheap about 35 a month which then brings us to
transportation. So depending on what mode of
transportation you choose if you're going to have your own
vehicle of course that's going to depend on
how much traveling you have to do. If you live out in the middle of nowhere and
have to travel quite a long ways into town or if you live right in town
so it's hard to gauge the gas prices. Here gas and diesel prices
here are a lot higher. Yeah you know for fuel it's
going to be a whole lot more on average well we spend about 75
dollars a month for gasoline okay so keep in mind if you use
the public transportation you're not going to spend near
as much okay and if you live close to town you can walk, you can bike,
you can get an uber, you can get a taxi and you're not going to spend nearly as
much. Of course the price of gas changes about how much is a leader right
now. I can't remember how much a leader is
but typically it's going to run you around four to five
dollars a gallon it's sold by the leader here and
you know the government controls the prices so it's not like the United
States where you're looking for whoever sells the
cheapest gas you know it doesn't matter where you stop at
so that's one of the things that you want to think about
and things that you can look into. So your gasoline just depending on whether
you have your own transportation or public transportation
it's not going to be a whole lot depending on how much you travel. Right
and of course if you own your own vehicle you want to consider
annual expenses that are associated with owning a vehicle which is your and
your annual insurance and tax it has to be. That's right so you want to
probably take a look at the link in the video here
that talks about owning a vehicle in Costa Rica. Watch that video so that you
have more details about those costs. Exactly
there's your tibia you know your annual inspection and then there's also
to consider if you're on a very tight budget the cost of
maintenance on your vehicle. That's right, because
the roads here are pretty hard on it and so those are something that you want to
put into your budget. Making sure that you
have a budget for your taxes your inspection and your maintenance on your
vehicle but as far as transportation about 75
bucks a month which brings us to. Entertainment. Entertainment which
is dining out which is what we're doing
right now and dining out depending on where you're
going could be rather expensive in the touristy areas
or if you enjoy really the Costa Rican cuisine or enjoy
the Costa Rican culture you can eat
very affordable. Right and we have a really good video
that goes into detail about those things so go to the link right there and you
can see the video all about food in Costa Rica
and learn more about that. But typically if we go
out once a week and we enjoy
a meal it's going to cost us about what? between
30 and 40 depending on you know if you have
cervezas or depending on. Whether you have a glass of wine
or you have a beer, a dessert or not of course it's just just
like that's right so like anywhere but it's not expensive and we
find that dining out because we go to some of the local
restaurants is cheaper than if we were in the United
States and if we simply get a meal and maybe just one you know one glass
of wine then we can eat as little as twenty
dollars. That's right so it can be very affordable but you
know that's entertainment as far as dining out.
So you know we spend probably 150 bucks a month
dining out of course you know you may want to go
do some tours or sightseeing and waterfalls and things like that
so of course that's going to increase your entertainment budget
but you know you can do a lot of stuff right here in Costa Rica
that is absolutely free so entertainment wise
you can save a lot of money because there's just tons of things you can do
by yourself. There's just not a lot of
I guess for lack of a better word I can only call it not a lot of
social entertainment other than there's a lot of bars,
places where people dance at , the dancing is
amazing here because it's not like what you would see in the United States where
anything is a dance. You know here they've got some pretty amazing and
wonderful dances places where you can learn to dance and
so it's really fun to actually watch that and go to those places so if
you enjoy the bar scene, you enjoy dances that's great. They do
have a couple of cinemas in larger towns. San Jose has cinemas,
San Isidro has a cinema but you're not going to see a lot of that anywhere
else. So there's not a lot of public
or social entertainment but there's tons of
wildlife, wildlife entertainment, nature entertainment that kind of thing.
So that's all that can think about as far as entertainment so your
entertainment is gonna just be depending on you on how
much you want to go out and do but ours is fairly cheap. About 150 bucks
a month. Yeah we like to just get on the motorbike and
go ride and look for places to see new places.
Right we'll get on the motorbike and we'll just go up and down roads that
we've never been and it'd be amazing because we'll find a
waterfall that, that seems like nobody knows about you know
because you don't see them yeah we go all off the beaten path and we
just really have a great time. So that's entertainment which brings
us to the next topic which is. Insurance. Insurance now obviously you
know we really can't tell you much about insurance
I'm a veteran so I don't need insurance.
We did have insurance you got to find out from your own insurance
agent as far as what's covered and what's not covered and if you're covered
by going out to another country however you know Rebecca did some research and
found out obviously when you come here you have
something done you're gonna pay for it and then your insurance company might
reimburse you obviously that depends on your insurance
company. Right. But as far as that goes the reason
you're having insurance is for medical expenses
which we've both had medical procedures done
nothing serious and found that the medical procedures were
crazy cheap for what compared to the United States.
Right. You had a you had a root canal I had a little minor
surgery where a little legion was removed
less than 500. Right, so it's amazing how cheap you can get medical procedures
done in Costa Rica. Dental work, I've had a lot of
dental work and it's way cheaper than it is in
the United States matter of fact you know it's kind of hard to compare
because I don't know the prices but for example I just recently had braces and
braces are really cheap I know that I had braces for my daughter
years ago and I think I spent well over two thousand dollars for those braces
and in Costa Rica I only have to pay 75 000 colones
for three months and so 75 000 colones translates
to about 150 bucks okay so i pay 150 bucks for three months
and then I would pay 20 000 cloners a month.
Every month until the braces come off and so depending on you know how old you
are it might take a year and a half to two
years but that's only about forty dollars a month so it
makes it very cheap to be able to get braces or
get dental work done. So your medical and dental really is
going to be a lot cheaper than anything you can
imagine as far as the United States goes and as far as I know a lot of retirees
have their medicare and you know I don't know how they how
they work that out but there are tons of retirees here.
Right there's a lot of people who choose to come here which brings us to our next
topic. If you're thinking about coming to Costa
Rica we just talked about all our budgets and
I will go through their section by section add it all
up so that you can see the total cost but really
we easily and comfortably live on about thirteen hundred dollars a month. Every
single month. We don't do anything super extravagant
however we really enjoy what we're doing and you
can easily live a little cheaper but you can easily live
a whole lot more expensive but that brings up if you're coming you
have to be financially self-sustaining because it's
almost impossible for you to legally work in Costa Rica as a
foreigner. Even when you become a resident it's
still very difficult for you to actually legally work in
Costa Rica. So that means you need to do something
like us which means that you've learned how to
work online or you are a retiree and you're drawing a
check or maybe you're one of the lucky few that
you just have more money than you need and
that's not a problem for you and so that's good for you.
So those are some things that you do need to keep in mind so
that brings us to... Rebecca is it possible to live on a thousand
dollars a month in Costa Rica? I think so. It is possible
matter of fact if you've been saving your money and you have a little nest
egg right now especially we've seen some
phenomenal prices on houses and real estate everything is really
dropping so you'll be amazed at what you can buy for a hundred and fifty thousand,
two hundred thousand I'm talking about some super fine places
and once you pay for that of course if you come you've saved up your nest
egg you paid cash and then you don't have that monthly
expense and so you could easily live on a thousand dollars a
month. Right you could live in a nice area and live comfortably. That's right
so keep in mind even if you don't have a nest day
once you get here and you make friends and you find
places where you can actually live in a community
where you're renting for a hundred dollars a month and if you don't eat
a whole lot or you grow your own. Yes you can live for a thousand dollars a month
and you're not living in some unsafe neighborhood
like you might depending if you were living in the United States or some
other part of the world. So yes I believe you could easily live
on a thousand dollars a month just depending on your comfort level.
Right, for example if we gave up going out to eat every like we go out to
eat about twice a week once a or twice a week we have our
two our dog and our cat if we didn't have those pets
then. We'd save a good bit of money there a thousand a month. So we could easily
live on a thousand dollars a month but you know we're enjoying life so I
guess bottom line you could comfortably, comfortably live on two
thousand dollars a month very very easy. Without having a pinch
knees. Without having to pinch pennies and I believe you could probably live on
fifteen hundred dollars a month not having to pinch pennies very much
so really it just depends on your comfort level whether you need a three
bedroom, four bedroom, a great big house, air conditioning, dryer
all those things do affect but that gives you
an idea. So let me take a quick look we should mention that we're living in a
tiny two bedroom, one bath house. Right we
do live in a two bedroom, one bath obviously. We don't need a whole lot of
room right prices go up in rent you know for each additional
bedroom and of course each additional bathroom.
So indeed it is possible and you can actually come down here and
really just enjoy Costa Rica which I guess brings us to
our next topic. What are we talking about next week
Rebecca? Did you tell me? Well let's take a
look at my notes right here. My notes say that we're going to be
talking about the best places to live in Costa Rica. Well since you now
know what it costs to live in Costa Rica. What are the best places to live? What
are the best towns to live? and I guess depending on when you first
get here whether you got a stamp out month to month we're going to talk about
all of that stuff next week so remember to tune in every thursday
8 pm eastern standard time when we premiere live and
hey you can ask questions and we're there waiting on the other side to
answer your questions just as quickly as they come in.
So I hope you've enjoyed this video take a moment to subscribe,
like the video and once again we'll see you next week.
