I’ve had a few people ask me about our move from Michigan to Hawai’i and how it went. More importantly, they wanted to know how it was different when it came to cost. Just like any other state to state move, there are differences in the costs of everything. However, living on an island does have higher costs for many things. That’s the price you pay for living on an island.
We’ve been in Hawai’i for two full months now. That has given us enough time to see nearly all the price differences we’ll be facing while living here. I’ll admit, some of them are drastic changes, and some are not all that different.
Now, prices will vary depending on the island you move to; we’re on the island of Hawai’i, also called the Big Island. It is the cheaper of the island to live on, but keep in mind we also have an active volcano that has erupted for the last 30 years.
Costs Differences
Rent / Housing
We are renting a condo right now because when we moved, we didn’t know what part of the island we wanted to live on and well, we needed to establish ourselves here before buying.
Rent costs could be a lot more than you would find in Michigan. However, they can also be pretty close to the same price. When I was looking to rent a place in Michigan last year, an apartment would have cost me about $1000/month. Here you can get a two-bedroom two-bath condo on a golf course for just under $1400. Yeah, you’re paying more, but you live on a golf course, you get access to two different pools and tennis courts. Now, we are further away from everything, so that means more driving for us.
Buying a house in Hawai’i is more expensive if you chose to live on the west side of the island as we want to. Most houses cost over $300,000, and on average they are about $500,000 for a three-bedroom 2+ bath and around 1200 sqft. That same house in Michigan would be half the price in a great neighborhood but could cost about the same in one of the more “ritzy” areas.
Utilities
We don’t currently know the cost of water around here because it is included in the condo, but someone had mentioned to us that it is usually about $50-75 a month on average (if I recall correctly). Electric is a lot more. On our hottest days in Michigan, we were lucky to have an electric bill at $200 from running the AC. Our first bill here was over $200 and that is without AC. There is no natural gas here, you have to buy propane, which I’ve heard is pretty expensive. We have an electric stove and electric dryer, which plays into the electric cost that we didn’t have in Michigan.
Auto Gas
Here we are paying between $3.30 and $3.80 a gallon, depending on where you fill-up. We pay the most at the one gas station in the town we live in, and we pay the least if we gas up at Costco down in the main town on this side of the island.
Food
Our biggest cost difference when it comes to food is milk, eggs, and bread. Milk is about $5-6 for a gallon, and we used to pay about $3.50. We go through about 2 gallons a week, time to cut back! Eggs are $3.59 to $8 for a dozen, and we used to be able to get them for $.99 a dozen when on sale (usually were) and $1.99 when not on sale. Bread is on average $5 a loaf when it is on sale you might get it for $3.50. But many loaves of bread around here cost $6-8 a loaf.
Most of all other food costs are about $.50-1.00 different than we are used to.
Jobs
We haven’t looked for a job. I’ve looked in the paper to see what was available and they aren’t that bad when it comes to paying. There are jobs available and if I start looking for something I’d be able to find something. Probably about as fast as I could in Michigan. I guess we’ll see how this goes if and when I look for a job.
Now, one of the things I found fascinating is that when you read about moving to Hawai’i is that to live here you must have three jobs just to afford to live here. Well, I can’t see how that is possible when the median income in many of the areas we’ve looked to live is less than $50,000. If people were working three jobs than this median income would be much higher based on some of the pays I’ve seen.
I guess it’s all a matter of what you find as being expensive if you are willing to pay the price to live on a tropical island where you have a beautiful view pretty much any direction you look.
Thanks for this honest comparison. How much does AC run there?
Not really sure. We don’t have one in our condo and many homes don’t have AC because of the trade winds we get, no need for AC.
Time to invest in a bread machine! We make all our own bread and it’s a lot cheaper for us, and that’s living here in Michigan where we could get bread for .99 on sale. So just imagine how much money you’d save making your own! I love following your adventures and it’s awesome that you followed your dreams and moved out to Hawaii!
A view like that is priceless, I am talking about the last image you posted :).
About the cost of living differences, in terms of the price, it’s pretty much expensive in there compared in Michigan. Right?
Although there is a difference, as you can see from the post, they are only what I was able to see. I’ve heard people in Michigan complain about the cost of heating/cooling their homes and it being outrageous ($300+ a month), whereas I never saw a bill that high while living there. The costs of the homes here vary just like they do in Michigan. Living on the east side of the island and one spot on the west side would compare to living in Roseville, Sterling Heights, and even Clinton Township. Whereas living on the north end of the island and most of the west side of the island would be like living in Bloomfield Hills and other areas where the houses are owned by doctors & lawyers.
So, are the jobs higher pay to make up for the cost of living? Did I miss that? Looks like you’ve been having a fabulous time!
Nope, the job pay is about the same. I’ve seen some office jobs posts for $11-15/hour, which is about the same as in Michigan.
It would still be worth it to me to move to Hawaii (is it Hawai’i like you wrote it? If so I never knew), but I’d need a job lined up first, most likely. How did you choose Hawaii to move to over CA or other states, also?
Interesting on the comparisons. I’ve started house hunting in Michigan but can probably afford only $100K right now, so it will maybe wait to next year. I definitely wouldn’t be able to afford $300+ like you were talking about, but $1400/mo for a condo isn’t awful. I pay about $770 + $35 parking garage right now ($805) for rent, but it goes up about $20 each year (it was $730 my first year here, in 2012, then $750, and now $770, and my lease renews in November).
I think the real spelling is Hawai’i, but Hawaii is acceptable.
We talked about moving to the Florida Keys, but I wanted to go somewhere where it is always warm and somewhere where our boys could have something we didn’t have growing up.
There are areas on the island we are on that you can get beautiful houses for $100K, but they are in pretty remote areas. Right now, although we are in a tourist (originally for retirement) area we drive 45 minutes to the main area on the West side of the island. We could move to the south end of the island and pay $100-150K for a great house with a pretty nice ocean view (or even $10K for a 1 acre lot within walking 2 miles of the ocean) but then we’d have to drive 90 minutes to that same main area.