Chile Forum

Sí, lo recuerdo. It's finding where to buy a thing that's often more frustrating than determining what's best.

Is A. Paris a chain store? I don't remember seeing one.

Interesting, went to the http://www.paris.cl site and they do not list Marmicoc model I purchased a couple of years ago.

Here is the type I bought:

http://www.marmicoc.cl/detalle.asp?id=95&id2=4244

Get the largest one you can afford.

Our monthly budget is about $5K a month for a family of four but we get a lot of mileage for that:

- rental of a 3,000 square feet house in Reñaca 10 minutes from the beach by foot (we work from home and like space)
- full time housekeeper
- best private healthcare insurance money can get in Chile
- private security monitoring, home insurance
- private kindergarten and school for our two kids plus extra-scholar activities
- $250 worth of dsl/cable/phone/mobile per month (most of it is actually a business expense)
- one or two nice meals out each week (we're French so sue us!)
- all the premium Argentine beef and Chilean produce we can eat, a bottle of wine from time to time (did I mention we like eating?)
- car rental whenever we need it (2 days a week on average)
- random piece of furniture or extra cacti and plants to pretty up our home

In other words we get an upper middle class lifestyle in a gorgeous region for the price of a middle class life in a nondescript area in Europe or the US. Because of our much lower exposure to taxation, we also end up being able to put aside thousands of dollars each month. I guess we could cut back a bit to $3.5-4K a month if we had too without changing our lifestyle too much, but I work hard for a reason. I don't think I'm wasting any of my money on "frivolous crap either" either...

The way I look at Chile is 80% of California for 25% of the cost. I'm sure you can get 90% of Oregon for 25% of the cost too, or other cheaper deals depending on your means and requirements.

While our permanent situation will be much different (no rent, etc.) our current expenses for two here in Futa (where somethings can be more expensive, some less, i.e. gasoline) here is the run-down now for monthly expenses in CLP's...

Rent 70,000 (two bedroom bungalow)
Phone and Internet 30,000
Electric 8-10,000
Water 2,000
For firewood - see Charles' post above
Food 120,000 I might be underestimating by not including the beer trips I make.
Sending letters to people who never write back 20,000

This would not include bus fare to Chaiten, or Argentina for business, or fun. Direct TV, which we don't have is about 40,000 to install, and 12,000 per month. Now, we own our own vehicle, purchased new here, which turned out to be a big surprise because of the vehicle tax which we have to pay 4 times a year at a whopping 140,000 pesos per quarter!!!!!

So that's it for Region X. Gas is right up there around $5USD a gallon. I can't remember the CLP per liter, probably it was too traumatic an experience to recall the whole gas-trip episode!

admin wrote:I might add, being in Temuco wood is the most common way to heat a house. Total for the year for about 10 meters of wood, dry, split, and stacked ran us 180,000 CLP. I would not split 10 meters of wood for 180,000 CLP.

A Chilean friend tells us of a place where we can get wood for 24,000 CLP per cubic meter. Does anyone know of a better deal in the Viña/Concon area? We're thinking of buying now hoping prices are going to be cheaper than three months from now during the winter.

Also, we're buying a backup generator just in case we get rolling blackouts in the months to come. Better safe than sorry.

ouch. Not lot of trees in the central region, and most of them are pine. You don't want to burn them.

Yea, I would not be surprised to see prices around Temuco hit $25,000 to 30,000 a meter this winter or more. Much will depend on how cold it is. The central region, I would be surprised if you hit 50,000 as they start really trucking it in with high gas prices.

It will not be long before they out law burning wood where you are at.

If you need basic energy backup, go with solar panels. Save your generator for firing up the things in long term black outs such as the fridge.

I was thinking about trying to mount one on my roof in Temuco as an emergency backup source for my servers, and potentially to help take some of the sting out of my power bill. For now a UPS will do the trick. The Chilean power grid is in fairly good shape. Even when the system works in the States as normal, I was having a lot more black outs every year. Still 6 blackouts this year is a lot for Chile.

We bought a 2200w generator to keep the fridge and laptops/routers up and running for up to 12 hours I think in case of black out. We're renting so I'm not sure solar panels are an attractive option for us. Looks like we should buy a couple cubic meters of wood at 24K CPL while we can.

admin wrote:Yea, I would not be surprised to see prices around Temuco hit $25,000 to 30,000 a meter this winter or more. Much will depend on how cold it is. The central region, I would be surprised if you hit 50,000 as they start really trucking it in with high gas prices.

yikes!.. i'll have to see if the F.I.L (father-in-law) has some wood for us!.. since ive been here we have spent about 60mil pesos on wood... love the family... and the bosca!!!

on the blackout from got a notice in the mail today we'll have a power outage from 7am - 2pm 30th March.. luckily its a Sunday morning so i dont think it will affect us much.. makes for a good excuse to have breakfast in the city centre (hope they electricity).. pretty good to get told when the power will be out!

Hello everyone!
I just joined a few minutes ago as a new member. Nice website! My husband received a job offer for Santiago de Chile and I am trying to figure out the cost of living in that area. I read through all your posts and I was wondering if anyone is living in one of the suburbs in Santiago and if you could give us tips as to where to look, good neighborhoods and of course how much we should expect to pay for rent, etc. We currently live in San Francisco, CA ( Bay Area) and pay $ 2200.00 for rent for a 2 bed / 2 bath townhouse. Also, does anyone know how if there is a way to import our motorcycle to Chile? Every website I went to says it is not allowed to bring used motorcycles into the country.
take care,
Anne

You'll find much information throughout the 'site on all these concerns, Anne (well, not so much about the 'cycle, but a fair amount about bring automobiles into the country). You might wish to try a few searches, then ask more pointed questions.

Good luck to you and your family. You'll enjoy Chile, I think.

I was hoping someone in the central region could fill me in on some blank spots on my budget. I'll be moving to Viña in 25 days (not that I'm counting) and I'm trying to lay out my estimated expenses. I was hoping someone could tell me whether or not my estimates seem accurate.

These will be for 2 people living in a 40 sq mt apartment in los ponientes, generally seeking to conserve as much energy as possible, quick showers, preparing food mainly from scratch:

Luz - 16.000
Agua - 16.000
phone/internet/cable - 50.000 (basic on all 3) (can anyone suggest between VTR & Telefonica?)
Food - 80.000 (obviously this would be hard to judge, but basically 2 people eating well, but not extravagantly, cooking from scratch)

I guess other expenses vary too much person-to-person, but any insight on the above would be appreciated.

Dunno about you guys but I've been getting 27,500 peso water bills this summer. Thankfully they ease off during the "wetter" months but $61 a month for water seems steep even for the US. I haven't been to the house (v region, near El Tabo) in a while and it's all landscape watering. My neighbour (2 doors up) gets the same sort of bills so it's not just me. When I move down there, I can see a revision in plantings to more drought resistant flora coming!