Chile Forum

What is the cost of living and how does it change as you move south? For example, is there a significant difference between Osorno and Puerto Montt areas?

How about Coihaique, I assume that this is a high cost area due to its remoteness, is that true?

I'm more interested in general cost of living for someone living in an apartment or home full time, not a tourist staying in hotels and eating in restaurants.

I'm just guessing that it may be a little lower than in the USA but not that much lower.

Between the big towns, the cost of living will not be all that diffrent. I have not seen a real diffrence between Puerto Montt and Temuco.

Being in a rural town, near one of those big cities, for the most part is cheaper. Your rent will be cheaper, yet you still have access to all the big stores and bulk purchases that come with being on the major transportation routes in the South.

To give you an idea, going as far south as Puerto Montt, I would say that you could rent a basic apartment or even a house with 1 or 2 bedrooms for around 200-400 US a month. A lot depends on how much the people like you (this is the south). Getting something very basic, can be done for as little as $150-200 a month. In the more rural areas it is easy to rent a cabin in the off season for around $150 a month.

Food for one person will be around another $100 a month. Depending on how much imported food you want to eat, you could get by on as little as $50 a month.

When you get south of Puerto Montt prices do go up. A lot has to do with the transportation to the area. That said, places like Futa and Chaiten are tax free zones and people also do a lot of buying over the boarder in Argentina. So, some things go up, some things go down in price. It really depends on what you want to do, and how you want to live.

It sounds like housing and food are about two thirds the price that we pay in this area.

How about health insurance and health care? That is the big expense here, roughly the same as rent on a house.

And how about a vehicle, what does it cost to buy something like a five year old japanese model pickup truck? What is the price of gas? Do you know of any websites that show used vehicles for sale, especially between Osorno and Puerto Montt? Are you hit with any big taxes or registration costs for a vehicle?

Sorry for asking so many questions! Hopefully others who read this have the same questions and find it useful.

Good doctors are cheap in Chile. The quality is very good just about everywhere. The central region is where you want things like major work done, but run of the mill type medical work is fairly good across the country. Many of the doctors studied in the US or Europe, and even in the country have to meet international standards of care. If you have major work to be done, it will be about 1/1000 of the cost to do in Santiago over the states and you will likly get to see your doctor for more than 5 mins.

I wonder if much has changed in the last year since this thread was started?

We've been down here on the southern edge of Region X for a couple of months now. Aside from backpackers, we haven't seen any other gringos. I was just curious if anyone else is down here and what your experiences are (building, supplies, etc.)?

Specifically, anyone had to buy a transformer when installing electricity?

Saludos a todos,

After rereading the 2 old posts quoted below, I would be grateful, and others hopefully too, to know how and where relevant things and
facts stand today, on the gate of the approaching 2011.

Happy New Year of Peace and Prosperity to All!

p.s.: Compared to many other cities in the USA, Austin, Texas presently is doing fine with a decent economy, friendly populace and relatively low cost living: e.g. $6.50 for non-matinee feature new movie in state of the art cinema (I am newbie here preparing for exploratory move to Chile).

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the bitter cost of things

Postby el puelche on Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:53 am
Skylark,

I have found that to eat well in Chile it is more like 85 to 90 % of what it is in the usa, and many times it is a little more. Its becoming less as we grow alot of our own veggies etc.
It will soon become important and worth it to have a green house. I think that what happens many times is that the need to go into town(about 30 miles in our case) and come back makes that single banana craving very expensive. You can buy in bulk as it works out but it doesn't always work out as we might have to go to town twice in one week instead of every 3 which is our preferred. So what happens is that you are unable to buy in bulk twice in one week and now the cost of gas figured into groceries brings costs up.
I can spend about $100= usd everytime I go tho the market and get everything I need for 4 to 6 people for a week and a half. I spend twice that and a little more if I figure food for the dogs, hardware store misc, tool repair, kerosine, saddle store, vet medicine, barbed wire etc

You can buy a used truck, get a toyota 4x4 hilux crewcab, its the best and you will not regret it. I got mine for $9000=usd and it was a couple years old. Buy it in Santiago as its greater field to choose from and less likely to have been thrashed in the campo. Drive it down to where ever you are. Gas is expensive and even more expensive if you don't watch the guys pumping it in. I think the last I paid was $540= pesos a liter and I'm usually about $27000= to fill-up. I just paid $580,000= pesos for new american made bf goodyear tiires>>special 4x4 gravel/dirtroad combo tires>>>labor materials, mounted and installed. I sold the old ones for $30000=. There is a vehicle revision everyyear and it is very strict. It costs about $30000=. Vehicle registration is $180000= for my truck a year. Insurance is $40000= a month with auto club.

I can take a bus from my place and into town for about $1800= one way or I can go by truck and it costs about 7000 in gas. The bus goes by at 8 in the am and returns about 5 in the pm. Public transportation in Chile is beyond excellent.

ciao, el puelche

Please pardon me for not having copied successfully the other relevant old post in my own previous post. :
btw: I meant that I was a newbie in Austin, TX, not only one posting on this valuable forum.

Here it is below:

cost of living

Postby admin on Sun Sep 24, 2006 12:29 pm
Between the big towns, the cost of living will not be all that diffrent. I have not seen a real diffrence
between Puerto Montt and Temuco.

Being in a rural town, near one of those big cities, for the most part is cheaper. Your rent will be cheaper,
yet you still have access to all the big stores
and bulk purchases that come with being on the major transportation routes in the South.

To give you an idea, going as far south as Puerto Montt, I would say that you could rent a basic
apartment or even a house with 1 or 2 bedrooms for around 200-400 US a month.
A lot depends on how much the people like you (this is the south). Getting something very basic,
can be done for as little as $150-200 a month. In the more rural areas it is easy to rent a cabin
in the off season for around $150 a month.

Food for one person will be around another $100 a month. Depending on how much imported food you want to eat,
you could get by on as little as $50 a month.

When you get south of Puerto Montt prices do go up. A lot has to do with the transportation
to the area. That said, places like Futa and Chaiten are tax free zones and people also do
a lot of buying over the boarder in Argentina. So, some things go up, some things go down in price.
It really depends on what you want to do, and how you want to live.
-----------

There is the south and then there is the far south, as in southern Patagonia, XIIa Región. I don't know of the poster has any interest in the prices here. But the notion of "patagonia as tax-free zone" keeps popping up, both on the forum and in the usual range of misguided guide books. On that subject, it may be useful to note that this is not a tax-free zone in the sense that normal people think of tax-free meaning not having to pay taxes, which is what you might expect. In fact we pay taxes on income (withholding every time I submit a boleta electronica), we pay IVA on every product and service, we pay taxes on property in municipal zones (called contribuciones), and we pay taxes by any other name on a wide range of things. If we are not supposed to be paying all these taxes because we're in a tax-free zone I hope someone will notify the local authorities.

Prices - not sure if anyone cares. 93 octane (or what they call 93, which is not measured on the same scale used in North America) is about 710 pesos/litre right now. Beef and fish from the region typically cost about the same as what you pay around Santiago. The salmon is mostly fresh from the local fisheries and the beef is grass-fed and generally free of adulteration. 250 gramos of butter is about 1 luca. Comparing hardware prices to the Home Depot in the original poster's Texas location: a sheet of drywall is about 2-3 times as much here. Tools of the same quality will run 30 to 100 percent more here, vs the Texas Home Depot. Mobile internet service/dongle at 200kbps rates, 25.000 CLP a month, or about 60 Texas dollars. The plans vary down here and internet backbone is via Argentina, which cuts into available bandwidth. But in general things are more expensive here than in the rest of Chile, and there's a lot of stuff that you can't easily get down here. On the other hand, the distance from the flagpole, the relative tranquility and the scenery tend to make it worthwhile.

yea, for most gringos purposes southern Chile is divided more or less in to Puerto Montt North and South of Puerto Montt. That basically means transportation and access to things starts to get complicated south of Puerto Montt. Thus, prices on things that are not local tend to be much higher because of the cost of shipping relatively thin demand by small population of people.

The tax free zones simply means local residents can import things tax free, but you have to be certified local resident and if you sell it outside the zone you have to pay the import duties and such. Generally more of hassle than it is worth for small stuff.

North of Puerto Montt everything is fairly connected to the highway, and thus prices do not change that much from say Santiago.

admin wrote: The tax free zones simply means local residents can import things tax free, but you have to be certified local resident and if you sell it outside the zone you have to pay the import duties and such. .

That's the theory. And the theory used to be something similar. But now you have to be a licenced and registered and bla bla "usuario" of the ZF to do that importing. Can't do it anymore as a private resident. And you still pay taxes on stuff brought in through the ZF, just not as much as in the other colonies. I just brought several vehicles in via the ZF. Here to say this is not a "tax free" zone.

Adrian wrote:which city is better to live at low cast ?

Adrian, you might want to live in Peor Es Nada, in the VI Región. Low rents, quiet, cheap public transport, low cast locally grown food, free internet at the public library, places you can ride your bicycle, etc.