Chile Wealth, Inequality, and International rankings

[admin]

A North American family from Puerto Octay got on MarketWatch:
They ditched America to retire by a lake in Chile on about $3,000 a month — and rarely come back

Somebody from the forum?

not that i know of, but I have probably talked to them on the phone at one point or another. Every once in while I get a call from that crowd over in puerto octay.

[admin]

What's his complaint with Chilean banks?

seems to be the same complaint everyone has with the chilean banks.

[passport]

Biggest complaint on the Forum is inability to get an account. Guy's been in Chile long enough so that issue should be long past.

[passport]

OK, must be high ATM withdrawal fees...

[admin]

well puerto octay is rather misleading sample of costs around the lake.

5 years ago, even Puerto octay was a lot cheaper; but the rest of the lake is probably about double, triple the costs for land or more compared to puerto octay. Of course there are a few exceptions, like ensanda, etc for various geographic reasons (e.g. bad weather, active volcano). however most of the major populations of cities / towns / urban areas on the lake are way more expensive.

Like you could live relatively comfortably in most major cities in the world expensive. It really is not a place for those looking to move to somewhere cheaper or to live on a tight budget and for most Americans quit being affordable abput 5 or 10 years ago (or around sepember 2008 to be exact).

Notice in the article there was no discussion about what they spent on land, building costs, etc. No getting going costs and budget included. yea you can live on $3000 u.s. a month on the lake, even now; but, after you drop say a few hundred thousand dollars getting established with property, house, car, moving, making mistakes, etc.

of course, regardless of where you live, no two households are going to have the same budgets; and lightning never strikes twice the same way in chile, even if you did want to try to recreate a budget that worked for someone else.

so, you got to take these 'just so stories' with a grain of salt. They are sometimes useful, but pretty rarely. Everyone's mileage will vary.

at least he said the same thing I tell everyone too, chile is not for everyone.

honestly, I sort of hope it stays that way.

[Space Cat]

at least he said the same thing I tell everyone too, chile is not for everyone.

honestly, I sort of hope it stays that way.

Judging by the comments below the article, it's not changing so far:

At that price rural America offers better values.

$3000 in the Philippines, that's a maid, driver, cook, plus people who speak English and tons of money left over!

SE Asia get you more bang for the buck easily, and you won't feel like you're just waiting for your turn to die.

I hear Mongolia is cheaper.

This one is hilarious, is it some astroturfing paid by US insurance companies?

Knew a few Brits that went expat. All came back. Reality will set in when these mid 50's "retirees" start getting old age medical issues. They will sorely miss American medical systems.

"You will definitely miss bankrupting your family before dying!"

[41southchile]

No one would move to Chile for the cost of living, if that is your main prioritiy when looking for somewhere else to live, then by all means move to SE Asia or wherever else, Please do.
Chile is not cheap and that's good, otherwise it would be completely full of ex Pat's moaning about something else other than cost of living.
It's fine the way it is, generally those here now, are here for other reasons and are not cheap asses trying to live of 100 bucks a week. Like how cheap you can get stuff is all that matters in life, its important, but it's only one of many factors.

[tiagoabner]

Not really sure why anyone would be surprised. Per the article, they own their farm outright. In my opinion, USD $3000 is on the high side for a couple and a single kid, specially when they own their small farm outright, the kids goes to a free school (also per the article) and they try to be self-sufficient.

The comments show that people abroad don't really understand Chile, and I laughed out hard when I saw the comment about not having healthcare. Yeah, Puerto Octay isn't a metropolis, but they're less then an hour away from Puerto Montt, where they can either get medical treatment or a flight to Santiago to treat whatever is beyond the local facilities.

[41southchile]

Not really sure why anyone would be surprised. Per the article, they own their farm outright. In my opinion, USD $3000 is on the high side for a couple and a single kid, specially when they own their small farm outright, the kids goes to a free school (also per the article) and they try to be self-sufficient.

The comments show that people abroad don't really understand Chile, and I laughed out hard when I saw the comment about not having healthcare. Yeah, Puerto Octay isn't a metropolis, but they're less then an hour away from Puerto Montt, where they can either get medical treatment or a flight to Santiago to treat whatever is beyond the local facilities.

I'm not so sure about that, I.e it's on the high side , he said 2000 to 3000usd per month it varies. So 1.4 to 2.1 million pesos per month for a family is definitely not on the high side in my opinion, despite owning their farm outright, and the kid at a supposedly free school (school fees are not the only thing you pay for with a kid). Stuff adds up pretty quick month to month, vehicle costs, general household and farm costs etc etc, you definitely couldn't do it for any less than 2k in their situation.

[tiagoabner]

Yeah, you're most likely right. Still, it's within the $1k per person that has been discussed over and over here at the forum. I'm actually more surprised with the comments to that article than with the figures presented there.

[mem]

Not really sure why anyone would be surprised. Per the article, they own their farm outright. In my opinion, USD $3000 is on the high side for a couple and a single kid, specially when they own their small farm outright, the kids goes to a free school (also per the article) and they try to be self-sufficient.

The comments show that people abroad don't really understand Chile, and I laughed out hard when I saw the comment about not having healthcare. Yeah, Puerto Octay isn't a metropolis, but they're less then an hour away from Puerto Montt, where they can either get medical treatment or a flight to Santiago to treat whatever is beyond the local facilities.

I'm not so sure about that, I.e it's on the high side , he said 2000 to 3000usd per month it varies. So 1.4 to 2.1 million pesos per month for a family is definitely not on the high side in my opinion, despite owning their farm outright, and the kid at a supposedly free school (school fees are not the only thing you pay for with a kid). Stuff adds up pretty quick month to month, vehicle costs, general household and farm costs etc etc, you definitely couldn't do it for any less than 2k in their situation.

Yeah it depends...if comparing to average Chilean it's more than the average salary for sure.
$3k usd a month gets a gringo pretty decent standard of living and that includes a higher than typical and bigger than typical rental house. If a house is already owned then it's just an additional 1k a month to save or spend. With a farm I expect they have additional farm related expenses that the extra 1k goes too.
I actually sort of know the people in the article...met them through a couple from Montana that visited here looking to move a couple years ago. Infact I recommended this Montana couple meet with Charles. They were looking at a beautiful hazelnut/blueberry farm for sale on the Rio bueno. But the sale fell through due to a persnickety nasty wife who kept trying to change the terms they ended up not staying here.

[admin]

Yeah, you're most likely right. Still, it's within the $1k per person that has been discussed over and over here at the forum. I'm actually more surprised with the comments to that article than with the figures presented there.

Well, that $1,000 U.S. per person in the household rule was originally intended to deal with department of immigration requirements.

As was discussed over on the 'can you afford to live in Chile thread' that has not been updated in a while, I would say $1,000 U.S. per person is an absolute minimum, and nowhere near sufficient for getting started (say first 1-2 years).

I think also there is a bit of rural vs urban cost of living thing going on, that I have never really tried to tackle with some sort of back of the napkin cost of living guestimate for urban vs rural living in Chile. Probably too many variables to make sense out of.

It is kind of counter intuitive, but living in a rural or semi-rural area in Chile, comes with its own additional costs. Mostly in terms of things like transportation. Like in most cities, you could get by without a car and all the associated costs of owning a car.

For instance, We live only about 5 km from Frutillar; however, I make a point to insure all the maintenance on my cars are up to date, and that I have at least one running car at all times and normally two or more. Yea, I could probably call a taxi / collectivo to pick us up, but that does not work so well in an emergency.

Then there is the whole, improved vs. unimproved road thing and cost of owning 4x4 with some clearance vs two wheel drive compact car or whatever. Yea, I could get by just fine with a front wheel drive car, or even a regular SUV, but I have found out the hard way that it cost money to run regular suspension systems day in and day out if you are doing any sort of dirt roads. In fact, I calculated the costs of an offroad suspension system and tires on one of my vehicals, costs the same as almost yearly replacement of regular shocks on the other one because they just can not handle the sustained beating they take.

Likewise, good tires. I could do just fine with some cheap Chinese tires if I lived in a city, but I have all weather and mud tires because I have run in to more than a few situations where traction is everything. Not all the time, but it just takes a little bit more country road or bad road conditions, to make them worth having. Even if my road is not that bad, I find a lot of my friends roads seem to require 4x4 at various times of the year. One of those, not strictly required, but really nice to have.

Fuel, I have diesel and gas vehicle. The diesel is the long range, cheap driving. The gas vehicle, not so much.

It is like trying to cover those 10% edge cases, that drives the cost of transportation up dramatically in a rural area. Always having two vehicals. Always being able to handle whatever road conditions you might encounter, or emergencies, etc.

As they mentioned in that article, they also are doing the off-grid thing. Well, it costs money to deal with say backup water system, backup electric systems, etc, etc. Yea, you can go without it, and muddle through the inconvenience once in a while of a power outage or water system down, but trying to cover for those drives the costs up.

That is all just in the relatively civilized part of Los Lagos. Head down to the Patagonia, and logistics costs and problems get really expensive and time consuming. You don't just run down the street to the mall. Gas prices are higher. Being off-grid, is may not be optional.

Rural living is not always cheaper living.