Cost of living in PR

Hi Rob,

Although most supermarkets don't announce their regular prices online you can find several shoppers on this site: http://shoppers-pr.com/
That will give you an impression of food prices.

Electricity is going to be more expensive for you. My last bill for 564 kWh totals $132.80.

Prices for Cell phone contracts can be also found online. The main providers here are Claro (the are also the main provider for landlines and DSL and offer combined plans for phone and internet) - http://www.claropr.com/ , AT&T, Open Mobile, Sprint and T-mobile. When asked enter a PR ZIP code like 00921 (San Juan) and you'll get the prices for PR.

Thanks Gary for your quick reply.
It looks like you are averaging about half again as much on power bills as I'm used to.
That will take some conservation on my part, but I also know that we had many hot days here in Oklahoma when I ran the A/C a bunch. By hot, I am talking 112 several days and a whole lot of 100 plus degree days.

I pay the equivalent of .95 a litre for petrol, an oil change costs me around $30 for my truck and about that for my mc every 3,000 miles. I don't drive my truck a bunch as it's a gas hog, so only when I need to haul something. I mostly ride my bike.

I don't pay for refuse disposal as it's in my office rent. What's the story there? I know I've read about cisterns and their use, but need more education on them as well. I suppose I can do a septic system for sewer, (assuming I build), but how are local regulations on that?

I checked Amigo link in your reply and I must say, for all the posts about how expensive food is there, I'd be saving on what I spend now. It's sounds impossible but I think at worst it's a break even there. I'm sure some stuff may be higher than the mainland.

I haven't looked at the phone situation yet, but I have ATT and as I understand it, it's a local call for me on the island. I did see one price the other day for internet around 75.00, so it's within a few dollars.

I'm sure the crappy economy must have hit the island hard and has prices elevated to the norm. I just can't see where all the doom and gloom comes from unless formerly all the expenses incurred by a large family have doubled.

I'll keep checking back and doing more due diligence to figure this all out. I really appreciate the help and advice.
Thanks, DocRob

DocRob wrote:

That will take some conservation on my part, but I also know that we had many hot days here in Oklahoma when I ran the A/C a bunch. By hot, I am talking 112 several days and a whole lot of 100 plus degree days.

We don't get temps over 100 degrees here at all but it can get pretty warm. The high humidity doesn't help either. Since we live in the mountains in Eastern PR and don't use A/C at all we use less electricity.

DocRob wrote:

I pay the equivalent of .95 a litre for petrol, an oil change costs me around $30 for my truck.

Right now gas is around $ .98 per litre here on the island and 30 bucks for an oil change would work, too.

DocRob wrote:

I don't pay for refuse disposal as it's in my office rent. What's the story there? I know I've read about cisterns and their use, but need more education on them as well. I suppose I can do a septic system for sewer, (assuming I build), but how are local regulations on that?

I don't think we pay for waste disposal. Actually it's one of the public services that works great. They come once a week and take whatever you want to get rid of.
Cisterns, well if you live in a rural area you need some sort of water system since the water supply is not reliable in many areas. For reasons unknown the water is simply switched off every now and then and that can easily last up to a week. So most people have a couple of tanks (300-800 gallons) on the roof and fill them with "street water" (water from the pipes). If you do the installation right your house water supply will automatically switch to the tanks (with or without a pump, depending how much you are willing to spend) and when "they" turn on the water again the tanks are filled automatically.
If there's no sewer in the area where you build a house you need to install a septic tank. You will need to find out what the situation is in the area where you might build a house.

DocRob wrote:

I checked Amigo link in your reply and I must say, for all the posts about how expensive food is there, I'd be saving on what I spend now. It's sounds impossible but I think at worst it's a break even there. I'm sure some stuff may be higher than the mainland.

Amigo is part of the Walmart group so it's one of the cheaper supermarkets. Also keep in mind that the prices in the shoppers are the specials and normal prices may be higher.

DocRob wrote:

I'm sure the crappy economy must have hit the island hard and has prices elevated to the norm. I just can't see where all the doom and gloom comes from unless formerly all the expenses incurred by a large family have doubled.

I think that the cost of living here is comparable with many places on the mainland. The problem here is that the average income is a lot lower than over there.
The average household income in the US is around $ 50K/year. Here it's $ 18.8K/year. http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-02.pdf