Every year
thousands upon thousands of people come
to Costa Rica
and enjoy a vacation that's just
unbelievable....
but is it possible to move to Costa Rica
and live in Costa Rica on a budget?
Today we're gonna find out what are the
facts.  What does it
actually cost to live in Costa Rica
and is it possible to live on only a
thousand dollars a month?!?!?
Let's find out!
Welcome to another beautiful day in
paradise. Welcome back!
It is another great day in paradise and
today we're going to be talking about
the cost of living in Costa Rica.
What does it actually cost to live in
Costa Rica and
is it possible to live on just a
thousand dollars a month. In other words
is it possible to live on a budget?
We are.  We do and from our perspective....
we don't spend as much as most
people and we've lived
all over Costa Rica but we intentionally
spend as little as possible because
we're saving up as much as possible so
that we can
purchase our dream property. So today...
we're going to give you the actual facts
on what we spend on a month month basis
and give you an idea on you know some
people come here they can spend a
whole lot more and depending on
how you want to live your comfort style
you could spend a whole lot less
so it is possible to live on a budget
but we're going to find out more as we
go through so what's the first thing
we're going to talk about
questions all right everybody's got to
eat
and really depending on your comfort
level
your rent or your grocery is going to be
the most expensive
for us it is groceries we eat really
healthy because we're
mostly vegan uh not because we don't
like meat i
love a good steak i love milk however
because of the health benefits we eat
mostly vegan
so normally in the united states that
would probably cost us a whole lot more
however costa rica you got access to
lots of fresh vegetables fresh fruits
they have lots of farmers markets all
over the place
so you can live vegan a whole lot
cheaper
than if you were in the united states
yes and especially if you want to grow
your own food you can grow food grow
fruits and vegetables
365 days a year i mean for the fruits
there are seasons
but um pretty much all year long you can
grow fruits and vegetables
that's right the weather is so nice that
you can actually farm 365 days out of
the year
so that would cut your grocery bill
significantly if that's something that
you do enjoy
doing right so depending on your comfort
level also
uh it's just us and we spend 500
a month however we do have a dog and a
cat
and we spoil them a bit you know we we
mix all of their food we actually buy
meat
for for our dog mix it all up and
vegetables meats
rice and make her own food instead of
buying so that does
probably cost a lot more than if we were
just to buy cheap dog food okay
uh our catas fault so keep in mind that
you know
we're spending a little more than some
own groceries however depending on your
lifestyle you might want to spend a
whole lot more in groceries
and if you really like meat meat tends
to be more expensive
in comparison as opposed to right meat
is very expensive
in costa rica so if you like a lot of
meat it is going to cost you a whole lot
more
in our opinion also if you're very
um particular about your brands
if you like a lot of processed food
things that have to be imported to costa
rica
those things are probably double the
cost that you would pay for them in the
united states because they have to be
imported
right anything imported in you're going
to have peter pan peanut butter
you're going to have tony the tiger
frosted flakes fruit loops
you know those things are going to cost
you a lot because anything important
does cost a whole lot more
they do have similar similar cereals and
peanut butters and things like that and
it's cheaper
however just something for you to keep
in mind groceries
anything important will cost you more
right we've adapted pretty well
yeah well i mean we uh we're eating very
healthy and enjoying
we definitely don't skip on our meals we
like how we cook and how we eat so we
eat some pretty darn good meals yes
so groceries probably our most expensive
one that's 500
a month but the next thing is going to
be your housing
there is a big variety
of a cost in housing anywhere from
i don't know we the cheap basically the
the least expensive we've lived is was
for i think 120
a month right so our cheapest was 120
a month that was a place in
sablito right and our most expensive was
in a place in los angeles when we first
came here however keep in mind that was
500
a month but it was expensive because it
was furnished
so that's always a great thing to keep
in mind when you first come over you
want to find a place that's furnished it
will cost you more
but after being here for a while what is
really neat
you get to meet people get inside the
community
you're going to find places that you can
rent that's not on websites or anything
but you know i've known people that will
rent their house for
under a hundred bucks you know uh and
you
really will get the costa rican
culture because for something like that
you're going to be living in a family
environment
where you know there's houses right next
to you so close that you can actually
hear them snoring
next to you in some places so
you can find some deals however
depending on your comfort level
you can easily spend a thousand fifteen
hundred
two thousand a month depending on where
you wanna live
however if you're on a budget you most
definitely
uh the house we're living in right now
it's 200
a month and that includes electricity
and water
but keep in mind if you find a place and
it says
includes utilities electricity and water
well that's probably because it's in a
family environment
that house if it includes electricity
it's normally
because two or three houses are
connected on the same meter
and instead of them running another
meter and paying for that extra expense
well they just ran wires to the other
house and all those houses are on one
meter
and they share that expense so that's
something for you to keep in mind if you
see something like that
know that you're about to live in a
family environment
where the whole family is living right
there in very close proximity
right in the houses that we've lived in
that were
not expensive they did not come
furnished at all in fact um
it sounds strange but we've had to put
the kitchen sink in to
two different homes that that we've
lived in you know before we could rent
these lower priced homes we had to buy
refrigerators
buy a stove um all the bedding all the
you know everything
everything um you're going to pay more
naturally for
a furnished apartment or a furnished
house also
depending on what area you live in if
you're going to live down
near the coast near the beach in the
more touristy areas the rent is
more expensive there where we're living
now we're
up in the mountains and we're in just a
little family
community so um you we're telling you
this because
to let you know that once you're here um
you
can find places for a lot
uh cheaper rent than what you might find
on the internet you know places that
aren't advertised that's right
now and we live in what people would
classify
a typical tico house okay
uh you can live in american standard
houses but those are going to cost you a
whole lot more
like rebecca said whenever you're
renting a typical teco house
you're renting pretty much four walls in
a roof that's what i like to call it
obviously you have bedrooms and all that
but most of the time a typical teco
house it has two bedrooms a bathroom
right in the middle it's usually only
one bathroom
a living room in a kitchen okay so
they're typically small
but when you rent it you're not most of
the time
there's nothing in it when they move out
they move everything out including the
kitchen sink
many times so keep that in mind however
once you've been here for a little while
you know to install a little kitchen
sink and a little
base all those things you can really
turn one of those into a wonderful place
and live very modestly very cheap in
costa rica so
like we said before we really enjoy
where we're living at right now
and yes i had to put in the kitchen sink
i had to put in the shower
i had to put in everything that i had to
put in shelves in the kitchen
however we really love where we're at
right now it's one of the better places
we lived at and it only cost us 200
bucks
right so and you don't have things like
air conditioning
however you don't really need that which
brings us i think to our next topic
of electricity but before we get into
electricity keep in mind
because that's a good topic to bring up
uh we're in housing and so
most of the houses depending on where
you're at not going to have
air conditioning so like she said where
they don't have a refrigerator or
freezers or dishwashers or anything like
that washing machines
they're not going to have air
conditioning but most places in costa
rica
the temperature is so nice you don't
need it now however there will be a few
places
along the coast by the beaches that
might actually have air conditioning
units in there but keep in mind you're
going to spend more
right but like rebecca says brings us to
our next topic which is
electricity utilities and we normally
spend about how much on electricity
about 75 bucks of course depending on
where you're at and how much you use it
keep in mind electricity is tiered so a
lot of costa ricans they never
even meet the minimum electrical
monthly price because they mostly just
like to the tv
don't use a whole lot uh we use more
than most and that's because of our
computers
our monitors we have an electric hot
water system
right we have uh the electric shower
system
typically called the suicide shower in
costa rica by the gringos
uh we'll talk more about that in another
video uh but we do have a freezer
refrigerator
uh so we do have a little more stuff
than most people
microwave uh we have a lot of stuff that
most
typical costa rican families wouldn't
have however we
don't use a dryer so we don't have a
clothes dryer
we don't have a dishwasher the first
house we lived in when we got here that
was furnished it had a washer and dryer
combo
and we were shocked at how high the
electric bill is because once you get
over that
that usage um tier you know whatever the
usage rate is
then it gets um more expensive it
increases right if you're going to use a
dryer
that's right because they it's tiered
and in the united states where
the more you use the cheaper it is well
it's the opposite in costa rica
you know if you don't hit the minimum
it's very cheap but
the more you use the more expensive it
gets so if you're going to use the dryer
if you're going to uh use a lot of
electricity it will cost you a whole lot
more so do keep that in mind
most people in costa rica just hang
their clothes out on the line
and i do i prefer that yeah and of
course it it smells fresh
so it's just in costa rica the fruit of
the lifestyle and the clothes on the
line
although i do know people who just
like to have a dryer for during rainy
season
that's right it is during rainy season
it is hard to get
your sheets and candles and things dry
right keep in mind that once you get
here you can buy
a dryer that operates on gas on propane
and so it's not going to cost you
nearly as much so that's an alternative
as well
right which brings us to our next
utility which is propane
most people use that to cook on you can
use it to
for your hot water shower you could use
it for your
for a dryer so but most people use
propane
for cooking and that's what we use to
cook right
most of the time and of course you know
depending on how much you cook
for us one propane bottle a five gallon
propane bottle or twenty pound bottle
whatever you call it
would last us typically about three
months so depending on how much you cook
i'm amazed at how long one propane
bottle will last
and we actually we we cook a good bit
and uh
we boil a whole lot because i like to
make my own wine
it's just one of the hobbies i have and
so i'll end up boiling a lot of bottles
and stuff
so i think we use a fair amount of
propane and it does still last
a very long time so to get that bottle
refilled well
geez it's only about 12 or 15 bucks so
on average
we're only spending about five bucks a
month on propane so keep in mind
propane is very cheap and so
is the water water is cheap and a lot of
places depending on where you rent water
is free
because like the house we're in now they
get water from one of the creeks nearby
water in costa rica is cleaner than
just about any place i've ever been to
it's so wonderful
it's amazing how clean matter of fact we
were in las vegas
before we came here and you know there's
not a lot of water in las vegas
uh i have bought this very very
expensive filtering system
and we've cleaned all of our water and
of course you gauge it and you measure
it well
i had brought that to costa rica not
knowing how clean it was
and the coast the water from costa rica
was cleaner
than the water once it came out of that
machine so that tells you how clean and
how fresh the water is in costa rica
it's wonderful but how much is our water
bill every month
about 15 a month on the high end when
we've had to
that's right um pay for water so when we
do pay for water
on the high end 15 a month that's
expensive so
water is cheap now that brings us to
the internet internet now depending on
your lifestyle for us
you know it's a necessity you know uh
we do all of our business online and
that's how we sustain ourselves here
so we have to have good reliable
internet so depending on where you're at
we like to live in the rural areas and
in the rural areas you're
not going to find the best internet in
the world
so you have to do some extreme things
it's not available yeah it's just not
available
however if you live more in the touristy
areas yes you can get better internet
over there
so depending on where you're at and if
you live closer to town you can get
better internet
so if you don't need a lot of internet
you could use the data plan on your cell
phone
even in rural areas that's right so
but we require depending for our
business we have to have more dependable
so if you don't need much internet and
you're just going to use it to email
hey you can use the internet that's on
your data plan on your cell phone
and that would work just great and how
much is that because you have a data
plan
yeah see so which well that's going to
bring us right into the phone but before
we go into that
uh as far as the internet goes we spent
on average about 75
a month it could be cheaper depending on
where you're at there's a company
called cable ticket or cabletica you can
get
really fast internet for about fifty
dollars however keep in mind
internet is getting better and better
and better uh they're now installing
fiber optic
that will take some time however
internet is getting better so depending
on when you come
we've seen huge uh improved improvements
on that front right so which brings us
back to the question she said you can
use your data plan and
my phone plan data plan is only about 35
bucks a month
for my phone which includes my data so
you can get by really cheap on that
so if you bring your phone from home you
can buy a sims card
and it's a rechargeable sims card and
that's what rebecca uses yes
i i put about ten dollars um on my phone
and i just when i run out of ten dollars
more
and so limit you can put yeah you can
put as much on that as you want you can
put
two dollars on that and it lasts a very
long time depending on how much you call
so having a phone in costa rica and you
can buy the little
uh cheap phones there you can buy phones
here and then you can just put a sims
card on there and just recharge it all
the time
or you can do like i do and you can get
a phone plan of course that's a whole
other topic
because then you either have to know
somebody uh
be a resident have a corporation there's
things you have to do before you can
actually get a phone plan right in
coaching you don't have to
have those requirements then you can
just buy a prepaid you can buy prepaid
planning
and they work the same way as a phone
plan and the cost is pretty much the
same
okay so the phone plan is going to be
pretty cheap about 35
a month which then brings us to
transportation
so depending on what mode of
transportation you choose
um if you're going to have your own
vehicle of course that's going to depend
on
how much traveling you have to do if you
live out in the middle of nowhere and
have to travel quite a long ways
into town or if you live right in town
so it's hard to gauge uh the
gas prices here gas and diesel prices
here are
a lot higher yeah you know for fuel it's
going to be a whole lot more
on average well we spend about 75
dollars a month for
gasoline okay so keep in mind if you use
the public transportation you're not
going to spend near
as much okay and if you live close to
town you can walk you can bike
you can get an uber you can get a taxi
and you're not going to spend nearly as
much of course the price of gas
changes about how much is a leader right
now
i can't remember how much a leader is
but typically it's going to run you
around four to five
dollars a gallon uh it's sold by the
leader here and
you know the government controls the
prices so it's not like the united
states where
you're looking for whoever sells the
cheapest gas you know it doesn't matter
where you stop at
so that's one of the things that you
want to think about uh
and things that you can look into so
your gasoline just depending on whether
you have your own transportation or
public transportation
it's not going to be a whole lot
depending on how much you travel right
and of course if you own your own
vehicle you want to consider
annual expenses that are associated with
owning a vehicle which is your and
your annual insurance and tax
it has to be that's right so you want to
probably take a look at the link in the
video here
that talks about owning a vehicle in
costa rica watch that video so that you
have more
details about those costs exactly
there's your tibia you know your annual
inspection and then there's also
um to consider if you're on a very tight
budget the cost of
maintenance uh on your vehicle that's
right because
the roads here are pretty hard on it and
so those are something that you want to
put
into your budget making sure that you
have a budget for your taxes your
inspection and your maintenance on your
vehicle
but as far as transportation about 75
bucks a month which brings
us to entertainment entertainment which
is
dining out which is what we're doing
right now
and dining out depending on where you're
going could be
rather expensive in the touristy areas
or if you enjoy
really the costa rican cuisine or enjoy
the costa rican
uh culture you can eat
very affordable right and we have a
really good video
that goes into detail about those things
so go to the link right there and you
can see
the video all about food in costa rica
and learn
more about that but typically if we go
out
once a week and we enjoy
a meal it's going to cost us about what
between
30 and 40 depending on um you know if
you have
cervezas or depending on whether you
have a glass of wine
uh or you have a beer uh a
dessert or not of course it's just just
like that's right so like
anywhere but it's not expensive and we
find that dining out
uh because we go to some of the local
restaurants
is cheaper than if we were in the united
states and if we simply get a meal
and maybe just uh one you know one glass
of wine
then we can eat as little as twenty
dollars that's right
so it can be very affordable but you
know that's entertainment as far as
dining out
uh so you know we spend probably 150
bucks a month
dining out of course you know you may
want to go
do some tours or sightseeing and
waterfalls and things like that
so of course that's going to increase
your entertainment budget
but you know you can do a lot of stuff
right here in costa rica
that is absolutely free so entertainment
wise
you can save a lot of money because
there's just tons of things you can do
by yourself
there's just not a lot of
i guess for lack of a better word i can
only call it not a lot of
social entertainment other than there's
a lot of bars
places where people dance at uh the
dancing is
amazing here because it's not like what
you would see in the united states where
anything is a dance you know here
they've got some pretty amazing and
wonderful dances
places where you can learn to dance and
so it's really fun to actually
watch that and go to those places so if
you enjoy the bar scene
you enjoy dances that's great they do
have a couple of cinemas in larger towns
san jose has cinemas
uh san ysidro has a cinema but you're
not going to see a lot of that anywhere
else
so there's not a lot of public uh
or social entertainment but there's tons
of
wildlife wildlife entertainment nature
entertainment that kind of thing
so that's all uh that i can think about
as far as entertainment so your
entertainment
is gonna just be depending on you on how
much you want to go out and do
but ours is fairly cheap about 150 bucks
a month yeah we like to just get on the
motorbike and
go ride and look for places to see new
places
right we'll get on the motorbike and
we'll just go up and down roads that
we've never been
and it'd be amazing because we'll find a
waterfall that that
seems like nobody knows about you know
because you don't see them yeah
we go all off the beaten path and we
just really have a great time
so uh that's entertainment which brings
us to the next topic which is
insurance insurance now obviously you
know we really can't tell you much about
insurance
uh i'm a veteran so i don't need
insurance
uh we did have insurance you got to find
out from your own insurance
agent as far as what's covered and
what's not covered and if you're covered
by going out to another country however
you know rebecca did some research and
found out
obviously when you come here you have
something done you're gonna pay for it
and then your insurance company might
reimburse you
obviously that depends on your insurance
company right
but as far as that goes the reason
you're having insurance is for medical
expenses
which we've both had medical procedures
done uh
nothing serious and found that the
medical procedures were
crazy cheap for what compared to the
united states
right you had a you had a root canal um
i had a little minor
uh surgery where a little uh legion was
removed
less than 500 right so it's amazing
how cheap you can get medical procedures
done in costa rica
uh dental work uh i've had a lot of
dental work
and it's way way cheaper than it is in
the united states matter of fact you
know it's kind of hard to compare
because i don't know the prices but for
example i just recently had braces and
braces are really cheap
i know that i had braces for my daughter
years ago and i think i spent well over
two thousand dollars for those braces
and in costa rica i only have to pay 75
000 cloners
for three months and so 75 000 cloners
translates
to about 150 bucks okay so i pay 150
bucks for three months
and then i would pay 20 000 cloners a
month
every month until the braces come off
and so depending on you know how old you
are
it might take a year and a half to two
years but that's
only about forty dollars a month so it
makes it
very cheap to be able to get braces or
get dental work done
so your medical and dental really is
going to be
a lot cheaper than anything you can
imagine as far as the united states goes
and as far as i know a lot of retirees
have their medicare
and you know i don't know how they how
they work that out
but um there are tons of retirees here
right there's a lot of people who choose
to come here which brings us to our next
topic
if you're thinking about coming to costa
rica we just talked about all our
budgets and
i will go through their section by
section add it all
up so that you can see the total cost
but really
we easily and comfortably live on about
thirteen hundred dollars a month every
single month
we don't do anything super extravagant
however we
really enjoy what we're doing and you
can easily live
a little cheaper but you can easily live
a whole lot more expensive
but that brings up if you're coming you
have to be
financially self-sustaining because it's
almost impossible for you to
legally work in costa rica as a
foreigner
even when you become a resident it's
still very difficult
for you to actually legally work in
costa rica
so that means you need to do something
like us
which means that you've learned how to
work online or
you are a retiree and you're drawing a
check or
maybe you're one of the lucky few that
you just have more money than you need
and
that's not a problem for you and so
that's good for you
so those are some things that you do
need to keep in mind so
that brings us to rebecca is
it possible to live on a thousand
dollars a month
in costa rica i think so it is possible
matter of fact if you've been saving
your money and you have a little nest
egg
right now especially we've seen some
phenomenal prices on houses and
real estate everything is really
dropping so you'll be amazed at what you
can buy for a hundred and fifty thousand
two hundred thousand
i'm talking about some super fine places
and once you pay for that uh of course
if you come you've saved up your nest
egg you paid cash
and then you don't have that monthly
expense and so you could
easily live on a thousand dollars a
month right you could live in a nice
area and live comfortably that's right
so keep in mind even if you don't have a
nest day
once you get here and you make friends
and you find
places where you can actually live in a
community
where you're renting for a hundred
dollars a month and if you don't eat
a whole lot or you grow your own yes you
can live for a thousand dollars a month
and you're not living in some unsafe
neighborhood
like you might depending if you were
living in the united states or some
other part of the world
so yes i believe you could easily live
on a thousand dollars a month
just depending on your comfort level
right for example if we gave up
going out to eat every like we go out to
eat about twice a week
once a or twice a week um we have our
two our dog and our cat if we didn't
have those pets
then we'd save a good bit of money there
a thousand a month so we could easily
live on a thousand dollars a month
but you know we're enjoying life so i
guess bottom line you could
comfortably comfortably live on two
thousand dollars a month
very very easy without having a pinch
knees without having to pinch pennies
and i believe you could probably live on
fifteen hundred dollars a month not
having to pinch pennies very much
so really it just depends on your
comfort level whether you need a three
bedroom four bedroom
a great big house air conditioning dryer
all those things do affect but that
gives you
an idea so let me take a quick look we
should mention that we're living in a
tiny
um two bedroom one bath house right we
do live in a two bedroom one bath
obviously we don't need a whole lot of
room right prices go up
in rent you know for each additional
bedroom and of course each additional
bathroom
so indeed it is possible and
you can actually come down here and
really just enjoy
costa rica which i guess brings us to
our next topic
what are we talking about next week
rebecca
did you tell me uh well let's take a
look at my notes right here
my notes say that we're going to be
talking about the best places
to live in costa rica well since you now
know what it costs to live in costa rica
what are the best places to live what
are the best towns to live
and i guess depending on when you first
get here whether you got a stamp out
month to month we're going to talk about
all of that stuff next week so remember
to tune in every thursday
8 pm eastern standard time when we
premiere live and
hey you can ask questions and we're
there waiting on the other side to
answer your questions just as quickly as
they come in
so i hope you've enjoyed this video take
a moment to subscribe
like the video and once again we'll see
you next week
you
