Lair Davis (Our Man in Costa Rica)

Remember Lair Davis? He was the founding editor of several queer newspapers including the San Diego Gayzette (1982), Gay Times (1988) and Gay/Lesbian Nation (1990). Lair moved on to other community challenges in San Diego before moving to Santa Cruz. In June 2004, the award-winning “Lair About Town” columnist retired to the tropics of Costa Rica. HillQuest is tickled and proud to return Lair to San Diego every week to share his views and ideas. Feel free to email him.

April 22, 2005

Living La Pura Vida on Social Security —
They Said It Couldn’t Be Done!

Whenever I write about how I am living a nice, middle-class life here in Costa Rica and paying for it with my Social Security checks, many folks react with supreme doubt. They are doing the right thing, of course, in questioning whether what I write is true. It very well may not be true for them — or for you!

I am a male who lives alone in a very nice two-bedroom apartment on the edge of a pretty little city in the mountains. Wives on occasion can be expensive, children even more so. I have neither.

Even men, those with wives and those with girlfriends and even some with neither, are perfectly capable of running up quite a tab living in Costa Rica or anywhere else if they wish. I just happen to be quite a frugal guy who doesn’t need too many things cluttering up my life beyond the necessities.

Some things I do need, however. I buy books and CDs — too many of both! I travel about the country. I go to plays and the occasional concert.

I do not buy every electronic gizmo and gadget invented, however. One computer, one television and one radio/CD player are enough for me.

Most importantly for my budget, I do not own an automobile. Living here, I wouldn’t have one if you thrust it upon me. That’s me. You, of course, could very well be among the auto-addicted. It’s a common malady infecting (if I wanted to be more accurate, I might even say “destroying”) much of mankind. (But that’s another column.)

So just how am I living so well on Social Security? I, just as you might be, was quite surprised to find it so. I had not expected to find that my savings had remained untouched ten months after moving here.

Let’s look at my expenses in March, which just happens to have been my most expensive month since moving to Costa Rica. Total amount I spent during March: $1,127 and change.

Here is a breakdown:

Rent: $250.00

Utilities: $103.23 — Electricity: $12.39 and Telephone: $58.71 (A couple of calls to the States plus oodles of time on-line with my dial-up Internet connection. You pay for Internet time by the minute here.) Dial-up Internet service: $15.00 (The standard monthly dial-up fee.) Mail service: $14.30 (For the shipment of an order of books from Amazon via my Miami mail forwarding service.)

Healthcare: $101.73 — Lipitor: $79.92 for 40 20mg tabs + 20 free (One box is free for every two purchased.) A visit to my personal physician: $21.41 (His fee has recently been increased by $3.)

I am a heart patient, and five other medications I receive for free as a member of the national health service. I also have a doctor at the health service who I can visit at no cost, but I prefer to pay for private visits with an English-speaking, Harvard-educated surgeon/general practitioner in whom I have come to have immense confidence. The national health service is excellent as a backup catastrophic care system. Should an individual have a medical emergency — for example, suffer injury in an automobile accident — the national system will provide care at no cost whatsoever.

Statin drugs in Costa Rica are rationed because the government simply cannot afford to supply them to everyone with high cholesterol. Since I am not overweight and my cholesterol numbers are actually not very high, I do not qualify for free statin drugs. I must pay for them, although at a cost of less than one-quarter what I paid in the States.

Food & Household: $239.78 (For one person, this is a large amount, I believe. It does include everything, however, from furniture, to brooms, to laundry soap, to foods I eat at home, to meals I enjoy in restaurants. March was particularly a good month for eating out. Don’t tell anyone, but I even went to Burger King during one excursion to the capital city — and spent a grand total of $4.04 there!)

Transportation: $415.12 (The most expensive month for transportation since I arrived. Why? I bought a roundtrip airplane ticket to Dallas, where I will visit my family next month. If I had tried a little harder, I could have found a much better airfare than the one I chose. My monthly average transportation cost for the past six months has been $39. I go far and often, and use public buses, lots of taxis, and occasionally a truck and driver to transport larger items I buy.)

Clothing: $0.00 (I read somewhere that you can always spot an expat living in Costa Rica because “the last pair of flip-flops they bought was before the millennium” and “their entire wardrobe is chronologically as old as the day they arrived in Costa Rica … but fortunately it matches their flip-flops.”)

Entertainment: $13.81 (Since I purchased the airplane ticket in March, I felt I needed to cut back somewhere, so this was the place. My only entertainment expense during the month was for a few wonderful maps created by the Costa Rica National Geographic Institute and purchased at Lehmann’s bookstore in San Jose. No concerts. No books. No football games. No travel. However, don’t cry for me, Argentina. I’m making up for it THIS month!)

Miscellaneous: $4.08 (I got a $3.22 haircut and bought three newspapers.)

------------------------------

They said it couldn’t be done. For ten months now, however, I have done it: spent less than the amount of my monthly Social Security check. You can, too.

Perhaps. There is really only one way to find out.

See ya?

# 1

(6.25)

# 2
(7.02)

# 3
(7.09)

# 4
(7.16)

# 5
(7.23)

# 6
(7.30)

# 7
(8.06)

(8.13)

(8.20)

(8.27)

(9.03)

(9.10)

(9.17)

(9.24)

(10.01)

(10.08)

(10.15)

(10.22)

(10.29)

(11.05)

(11.12)

# 22
(11.19)

# 23

(11.26)

# 24

(12.3)

# 25

(12.10)

# 26

(12.17)

# 27

(12.24)

# 28

(12.31)

# 29

(1.7)

# 30

(1.14)

# 31

(1.21)

#32

(1.28)

# 33

(2.4)

# 34

(2.11)

# 35

(2.18)

# 36

(2.25)

# 37

(3.4)

# 38

(3.11)

# 39

(3.18)

# 40

(3.25)

# 41

(4/1)

# 42

(4/8)

# 43

(4/15)

Interested in your own trip to Costa Rica? Get off the “tourist trail” while $aving time/money with your own travel consultant. Lair would love to help you plan your holiday of a lifetime. He’ll even be your guide in his tropical paradise! Email him to discuss your trip.