tiny grass

For many - if not most - it’s not. The cost now is obscene - $160,000 for 4 years. If the goal is not a professional degree or the plain pursuit of knowledge, it’s a waste. A few years back a college acquaintance told me he was going back for an MBA. I asked why:

Him: ‘If I get an MBA, I can be an entrepreneur.’
Me: ‘Um… why don’t you just start a business instead?’
Him: (some blather about needing a degree, degrees opening doors, other nonsense)

People need that time to mature, some say. Perhaps keeping them in high school during some of the most influential times of their lives is the culprit. Kids wouldn’t need a few years to cut loose if they had more control over their lives when they were younger. That was the case for me - from Catholic school to full-blown party animal. No coincidence there - just simple cause and effect. Maybe - just maybe - traditional cultures knew something when they made their coming of age rituals take place around the age of adolescence.

College is also a false, manufactured reality. Spending the majority of your time with people of your own age is about as far from reality as can be. If anything, it prepares you for the day you get stuck in a home for the aged - once again, surrounded by people your own age. Want some reality? There are plenty of ways to do that by interacting with society in general. Learn a trade, start a business, volunteer, get a job.

The world is out there, and you don’t need to be sequestered in an educational institution to find it. Perhaps that made sense when people lived in one place for their whole lives, but not anymore. You don’t need college for travel either. How stupid is it to make such a big deal about studying abroad when you end up spending time in a classroom and doing homework? What a waste! Better to spend the tuition money on actual travel instead of a limited cultural experience.

What about the so-called best years of our lives? Isn’t it sad that 4 years of being sheltered from real responsibilities is considered the best years? What about the 40 years after that? Interestingly, the other time in life that has such a positive vibe is the Golden Years, when you’re retired and have no more responsibilities. With a message like that, no wonder kids fuck around in school. I am so much happier out of school than in, having the ability to find myself, realize my true dreams and work to make them real. Life is tough, but I’ve never had a better time than I’m having now.

Obviously, all of this is colored by my own experience. I went to the best school I could to get the right pedigree. Not that it mattered - I didn’t graduate on time, lied on my resume about graduating and still found a job. Having spent years being guided away from my interests, I studied something practical,economics, which for me was practically useless. Everything I do for income I taught myself - proof that you don’t need a degree or school. My grandfather was a wealthy, self-made business man without a degree. Lots of jobs that require a BA or BS just want some basic proof that the hiree isn’t a moron - or is a pliable drone.

So what’s going to happen with my kids? Whatever they want, I’ll support. They’ll have years to follow their hearts and if they want to go to college, I think they will have good reasons for it. Either for knowledge or a specific educational or professional goal. I think their interests will be obvious by 10 or 12, and I’ll be happy to let their curiosity be their guide.

Thanks to O’DonnellWeb for kicking off my rant.

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Insidecostarica.com translated an article from the Costa Rican daily newspaper Al Dia. It’s still quite reasonable, but doesn’t take into account the kind of expenses an expat with different habits might incur. Overall, it’s quite promising but we still have to consider health insurance and broadband internet - both of which can add up to $250 each to the budget. I’ve added dollar conversions to all the figures.

More than ¢450.000 ($908) Needed For Family of Four To Meet Basic Needs

A recent survey by the Spanish language daily, Al Día, reveals that a family of four needs an income of ¢447.788 (us$904) monthly to meet living expenses, including the cost of food, water, electricity, telephone (home phone and cellular), bus fares, a couple of nights out to a restaurant and payment of a mortgage of ¢20 million colones (us$40.500).

That figure is much higher that the ¢107.220 ($216) colones the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo (INEC) says is needed to make up the basic food basket and more than twice the average income of ¢259.722 colones ($524).

According to the INEC, general incomes range from ¢223.350 ($451) monthly paid by private business to ¢371.027 ($749) paid by the central government and ¢461.500 ($931) paid by the government institutions and agencies.

The Al Día calculates that if the family lives outside of San José, like Alajuela for instance, and require use a vehicle, the monthly cost increases to ¢575.848 ($1162), not taking into account the recent round of increases in fuel that go into effect later this week, as well as the recent increases in food items such as milk, rice and beans.

For the director of the Oficina de Apoyo al Consumidor (Consumer Support), Cynthia Zapata, says that people should avoid getting into debt as much as possible.

“One has to be strict and do all possible to keep control of the budget. The current condition shows that people are not saving”, said Zapata.

Financial expert, Miguel Díaz, advises that families should budget their expenses. “It is very difficult to send a child to school, where they see a schoolmate with an iPod, and of course want one also, but one has to say no to avoid financial imbalances”, said Díaz.

The following is a sample monthly budget for a family of four as prepared by the Al Día:

Basic Food Basket	¢107.220 / $216
Electricity	¢11.928 / $25
Water	¢5.576 / $11
Cellular Telephone	¢11.000 / $22
Home Telephone	¢7.500 / $15
Mortgage	¢240.000 / $484
Bus Fares (for 2)	¢17.500 / $35
Two Visits to a Restaurant	¢20.000 / $40
Domestic Help - 4 days	¢12.864 / $26
If living outside San José (Alajueal for example) add	¢14.200 / $28
If a vehicle is owned add:
Gasoline	¢43.348 / $87
Car Payment *	¢84.712 / $171
City Bus Fare ( 1 person)	¢8.500 / $17
If children in daycare add:
Monthly cost	¢75.000 / $151
Domestic help	¢96.531 / $195
Extra Cellular Phone Cost	¢11.000 / $22
If family enjoys cable television add:
Monthly cost	¢12.500 / $25

* ¢10 millones loan from Banco Nacional

Source: Al Día

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Last year, I vented a bit about Christmas giving.  Trish and I revisited the issue and instead of my $10-15/person gift idea, she and her sisters decided on doing a ‘Secret Santa’ deal with a $50 budget.  That would allow for one nice present rather than 5 books/cds/t-shirts/etc.  And the gift has to be thoughtful, though some family members have still released lists of preferred gifts. (shame on thee, ye of so little faith ;-))

I’m really happy about the idea, though I’m still working on what to get for my intended recipient.  Some family members have been trying to figure out who’s got who, but I don’t care.  I had the joy of emailing my MIL that I’ll never tell who I have the other day.  But I suppose old habits (buying stuff based on a list of what someone wants, and thus logically Not Wasting Time or Money) are hard to break. Read more »

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Figuring out the actual cost of living has been hard since we’ve spent 8 days in essentially tourist areas.  Cahuita was slow, laidback and quite small.  Aside from the beach and national park, there’s nothing there.  That fact, along with the distance from the Central Valley, made us realize that the Caribbean coast was not the place for us, at least not at this time.  (We were in Puerto Viejo for a couple of days as well, but the whole party town vibe didn’t grab us either.)

Since it was a tourist-oriented area, we assumed that prices were a bit inflated.  The mercados (grocery stores) were small by American standards, really more like big NYC bodegas.  They were pretty well stocked with basics, and I don’t remember the prices too well.  I do remember buying some Kellogg’s cereal for about $4-5 (they actually had a much larger selection of known American brands than loca cereals).

Today we arrived in Belen and I ran out for a quick shopping trip to ‘Mega-Super.’  I’m glad to see that they had some self control in naming their store, at least compared to the northern Manhattan Latino stalwart ‘Xtra-Super-Jumbo.’  (I’d love to know if there’s a store out in the world that’s taken this naming convention to an extreme, perhaps stringing 5 or 6 superlatives together)

Anyway, Mega-Super is basically a really modern supermarket and would not be out of place at all in the US, where we like to pick names that seem practical (Stop & Shop, Price Chopper) or neighborly (Wegman’s, Kroger’s).  I don’t think it lacked for anything, though the selection of items was less (like a lot fewer spices).  I did walk into a Mega-Super in downtown Alajuela the first day we were here and it was not as modern (this is a brand new store) and was overall smaller with a smaller selection as well.

We’re looking forward to catching a feria (farmer’s market) sometime soon as that’s where we expect to be buying a lot of our food.  I don’t think we can go back to grocery store veggies since we joined the CSA, due to both taste and value.  Here’s the list of stuff from Mega-Super, converted to dollars at 515 colones per dollar (the rate everyone seems to use right now for giving change in colones after being paid in dollars). NB: 454g = 1lb

• 1 liter milk $0.97
• 1 liter orange juice $1.19
• 400g canned plum tomatoes $1.13 (should’ve bought fresh)
• Nestle Corn Flakes $3.50 (least sugar of all cereals not expressly made to help people poop)
• 15 eggs $2.12 (they’re not refrigerated here - this one has an expiration date of Nov 20)
• large loaf of whole wheat bread $1.97 (I bet we get good hand-made bread for less elsewhere)
• 500g laundry detergent $1.41
• 500g pasta with protein $1.73 (more expensive than regular pasta but a great choice when you’ve got a kid who tends to eat plain pasta)
• 375g tilapia filets $3.91 (or $4.73/lb - better than the best sale price I’ve seen at home.  I’m sure buying from a fisherman would be a lot better)
• 1 liter Cabernet $4.09 (I saw wine in a paper box the same as milk & OJ and just had to try it.  It tastes way better than anything in the US that involves the words ‘box’ and ‘wine.’)
• 250ml probiotic yogurt drink $1.66
• 1 small shaker of salt $0.29 (is salt supposed to have flouride in it?)
• 400g can black beans $1.01
• 680g potatoes (ie 3 loose potatoes) $0.37

The prices aren’t tremendously lower, but still a bit better overall.  As I’ve found out, getting veggies directly from a farm is much more cost-effective, so I’m quite interested to see a real feria and get a much better handle on the cost of food.

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It’s been a few weeks since I went to the opthalmologist, and I’ve finally gotten a moment (or decided to give myself a moment) to take the next step. From the doc I got my prescription, but she was unable to measure my pupillary distance (PD) because she had nothing to measure in millimeters, which sounded terribly careless and half-assed to me. Measuring that isn’t rocket science, and I don’t think she or her optician is any better at making a rough measurement using nothing but their hands, a ruler and their eyes. If they were using some gadget to measure the PD to the nanometer, I’d consider letting a ‘pro’ handle it. But they’re not, so I’m taking care of that myself, with some assistance from the lovely Trisha. Here’s what I did to measure my PD: Read more »

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