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I lived on St. Croix in 2006 for 6 months. I remember that most items were about 25% higher than in the states. I was wondering how bad the economy is this year, i.e. housing, food, gas, car rentals, restaurants, hospital costs, etc. It took the two of us around $3000,00 a month to live there. This included renting a car and eating out a few times a month. How much have things increased over the past 5 years?
Charlotte
Posted : April 26, 2011 1:41 pm
housing , food and gas keep going up. gas was 3.79 this am for regular. 1/2 gal milk is about $5. i dont know if they are that much different from what you remember. you would have to post actual cost and not a total sum to really get an idea
Posted : April 26, 2011 8:09 pm
Anecdotally, food prices on STX appear to be about twice as high as the stateside average.
Gasoline prices on STX are about the same as the stateside average, and the price fluctuates everywhere with the price of crude oil. Our gasoline tax is much lower than the stateside, but our gas station owners pad the price a lot more.
Restaurant prices have gone up since 2006, but I don't know by how much exactly. You can always control costs by choosing less expensive restaurants or dishes.
Posted : April 26, 2011 9:12 pm
Prices have gone up since 2006 due to the increase in the price of oil. Wapa is headed toward .50/kwh. This affects your home electric bill, but more importantly, it affects the cost of all goods and services on the island. Especially hit hard are chilled or frozen grocery items. The cost of food in grocery stores is basically 1.5-2X that of stateside (sale) prices in my experience. Of course the cost of getting goods to the island has also increased with the increase in the cost of oil. And getting yourself on and off the island has gotten a little more expensive, rarely will you be able to fly out of St. Croix for less than $500 roundtrip to the east coast these days, and often you will have to pay significantly more.
The good news: I don't think housing prices have gone up since 2006. I can't comment on car rental but if you are going to be here for a while I'd buy something. There are more ways than ever to qualify for USAA which takes the horrible insurance burden down quite a few notches and will likely make it much cheaper than renting a car.
Hope this helps!
Sean
Posted : April 26, 2011 9:13 pm
Energy 3 times the state side
Food 2 times state side
Taxes less than state side
Insurance about 1.5 times state side
Housing is all over the place
Lifestyle 10 times better than states side
Y0u chose!!
billd
Posted : April 27, 2011 11:55 am
I think the current WAPA rate is about 40 cents per kilowatthour.
See nationwide averages at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
Comparing residential rates only, our WAPA rate is roughly:
5.8 times higher than the lowest of the 50 states (North Dakota 6.92 cents)
3.6 times higher than the average of all 50 states (10.99 cents)
2.2 times higher than the highest of the 48 states (Connecticut 18.03 cents)
1.3 times higher than the highest of the 50 states (Hawaii 30.13 cents)
Posted : April 27, 2011 1:43 pm
Part of it really depends where you are coming from. For example my answers would be different then Bilds. For me car insurance is about 4 x as much, property taxes are the same, and personal income taxes are also the same.
It's just another place to live, you have to decide if having a beautiful beach makes it worth while.
Posted : April 27, 2011 3:01 pm
