Dinner Out.  Much cheaper.  Our favourite restaurant is La Fagrata.  It is a truly five star restaurant in the International Trade Centre.   A varied three course meal, with locally produced food, is about $50 for two including tip.  The only thing not local is the wine!  Colombian wine is probably the worst in the world, so we go for Chilean - French and Californian imports are too expensive.

Fast food restaurants (McDonald’s) etc are about the same price here, maybe a little more expensive - hamburger, fries and  a coke will set you back about $3.00.  Local fast food restaurants, generally one in every block, serving rice and beans, or soup, or grilled chicken or beef, will only cost about $2.00.

Housing:  For some strange reason there seems to be much more value for the rental dollar than the purchase dollar. I would not recommend any expatriot purchase a home anywhere until they have lived there at least a year.  Cost, here in Bogota, is around $35 to $45 a square foot for good quality new construction; luxury construction is going to be more.  You can rent a luxury apartment in the best neighborhoods for between $1,000 and $1,500 a month.  In less exclusive areas rent is around $450 a month for a 2 bedroom, 2 ½ bath, modern apartment.

Transportation:  Taxis are cheap, and there are thousands of them on the street all the time.  You can rent them for $12,000 pesos an hour (about $5.00) or you can go from point to point anywhere in the city for $1.50 to $2.50.  The rule of thumb is don’t flag a taxi down in the street-there have been reported muggings so it is safest to book a taxi by phone from a reputable company or take one from the shopping malls where they have taxi stands and known drivers.

Buses go everywhere, they cost about 40 cents, but I have never learned the system or how to use them. Car rental is not advisable.  It is very expensive here, and you are liable for 20% of the car’s value if stolen, or damaged, which is a real possibility. And driving is difficult especially if you don’t know your way around.  Find a driver you like and rent a taxi for the day - it will cost you about $35.  Gasoline is about $2.50 a gallon. New cars here generally are about 30% more expensive than in the US.  That is basically the amount of import duty imposed by the government.  But General Motors assembles some of their cars here in Colombia, and on those you can get more value for the dollar.

Furniture and Appliances:   You can get custom made real wood furniture for about a third of the cost of fabricated real wood furniture in the US.  There must be a thousand small furniture makers here in Bogota alone. The trick is to shop around and find the right one -basically the old adage applies – you get what you pay for! Electrical appliances are readily available, more or less equal models that you find in the US - they cost about 20% more.  Except that plasma tv’s, plasma computer monitors, and computers are two to three times as much.  If you can buy those in the US and bring them on the plane with you it is worth the extra baggage charge.

Health Care:  Bogota has plenty of highly skilled doctors in every specialty and hospitals of equal or better quality than the US.  Many of the doctors have studied and done residency in both Europe and the US.  In the hospitals there is a much greater ratio of nurses to patients and they are much more pleasant and attentive. Big plus - the cost is a fraction of the price of the same treatment in the states.

Examples of medical cost without insurance:
MRI of the head, neck and complete spinal cord in Houston $6,000: in Bogota $500.  Dental root canal and crown in Houston $900: in Bogota $250. Health Insurance.  Here there are two kinds of health insurance: a national health insurance which is about $40 a month for myself and my wife, which you must purchase before you can buy private health insurance. There are several major companies that provide private coverage and each have affiliations with various hospitals and doctors, much like HMO’s in the US.  I have coverage with Colsantas which provides for the very best doctors and hospitals. For myself and my wife this runs a little less that $200 a month.  It provides 100% coverage and very little hassle.  When you have to go to the hospital you just hand them your ID card and they take you to your room.  No hours in admissions, no stack of consent forms to sign. Household Help.  Maid $12 a day.  Gardner $10.  Skilled handyman does anything, electric, plumbing, etc. $25 a day plus materials.

Utilities:  There are different levels of pricing.  Each neighborhood is given a number from 1-6, they are called “extractos”.  You are probably not going to live in anything less than a 4.  But for example if you live in a level 4 and use 500 kwh of electricity a month you bill is going to be about $50 a month, in a level 6 about $65 a month. Natural gas is very, very cheap.  So if you can heat your hot water, and cook with natural gas you are way ahead of the game. We take lots of hot showers and have a large jucuzzi that probable take 70 gallons of hot water that we use once or twice a week, and we cook with natural gas.  We live in a level 6 and our gas bill is about $25 a month.  Electricity is approximately 9 cents a kwh.  Our bill averages about $60 a month for a 2000 sq ft apt. Water is relatively expensive here.  The water bill includes garbage and is billed for a 2 month period.  Our bill for water and garbage averages about $30 a month, but we use a lot of water.

Cable TV:  There are primarily two providers here Direct TV, TV Cable Net.  The latter is much better.  The have a new and modern fiber optics deliver system and are ½ the price of Direct TV. Also if you have Cable Net installed they can provide excellent broad band internet service.  Their price for cable tv is about $24 a month and the have a better channel selection than Direct tv. And you can have as many tv’s on the system as you want for the same price. For $20 more a month you can get broad band internet service. Direct tv is about $50 a month, and then if you want DSL you are going to have to buy it from the phone company ETB for another $40 a month.

Telephone: Telephones can be expensive.  You can get a plan for unlimited usage for local calls for about $25 a month.  But the problem here in Colombia is that every, man woman and teen, has a mobile phone and the calling party pays for the call.  So if you call someone on their mobile from your phone it may cost you as much as 20 cents a minute.  It seems like nearly everyone we call is on a mobile, so our phone bill averages about $100 a month. Long Distance to the US - through the local phone company, it is about 50 cents a minute, but if you have broad band internet, there a couple of companies that provide voice over service that works very well and is about 5 cents a minute.

Mobile Phone: Mobile calls average about 20 cents a minute.  I have a monthly contract plan that gave me a free phone, and I get 100 minutes for about $20 a month, additional minutes are about 21 cents.  My usage averages about $40 a month.

My general sense is that you can live a fairly elegant life style, with very little stress, for about $2,500 a month, (excluding travel and vacations).  Without a car, you can probably live comfortably for a third less.  If you have a reasonable retirement income you can literally live the life of Riley. Can you say that about living in the US?