Cost of Living: Who Says You Have to go Frugal in Cuenca!

Well it looks like the good folks at International Living want
you to know that you don't have to go frugal to live well abroad.

Ok, so you don't "have" to go frugal to have a better
life abroad, including in Cuenca Ecuador. 

“When you think frugal you think old tires in the yard, bad
neighborhood, and an old home needing repair, but this…this is nice, and for
$250"!  Said an Ecuadorian real estate broker friend of ours when she came over to our home for dinner.  “You guys are doing a good job, more people
should do what you're doing”. She says this even though she herself makes a living
providing rentals to expats that go for two to four times the Ecuadorian rate. 

Let's put the shoe on the other foot for a moment: Let's say you
live in a fairly decent apartment in Los Angeles, California for the normal for
locals, average rental rate of $3000 a month. 
Unknown to you is that a change is coming soon.

The mainstream Retirement Press is highlighting L.A. as a great
place to retire for less.  The articles
are aimed at expats in Hong Kong paying $16,000 (true price) a month in
“desirable Hong Kong gringo neighborhoods”.

The promoters hook them up with agents in the city eager to make
fat rental commissions off the expats. They're nice people and all, but they
have no scruples about showing the expats $6000 to $8000 a month
apartments because, well, they're such a bargain compared to Hong Kong,
and, you know, the commissions are higher. And besides, there's lots of demand
from expats from Hong Kong eager to save lots of money compared to what
they're now paying in Hong Kong.

Soon enough your Los Angeles neighborhood is overtaken with
"expats" from Hong Kong bragging about what a deal they've got on
their $6-$8K a month “luxury apartment”. Unknown to them, the $3k apartments
are just as nice. 

Next month, your landlord evicts you because he wants to rent to
the "nice foreigners" who pay more. You are looking for a rental now
and can't find anything unless it's twice what you were paying before.

In the meantime, the mainstream retirement press is having a
field day writing articles in the mainstream news on the web about what a great
place L.A. is to retire for less than in Hong Kong.  They highlight rental prices in the $6 to $8
thousand a month price in their articles showcasing them as “normal rentals”.  An obvious bargain, compared to Hong Kong,
according to the slant in the articles.

The writers do not live in L.A. and neither are they retired
there.  They do visit occasionally, just
long enough to talk to the rental agents described above.

The rental and real estate agents love them, and the Hong Kong
readers eat it up.

While this wonderful scenario is unfolding in your city, you
hear a lone voice crying in the wilderness: 
here ye, here ye, look ye, retire in L.A. Just like we have, be frugal
and rent a nice apartment for $3,000 a month. 

The mainstream press in response snickers at the word “frugal”
in their promotional advertisements, telling their followers to turn up their
noses at those lower beings, because hey, you don't have to be like them, you
don't HAVE TO go frugal.

Frugal is only for those lower beings, we are much better than
that. 

In the meantime, the news gets out to the local L.A.
Residents:  the Hong Kong foreigners are
filthy rich, and not only that, they're dupes, why else, the locals reason
within themselves, would the foreigners 
pay two to three times as much for rent as they could?  They must be so rich they don't care.  Well then, since they're that rich and don't
care, let's raise our prices too when ever they come around.  And that's exactly what happens.

One day, you and your friend go into a sewing shop asking for a
skirt that should cost $20 dollars, and, because you just happen to outwardly
have the same features and looks as those other foreigners you are quoted
$180.  (statement based on a true story here in Cuenca).

You go home, shaking your head in amazement.  You sit down to relax with a cup of coffee
and read the L.A. Real estate ads for fun. 
To your amazement, you see ads for ¼ acre lots on the river for a million
dollars.  These are aimed at the
foreigners, because no local in his right mind even if he has the money, would
ever pay such a ridiculous price.  Why,
they could retire on that!

The river is not anything spectacular as these things go.  It's just a river, locals wash their laundry
in it, and some defecate and urinate in it. Even the city dumps waste in it.

If those Hong Kongers would just step outside of their “superior
gringo gulches” they would find that they can buy a whole house right on
a huge deep water lake with sailing and water sports for the same price as that
¼ acre lot on the river in L.A. or sometimes less – right there, in their own
country.  You know, there's a recession
going on back home in Hong Kong. But is anyone paying attention?

Of Course not, how could they? 
The mainstream retirement press would never highlight such things even
if they knew them.  How would they ever
be able to sell “the dream” to all those rich foreign dreamers.  You know, the grass is always greener on the
other side of the fence.  Or is it?  Watch out because, if you hold your nose up
too high, you might step in a pile of dog poop, or trip on a rock or a piece of
metal while crossing that greener grass! 
Especially here in Ecuador.