cost of living in Maine (Portland, Ellsworth: buying, organic, prices)

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by ilovemycat1

Thank you, Submariner. I take nothing for granted and feel fortunate each day, especially that we are in good health (knock on wood). I am glad you are happy as well and managing. So do you live up north? In a less populated area than me? That is the one thing about Maine that is hard to get used to- the sparse population in so many areas. I guess that is considered culture shock.

Most of Maine is fairly rural. I live in an Unorganized Town a little North of Bangor [though geographically still in the Southern half of Maine]. We have around 230 people in our town.

We have a lot of acreage, some river frontage, and a new house. We garden a lot and sell the surplus in a Farmer's Market, along with some honey and fiddleheads. It looks like we may soon be marketing pork too.

[ilovemycat]

Very cool! My kind of person. I kind of mentioned it already, but another one of my favorite things about living in Maine is getting eggs from my friend's chickens. She has 14 acres and a few dozen chickens. They were so friggin' delicious, such orange yolks! I am sure you know all this, but it blew my mind. Lately, she has had issues with foxes, so I now get my eggs for double the price at a new store- The Farm Stand, in South Portland. I guess I have digressed.

[Tenebrae]

After living in multiple parts of the world, I've found that "cost of living" is somewhat relative. For a while, I was eating a lot of seafood, fruits, vegetables, and things you'd get at a health food store or farmer's market. In California, this type of thing was readily available. Trader Joe's had a lot of stuff like that, too, and for cheap. When I moved to Texas, I found that not only did they not have a Trader Joe's (when I first moved there), but the farmer's markets were harder to find or had terrible hours. I paid more money to buy the same types of food. The same went for my time in Pennsylvania, although I must say the Allentown indoor farmer's market was impressive and I ended up shopping there a lot once I discovered it.

If you like it warm, I suppose you might end up spending more for heating in Maine.
If you like it cold, you might end up spending more for cooling in Texas.
Then there's all the other things like Internet access, TV/Cable, gas prices, taxes...

So many things to consider! I've found in some cases that all the "comparable" amenities I'm used to are sometimes more expensive in what should be a "cheaper" area.

-T.

[nrose85]

That is exactly right, Tenebrae. We originally are from California, we moved because we wanted to raise our two year old daughter in a safer environment. Plus, I really despise the California heat. Like I said, we really like Oregon, but the income tax is very high. We also expected a far colder winter. I love fresh produce, eggs, etc. That is one thing I miss having readily available here too. Also, I guess I am just concerned because I am home with our daughter until she reaches school age. We've done the math and it's just not worth it to pay for day care so we both can work right now. I appreciate everybody's response. Maine sounds lovely! I really want to be there.

[mainescott]

Maine can be a nice place to live if you have good economic security. (Try to have it before you come here, as it's not easy to find once you get here!) If you enjoy the outdoors it's a gorgeous place with mountains, coastline, and everything in between. The people are pretty laid back and friendly, even if you'll always be "from away". The crime rate is generally spectacularly low. If you're trying to avoid crowds a huge, sparsely populate state is a good place to do it. Other than Portland, which has abysmal street layout, traffic isn't an issue in Maine unless you're in one of the touristy towns during the tourist season.

The downside is that the cost of living in Maine is very high. The sales tax rate is moderate, but our income tax rates are above average (though probably lower than Oregon). Property taxes of course vary by locality, but I've never had a higher property tax rate than I do in Maine. And at least in my locale we don't even have good schools or roads to show for it. Our only interstate is a toll road. Our gas taxes are on the high end (though again, comparable to Oregon). Vehicle registration is incredibly expensive in Maine, as the state uses it as yet another form of local tax revenue generation. If you're driving a newish vehicle you can be looking at many hundreds of dollars per year. And of course we have the whole vehicle inspection cartel going on here, too. You also have to pay a deposit when you buy cans or bottles and go to the trouble of redeeming the empties to get your money back. One of the worst offenders is heating oil, which is the prevalent method of heating in Maine. In a state with a long heating season, heating oil is a major expense. Oil prices are down at the moment, but that's probably just a blip. Rates for other utilities like electric, phone, or Internet seem to be generally in-line with what I've experienced in other parts of the country.

So, if you're coming here with a good job it can be a nice place to live for a while, but it's definitely not a cheap place to live.

[LexiPrice]

I agree it's all relative to what you do and how you live but to get a clearer idea of the actual costs, would you Mainahs (?) mind giving us "from awayers" a little detail on how much the following generally costs? I'll add the costs where I currently live and we can compare the two.

Mind you, Roswell is a really impoverished little city and most everything is run down and smells like a cow's a$$. But the stuff at Dollar General is more expensive here than say, Louisiana. In fact, I'll use the local Dollar General and Big Lots prices for these items to set the base.

Bread: $1.50
Milk: $2.00
Eggs: $1.00
Bacon: $2.50
Brand chips: $3.00
Dips: $2.50
Cereals: $2.00
Steaks: $3-$4lb
Fast Food: $7ish for a combo meal
Red Lobstah Dinnah for two: $75

Gas: $2.09
Rent (2bdrm, 2bth, house, yard - actual yard not sidewalk median yard): $900.00mo
Elec: $80 mo
Utility - trash ($50yr) water: $20mo or less
Internet/cable: $50-80mo


There's obviously more but this is a general price range for New Mexico. How does it compare with Maine for similar things?

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by LexiPrice

I agree it's all relative to what you do and how you live but to get a clearer idea of the actual costs, would you Mainahs (?) mind giving us "from awayers" a little detail on how much the following generally costs? I'll add the costs where I currently live and we can compare the two.

The grocery prices run about the same, Lobster here costs about half as much. $2 gas is a good price, I just paid $1.97 the other day, but these low prices are unusual. 2bdrm apartments start at $500, in the cities higher closer to $800. Not sure about separate houses. We pay $30 for our DSL.

This is our fifth home, by far the lowest property tax of any home we have owned, but that varies a great deal from one town to the next.

90 minutes away there is a 100 mile stretch of toll road, only 1/3 of the interstate in Maine is toll road, down by the NH border.

I have paid seriously high vehicle road taxes, registration fees and taxes before. Here it is controlled by how new your car is and how expensive the car is. So you control how much excise tax you pay.

All New England states have a 5 cent deposit on bottles.

Few homes heat with oil in my town, but you can if you want to.

[ilovemycat]

This post really highlights the different ways that people eat and the associated costs with those choices. We try to cook at home, real food, locally grown or made, if possible, and the costs are much higher than you listed. But, even if you stick to cereal, bread, I guess they sell bread in Dollar stores for your prices, but if you buy in a supermarket, whole grain, baked in Maine, it is over $4.00, close to $6.00 a loaf. Oatmeal, Cheerios, large boxes are close to $5.00. I don't get my eggs at the supermarket, but I don't think I see $1.00 eggs. Utilities such as electric seem about the same, but our water/sewer bills are very high. I think ours are 70 to 80 a month! Sewer in our town is mostly public, but our costs are so high because the sewer infrastructure was exceptionally expensive to install due to all the ledges and hard rock in our area. The water quality and taste is fantastic, though. We don't directly pay for trash, we must bring our trash and mostly recycling to the recycling center, but each town is different.

[Djuna]

I'll use our local Hannaford. Bear in mind some of these prices I'm posting are for the organic kind;


Bread: $1.50 $2.50
Milk: $2.00 $1.99
Eggs: $1.00 $5.00
Bacon: $2.50 $4.99
Brand chips: $3.00 $3.99
Dips: $2.50 $3.50
Cereals: $2.00 $3.50
Steaks: $3-$4lb $8-10lb
Fast Food: $7ish for a combo meal We don't eat fast food
Red Lobstah Dinnah for two: $75 Never been

Gas: $2.09 $2.09 on average
Rent (2bdrm, 2bth, house, yard - actual yard not sidewalk median yard): $900.00mo We own, 3bedroom, 2 bathroom, 3 ares $1400/month
Elec: $80 mo $100
Utility - trash ($50yr) water: $20mo or less Rubbish collection $30month, we have a well so no water bill
Internet/cable: $50-80mo Internet only $60month, we got rid of able and we have no home phone

[slyfox2]

When I moved here four years ago(Ellsworth), we priced the three groceries on the same identical items and tallied our 10 day grocery bill.

At Shaw it was $250.

At IGA, it was $230

At Hannaford it $225

At Walmart it was $175.

Of course no one should buy any meat at Walmart, but then as Vegetarians we don't buy meat so it doesn't matter. And though I don't care much for Walmart's treatment of its workers, a $75 difference was astounding. We still often buy things at the local IGA in southwest Harbor, and the Hannaford in Bar harbor, in between trips for the large bill to Walmart in Ellsworth.