... if you want to count every penny, get on the local buses, eat in the cheapest of the cheapest restaurants, try not to make cellphone calls and ration yourself to a tiny bit of air conditioning every day, then you'll be fine on US$ 2,500 a month.
"Want" is the operative word. Salt air, palm trees and a beach are nice but do very little to make your day to day life agreeable. Value for your money is inherited from where we come from as are the basics of the lifestyle we have become accustom to.
I accept that I am a consumer, and I choose to run my A/C whenever it is too hot or too humid. I despise having to wipe mold off things and have my clothes covered in mildew. I also don't like choosing to feel uncomfortable. The electricity is a product and I purchase as much as I want. I'm not into "if I run the a/c, I can't eat lunch tomorrow, or my imported steak will cost me a week's worth of gasoline."
Reality is a $itch. I don't drive a Porsche so I should be able to leave the TV on all day, surf the net at speeds that get me a gig of data in 5 or 6 minutes as opposed to 30 minutes or more at a cost far inexcess of comparable internet speeds at home. I
want these and other things. I couldn't have them all in SD for $2500/month. I don't
want neighbors on all sides of me banging things, dragging chairs around at 2 am or yelling about who is sleeping with whom. I do not
want to swim in a pool that other people urinate in because the bathroom is too far away, or lie on a sweaty exercise bench last used by someone with Hep B.
Yep, it is all about what you
want and how much money you have to procure it. Apart from those who have so much cash that they never have to compromise, the rest of us make practical concessions. For me, I gladly run my a/c and choose not to own a $60K jeepeta, as I'd never drive 2001 Sidekick that cost me $5K. Every time I looked at that, I'd get depressed.
As already stated many times, and rebutted repeatedly by a few who just don't get that what they
want or feel is acceptable is not necessarily what someone else wants or thinks they want/need/find acceptable. One persistent voice in this conversation has already disclosed that they spend $4000/month and I am left wondering why they
want to spend 35% more than they have to, to achieve according to them, a perfectly acceptable north american middle class lifestyle in Santo Domingo.
Yes you can live in Santo Domingo for $2500/month. You can probably live there for $1700/month. The question remains, would you
want to?
These discussions become useless when personal bias enters into the fact telling. The OP needs to know that yes there are $600 apartment options. They need to know that these include (whatever they include) and are located in specific sectors within the city. The Op then needs to hop on a plane and come see for themselves if the $600/month apartment is acceptable or do they need to spend more or look elsewhere for something more agreeable. These threads need not always become a rehash of individual preferences that have no usefulness to someone else. I suppose it's a continuation of the internet mannerism - Take a stand and defend it at all costs until people get bored and the last word posted prevails.
