Even when one gets local prices, as I most certainly do, even on land, which took me at least 4 years of living here to achieve, MANY things are much more expensive here than the U.S. I can compare to there as I'm very familiar with the U.S.

Cars, electronics, and any imports are ridiculously expensive here and the quality is inferior. Even food is starting to get expensive here. I spend approximately 1,000 reais per month for groceries and that is for me, my fiancé, and I have my daughter twice a week. That's 600 dollars U.S.

What I consider to be a decent house or apartment today is selling for approximately 200,000 reais and that's certainly nothing extravagant, and also depends where you are. One certainly can't buy what I would consider a decent dwelling for 200K reais in Rio or Sao Paulo. Once again, that's 120,000 U.S. dollars, which one can buy a decent house in the U.S. for depending on where you are.

Energy (electricicy) is extremely expensive here, I receive bills in the neighborhood of 1,000 reais per month and only have 2 rooms that are air-conditioned, one computer, two televisions, one washer, and one fridge. And the electricity here cuts out frequently even though there is not a cloud in the sky.

Communications (telephone, internet), both land line and cellular, extremely expensive. I used to spend around 100-200 dollars per month in the U.S. and this was 8 years ago, since then it's gotten much cheaper there, today in Brazil I spend around 2,000 reais per month for both, or around 1,200 U.S. And once again, the quality and service is not good.

As I stated previously, if one takes a cost/benefit analysis which factors in things like quality, if the same quality is even available here, there is no comparison. My life in the U.S. was of "higher quality" AND cheaper.

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