cost of living – Happier Than A Billionaire

Get Me Out-a-Here Syndrome

By Nadine Hays Pisani| 2021-01-22T11:32:01-05:00 January 22nd, 2021|Categories: The Costa Rica Escape Manual|Tags: cost of living, the costa rica escape manual|

Costa Rica Costa of Living Udate: COVID-19 Test—$120

Get Me Out-a-Here Syndrome is a combination of disorders that include but are not limited to:

Glancing around and wondering how you accumulated so much stuff
Imagining palm trees while staring out your window
Desire to sit in a hammock all-day
Wanting to walk out your front door and never look back

If you suffer from any of the above, The Costa Rica Escape Manual, 2021 edition is the road map to your escape. You’ll learn about residency, buying a car, crime, and funny things about living as an expat. You’ll also find out why I hate the guy who gave a glorious five-star Amazon review of a blanket while giving a less charitable assessment of my work. My dad hates him too.

The Costa Rica Escape Manual doesn’t have any unpleasant side effects. It’s a happier book for people looking for a happier life. Everything from taxes to national park regulations is up to date.

Some exciting developments are a proposed digital nomad bill that will make it easier for telecommuters to live here on a temporary visa. Another is a projected change to import costs so that you can move your belongings here without getting clipped on thousands of dollars in taxes. And get this… it includes a car. Anyone who has bought a vehicle in Costa Rica knows that this may be one of the biggest game-changers.

We’ve all been through a lot over the past twelve months. So much has changed, and there continues to be a sense of unease about the future. But it may also be the green light you’ve been waiting for. Sometimes it takes facing the ultimate challenge to make the biggest change. Getting out of your comfort zone is one of the hardest things to do. But it’s incredible how alive you feel after the first step. A little nauseating as well, but alive, nonetheless.

Is it easier living here than anywhere else? No. But I can attest that the sounds of howler monkeys and lavender sunsets calm my racing mind. And it makes me daydream.

That may be the biggest side effect of The Costa Rica Escape Manual. You’ll daydream again but this time with a road map to the monkeys, the hammocks, and the crazy, psychedelic sunsets. Your daydream is a seed taking root. It’s just a matter of time before it cracks the surface.

Keep your dream alive, and thank you for allowing me to help. It’s been the pleasure of my life.

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Picking a Town, Finding a Home, & Creating a Budget in Costa Rica

By Nadine Hays Pisani| 2019-11-01T20:04:13-04:00 November 1st, 2019|Categories: books, Cost of Living, Press|Tags: book, cost of living, creating a budget, finding at home, picking a town|

Costa Rica Cost of Living Update: Picking a Town, Finding a Home, and Creating a Budget in Costa Rica —Kindle $9.99, Paperback $15.99

My new book is available!

Happier Than A Billionaire: Picking a Town, Finding a Home, and Creating a Budget in Costa Rica. It’s the perfect companion to The Costa Rica Escape Manual and will guide you through finding the perfect spot to start your own Pura Vida lifestyle.

To celebrate, I made mango cobbler in a cocktail dress. You may be wondering if I always cook in cocktail dresses, and yes. Yes, I do.

My husband advised me to wear heels because I looked taller when compared to the countertop. He’s the Don Draper of the Happier Production Company. So instead of five feet in height, I’m a whopping 5’4”. It’s shocking how little that detail made in my appearance or in my confidence overall.

I’m sure nobody cares about my height or even the mango cobbler. But the new book is great if you’re dreaming of moving to Costa Rica and want a better understanding of how much rent costs, the average monthly grocery expense, or even what a suicide shower is.

Electricity AND water? Who knew? (not a feature in The Happier House)

But I think the most important piece of this video is the montage of the happiest moments Rob and I have made in Costa Rica. This filmstrip plays in my mind every day — flashes of crazy adventures we had after quitting our jobs and trying to forge a completely new life.

Now when people ask, “You left everything behind? What were you looking for?” I can point them to this video. The answer is simply…

I longed to see my husband smile after climbing behind a waterfall and looking all but twenty-four again.
I wanted to sit on a beach with a dog under my legs as mama turtles swam back to the place where they were born to lay their eggs.
I wished to bathe in orange sunsets and marvel at lightning bolts flashing across the horizon.

Perhaps I wanted too much. But I remembered the person I was when I was my happiest. She smiled a lot, and I missed her. It turns out the things I needed back were the richest things I owned.

I hope all of you can visit this lovely country and bear witness to a capuchin monkey stealing a lemon. It’s never too late to replace your frayed and yellowed filmstrip with a happier one. There is an endless supply of unprocessed film tucked away in your head. It could be buried in your cerebral attic, or maybe you moved it to an overpriced grey matter storage facility.

I eventually found my box of film hidden in a mental shoe box. It smelled of my grandmother’s Italian cookies and was the color of the yellow dandelions that wildly grew in my parents’ yard.

Inside I found a treasure map pointing to bluer skies with air that smelled of coconuts. Your map could take you to a Himalayan mountaintop or a Bali yoga retreat. The only thing I’m sure is you have to reach inside to get out and dip back to go forward.

And moving forward, whether in flip-flops or four-inch heels, is a happier place to be.

***Happier Than A Billionaire: Picking a Town, Finding a Home, and Creating a Budget in Costa Rica is available at:

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Panama vs Costa Rica

By Nadine Hays Pisani| 2018-04-15T18:19:08-04:00 July 27th, 2017|Categories: Tourism, Uncategorized|Tags: cost of living, costa rica, Kay Pratt, panama, pursuit of panama, tourism|

Costa Rica Cost of Living Update: Bus Ticket from San Jose to Panama City — Under one hundred dollars

There has always been a debate on whether Panama or Costa Rica is a better choice for expats. People will hunker down with their opinions and list all the many ways one country is better than the other. You would think it’s the World Cup. No one has flipped any dumpsters yet, but these discussions get pretty heated.

“Bananas are cheaper in Panama,” someone yells.

“Yeah, but look at our beach towns and lifestyle. Ticos really know how to enjoy themselves!” another responds.

I just sit back, eat to my slightly more expensive banana, and stare into space. I have no dog in this fight. Unlike what many people think, it’s not my mission to convince anyone to move anyplace. Happier Than A Billionaire is about finding a happier life, and mine just so happened to take place in Costa Rica. If it occurred next to an oil drum in Bayonne, New Jersey I would have written that version of my story.

The truth is that becoming an expat has many variables. Success has more to do with your attitude than what particular country you are moving to. Learning a new language will be difficult, reinventing a new life is challenging, but the biggest obstacle is always going to be yourself. To assimilate into a new culture often means you have to experience things on the fly. And that means letting go of who you had previously defined yourself to be.

Take Kay Bratt; author of The Pursuit of Panama, a wildly successful writer who, with her husband, went through their own adventures in Panama. For two weeks, they explored the country wondering if moving abroad was the right decision for them. In her journey, Kay wrestles with her version of happiness. The question she set out to answer was whether or not Panama was going to be her happy place. She was inspired in part by reading my books and hopefully learned not to let her husband shove twelve thousand dollars into his underpants during their travels. Or hide any guns in a functioning fireplace.

We are all looking for that happy spot in life. It’s a moving target. A place that was once warm can grow cold. When that happens, it’s time to move on, and moving on could mean moving out, changing jobs, or even leaving old friends behind. This line of sight is never straight, and often means you have to bend in the wind in order to hit the bulls-eye.

People often ask me how I got the courage to leave my old life behind for a new one in Costa Rica. A foreign place, a foreign language, and with no guarantee it would work out. But there was this moment when I realized it was riskier not to do it than to take a chance. I knew if I didn’t break out of that stifling lifestyle, I would look back at the moment and have profound regret. I saw a beacon of light through a foggy time in my life, and its soft beam gave me hope.

I still follow that beacon even though there is little fog left in my life today. The skies are bright in Costa Rica, and the sunshine lightens up even the darkest corners. But at night I still see it. The beacon calls out for me, reminding me to keep dreaming, to keep being happy, and to keep remembering that life is in constant flux. Ebbing and flowing is always the best way to ride a wave, but you have to paddle out to sea before you can go with the flow.

So if someone chooses to debate me on whether Bocas del Toro has better snorkeling than Playa Conchal Costa Rica, which it does, or if they have more volcanoes to hike, which they don’t, I’ll just rock in my hammock and continue staring up at the powder blue sky. I’m not here to argue, or convince anyone that their ideas are wrong. There is room enough for everyone on this journey, and I’m still bending in the wind on mine.

If you are thinking about a move to Panama, or even just dreaming of what such a change might be like, you can find Kay’s latest book, The Pursuit of Panama, here on Amazon. I’m sure you will be inspired by Kay as well. http://amzn.to/2w2Qd0L

And while I’m not here to convince you to move to Costa Rica, if you would like to come along with me on my hilarious journey please read Happier Than A Billionaire and The Sequel. If you are inspired to join me in Costa Rica, you may also enjoy my guide to living here with everything I’ve learned over the past nine years, The Costa Rica Escape Manual . http://amzn.to/2eQeO5g

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5 Differences Between Expat vs Tourist Living in Costa Rica

By Nadine Hays Pisani| 2018-04-15T18:19:16-04:00 June 27th, 2015|Categories: Cost of Living, Tourism|Tags: cost of living, local, prices, scooter, soda, tourist|

Costa Rica Cost of Living Update: A six-foot yellow coconut tree—$12

I’m often asked for advice on how to travel like a local as opposed to a tourist. (It’s as if the word “tourist” is a vulgarity, one which summons up images of guys wearing sandals with socks or rocking undersized Speedos on the beach). I’m always eager to help but this is a tough question.

The answer is not cut and dry since it all depends on how long you’ll be here and what areas of the country you’ll be visiting. If you are only visiting for two weeks, it may be more difficult to accomplish the goal of living like a local. But if you are settling in for 6 months or more, you begin to understand the ins and outs of living in the areas you will be visiting. (more…)

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Get Me Out-a-Here Syndrome

Costa Rica Costa of Living Udate: COVID-19 Test—$120

Picking a Town, Finding a Home, & Creating a Budget in Costa Rica

Costa Rica Cost of Living Update: Picking a Town, Finding a Home, and Creating a Budget in Costa Rica —Kindle $9.99, Paperback $15.99

Panama vs Costa Rica

Costa Rica Cost of Living Update: Bus Ticket from San Jose to Panama City — Under one hundred dollars

5 Differences Between Expat vs Tourist Living in Costa Rica

Costa Rica Cost of Living Update: A six-foot yellow coconut tree—$12

Join us in Costa Rica