Living in the Past And How Much It Costs To Move

7:53 AM (of Thursday, March 18th 2021)

Today is Wednesday, March 17th 2021 and it's been another day where I haven't gotten much sleep. I haven't had anything over 7 hours of sleep the entire time I've been here. Last night there was a random very loud siren at around 2 or 3 AM, and it went on for over 10 minutes. I have no idea what it was, sounded like some emergency alarm for a training encampment that was just going on randomly at night. That woke me up.

All throughout the day I have to wear this winter jacket, long pants, and socks, because of mosquito bites. I've already written I probably have over 50 of them, and it itches. I've closed off all unfiltered windows now and hopefully they stop coming in and attacking me. Some of the mosquitoes are really smart, there was this one mosquito I had a lot of trouble with yesterday morning, where I would be on my computer on the floor, and every now and then it would just attack. It flies out too fast too for me to swat it, and literally the entire day it kept attacking and attacking and I couldn't get it no matter how hard i tried.

I mean there were a bunch of mosquito in the US and I could just do a slow motion swat and get them. Not this one. I seriously move my arms and hands as fast as lightning sometimes and it still gets away. I've tried standing up and just whacking my pillow all over in every direction I can, and it never got hit. I have no idea where it is now, but it hasn't attacked since.

It's really hot weather here and wearing thick clothing just makes me sweat all the time, but I have no choice. It's either that or I get more itchy mosquito bites.

Speaking of clothing, I have to handwash clothing and hang them. My dad tied up a bunch of knots on this rope, leaving these little holes where I could put in a hanger and hang clothing there. He said he had to do this in his childhood and was also a boy scout so he knew a bunch of knots. I'm an eagle scout myself, highest boy scout rank, and I don't remember how to do any of the knots I learned, just the names.

For dishes, I had to handwash them sometimes at home in the States too, but most of the time I didn't have to worry about it. Here I am responsible for everything. I haven't written the journal entry yet where my dad went back to the States because he would have to go back to work and was just with me temporarily, but yeah I am alone now and have been for a few days.

I was on my computer most of the day. Doing work too, I have to turn in work and stuff still though I didn't get anything completed today, I managed to get some work done. Getting back in that groove.

There's still no tables for me to sit down and work, I either just do it on the floor or I get up on my treadmill to work. But I only go on that treadmill for around 1-2 hours max, because I expend energy while using it. I sweat, I get tired, etc, while using that treadmill. My feet get sore after a while too. I can't walk forever. I hate sweating too, because I have to change clothing next, and then I have to hand wash that clothing later.

The reason I feel like I'm living in the past is how simple everything is. I have to do all the chores and everything by hand, and this temporary home has minimal amenities. There is no furniture here, I sleep on the floor. I can hear lots of birds outside, and dogs barking at any given time. I have to keep windows open because there is no A/C except in the room with the treadmill. Sleeping is not fun. I basically sleep on concrete, in the corner, on this tiny sleeping bag so I don't really have any room to move. Also there's barking at night, howling, and then I fear getting mosquito bites. So that's why it feels like the past.

Even though this is the most future date in my life, it doesn't feel that way. 2010 felt very futuristic too, even though that was 11 years ago. I think 2010 felt a lot more futuristic than today, just due to me living in my current situation.

What I do like though is living so simply in terms of food. I'm mainly eating this 16 bean mix from Goya and brown rice, so I'm getting a minimum of 17 different plants in a day. I put on some tomato sauce or tomato salsa, spaghetti sauce or whatever, and that's even more plants I'm getting in. Then I add some of the dry spices, and that's even more plant diversity. Sometimes I have bread and peanut butter and jelly too, since those also don't expire apparently, and I'm living pretty well. I've spent only like $100-$120 on all this, and it's enough food to literally last me months. Months! With beans and rice only accounting for like $60 - $80 of that amount and it will last the longest.

The other day I signed the condo sale contract, and paid the deposit of around $3500 or something. Then I have to do another down payment of $15,000 later. My rent for this apartment I'm staying at is $3200 for 3 months ($825 was deposit refundable after 3 months, with included electricity and Internet, water is another separate bill). This beats the hotel I stayed at while looking for a place to buy or rent which was like $1000 for 5-6 days. I've also bought a bunch of furniture, since I didn't pack any.

Anyway, overall, moving here will cost me around $35,000 just for the obvious things like rent, hotel, flight, down payment, furniture, uber rides, etc. Oh a car will probably cost me $10,000 too. I went about it in the most obvious, minimalist, way too. I stayed at the most affordable hotel nearest the capital while looking for properties to buy or rent, ate the cheapest foods at the hotel and never ate out except once of my dad's birthday (we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, nuts, fruits, etc, in the hotel room only). I chose the most affordable temporary apartment that also came with Internet, water, electricity, so I could move there right away and start living like normal on the first day.

Actually this apartment where I am staying at is quite the find. It's much cheaper than an Airbnb, much cheaper than a hotel, but it includes all the amenities I need. If I chose any other place, it would take weeks to get Internet, electricity, water, etc. There are no large apartment complexes here that I know of, like in the States, where it's super simple to get a one bedroom apartment with office management staff who help you out. Here you're dealing with landlords who majority only speak Spanish and rent out units or rooms in their homes. The guy who I'm renting from helped me out, told me what to do to get the water registered, and he registered electricity under his own name just to make it available on day 1.

I'm living on $10 a week of food, which is actually still like 2000 - 4000 calories a day for me, no joke. I'm not thin. I'm buying a $65,000 condo. This is cheaper than any property basically, that I can buy in the States. It's also cheaper than most condos here. I'm spending minimally, buying only what I need. Nothing luxurious at all. And yet my expenses are still that much! Wow! This is really expensive. The average person who will spend far more than me, will not be able to do this. It is not cheap to move at all.

Also I didn't buy a fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, none of that. I'm literally doing all my clothing by hand and hanging them out in the sun, I'm only eating non-refrigerated foods. And yet my expenses are in the tens of thousands. Whoa! Everything really adds up. No wonder most people are struggling financially. Thankfully though once all these expenses are done, and I'm fully moved in, I'll probably only have to deal with $500 a month in expenses total including mortgage, water, electricity, food, Internet. My parents will continue asking for $1000 a month in the States though, wtf.

Actually, technically, if I chose not to buy the condo, or if I chose to instead do a down payment of only like $4000 or something, then yeah it would be so much more affordable. I could actually could have just foregone buying the condo entirely. I could just live in this apartment for a year and only have $825 rent a month to deal with, no big $15,000 down payment. But then I would still have to buy all those electrical amenities fridge, washing machine, dryer, adding up to thousands too. The condo I'm buying comes with all that included. And after a year, $825 * 12 is around $10,000 anyway, so it would have been around $10,000 after a year of rent anyway, so I might as well just go for it now and just do $15,000.

I don't even know why I'm doing a $15,000 down payment. The banker told me it would be better or something. Something about it removing mortgage insurance. I don't even know. All I know is that it's going to reduce my monthly mortgage payment from like $400 a month to $230 a month or something and that's great, so screw it, let's go with that. Sounds like a good deal to me. Oh wait, there's also the $70 a month HOA fee, and property taxes, so it's not so simple as only $230 a month, that's only the mortgage.

So anyway, things are still going really well. I just love living minimally. I looked for some games to buy and play today, and at night I did some strength exercises. Push ups, goblet squats, planks, and crunches. I need to keep my calories under 2000 a day if I want to lose weight and drop to under 200 pounds, but I'm just eating so much. Oh shoot it's raining outside while I'm writing this and I left some clothing to hang.

Anyway I got a small amount of work done today, and overall it was a good day. My expenses have been a lot so far. In the past 2 weeks, I've spent more money than any other time in my entire life. It will be even more so once I do the $15,000 down payment. Hopefully these are the last major expenses like this I ever have in my entire life. Probably not though.