8 Ways to Get Your Holiday Goodies into Costa Rica Easily or Safely

My post about how to receive packages in Costa Rica while avoiding having them snagged by Customs, which requires a trip to San José and a couple hours of bureacratic SNAFU to retrieve said package, continues to be one of my more popular articles.

Still, I often get asked the question: "Just how do you get stuff shipped into Costa Rica?"

Attack of the Drones - CC-SA-3.0

Unfortunately, Amazon drone delivery does not seem to be on the horizon anytime soon.

So, to supplement the original article, here is a list (probably incomplete) on the various methods that I've either used or have learned second-hand from others who have found them to be successful.

Squeezing Colossal Returns from Your Retirement Kitty in Costa Rica

Update: It has been almost a year since we opened our Costa Rica CDs. After nearly perfect stability in the U$D exchange rate for a couple of years, the Costa Rica Colon depreciated this year about 3%. Given that our CDs average approx. 11% return, we are still 8% ahead this year and expect to renew the shorter term certificates. 

Our confidence has also been increased in CoopeNae after a recent meeting for investors that we attended (or maybe it was the delicious shrimp, shishkebab and Argentinian wine served afterwards? :) ). For example, they have the highest growth rate among credit unions here and better liquidity than the national banks!

===== Original article =====
I've been aware of the enormous interest rates on savings in Costa Rica since we moved here, but until recently was unable to take full advantage of them because spare cash was tied up in other things and, I must admit, the big returns made me gun shy. I mean, there has to be a catch right? Yes, there is a catch, but looking back over our 7 years residing here, with the absolute clarity that 20-20 hindsight provides, I wish we'd taken the plunge sooner.

Typical CD Rates in Costa Rica for Colones Deposits

As you can see from the chart at the right, phenomenal rates can be had on Certificates of Deposit denominated in Colones. Rates for U$D deposits are dramatically less, but much higher than in the U.S., up to 3.5%.

For deposit amounts in five figures or higher, you can actually negotiate slightly higher rates as well. We were able to get 12% with a quarterly payout of interest on one CD.

The highest rates are not universal. These quoted at the right are from a local credit union. Bank CDs yield 2 or 3 points lower and National Banks even lower. The latter provide something like the FDIC insurance coverage enjoyed in the States however.

Which brings us to why you might not want to invest in such CDs:

Which Lifestyle Would Cost Our Family Less - Oregon or Costa Rica? - Part 2: Non-Tax Expenses

Comparing Non-Tax Expenses

In this part, I include estimates of monthly costs for food, medical, vehicles, utilities and housing. Part 1, about tax costs, is here.

Food Prices

Comparing food prices between Costa Rica and the U.S. is a complex business. Most expats experience sticker shock in part due to the included 13% sales tax and the fact that so much food in Costa Rica is imported. Want a box of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios? That’ll be about six bucks please. Can you get by with 1-minute oatmeal? Good, because that’s only about 75 cents for a 200g bag. If you look at food here in a 1-for-1 comparison to U.S. products, Costa Rica loses.

 

Costa Rica Farmer's Cheese, available everywhere

Dairy products are about the same or higher than in the U.S. because producers are protected by steep tariffs on imported milk, etc. from, say, Nicaragua. About the best you can do by weight is local farmer cheese at $2.15/lb. but it’s only aged 30 days. We found one store with what we consider a smoking deal on run-of-the-mill sharp cheddar at $6/lb. Many other cheeses are 50-100% more, especially artisan cheese.

Judging by a flyer from our once-local Fred Meyer store in Oregon, I’d say meat prices are on a par in each country, but canned tuna here is out of sight. You have never seen more ways to can tuna than in Costa Rica. They mix it with almost anything to reduce the actual fish content and lower the price.

Costa Rica Graft for Which Every One of Us Pays

Reading a news article regarding the failure of Ukraine's new president, Poroshenko, in addressing the high rate of business and political corruption in that country led me to some statistics regarding the apparent level of graft in Costa Rica.

Everyone presumes it happens but are surprised when perpetrators are nabbed

The news there is not good, though Costa Rica citizens might take comfort that surveys show their neighbors, relatively speaking, to be swimming in graft whereas Costa Rica citizens require only hip boots to keep the stink off of them. Here, bribery is referred to as "la mordida" or the bite.

Costa Rica Cedula Renewal the Second Time Around - A Pleasant Surprise

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Sometime around the end of 2013, I started to faintly hear a giant sucking sound, which I soon identified as an impending residency cedula renewal event fast approaching. 

That giant sucking sound of cedula renewal

If you've followed this blog for long, you may recall that we had completed our first renewal the middle of last summer, which makes it appear that Dec. should have been way too early to fret about renewal again. For all the bloody details, read about that first renewal, but the takeaway was that it consumed far more time than it should have, turned out all-right in the end, but left us a short window to the next renewal.

The Very First Time Through the Maze

In hindsight, our first renewal difficulty was rooted in our out-of-the-mainstream initial residency application and the procedural swamp that characterized Costa Rica's immigration process back in 2008.

The 2014 Huelga - Teachers Strike Enters 3rd 4th Week in Costa Rica

Update: June 2: The strike is all but over now. This afternoon the unions accepted an accord that apparently came from the government, but was delivered by the Catholic Church. The Education Ministry (MEP) will continue the provisional pay system until the permanent payroll systems is repaired.

As part of the agreement, the teachers maintained their regular vacation schedule, which means the schools can't use the usual two-week vacation in July to make up for the 4+ weeks that classes were canceled.

The week long Easter school break came later than usual this year, April 13th through the 20th. It's a nice break for us secularists near enough to the first trimester exams that Sean can do a little prep in between playing video games. However, exams never quite got going upon his return. Within two weeks, starting May 5th, all of Costa Rica's public school teachers went on strike and we are entering the 3rd week of no school now.

Teachers demonstrating in San José

Costa Rica is no stranger to strikes, especially by public employees, but this one has been the biggest one in the six years we've been here and is having a wide reaching effect.

New Immigration System In Costa Rica Is Gummed Up

I'm sure it's not a surprise to anyone that trying to implement new governmental procedures and mechanisms never quite goes smoothly. Leave it to Costa Rica, however, to make sure that the works get gummed up before you even start. They have implemented some new rules for residency recently and introduced a new system, available in select branches of Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) and some post office branches. I already described our experience at the Curridibat P.O. that went about as smoothly as one could rightfully expect. Except ...

Our cedulas were to be delivered on September 24th, over a month since our appointment in Curridibat. The first time we got our cedulas they were in our hot little hands just two days after our appointment. So, we went to our local P.O. on Monday hoping to finally have our new cards. 

Our First Costa Rican Residency Renewal – Part 1/3

 Thursday, we had an appointment to renew our residency cards (cédulas) in San José. I told Tamara that I had a “bad feeling” about the trip and I think you'll soon agree that there was good cause for that.

Whenever you attempt a new procedure, especially involving bureaucrats and lawyers, you're confidence level can't be 100% that things will go as you hope. Furthermore, when the interaction involves the government of a third-world country and a non-native language, that goes double. There were a number of other factors contributing to my dismal prognostication as well.

First of these was that as of Thursday my own cédula had officially expired nine months previously. That's not quite right, because you do get a 90 day grace period to renew, but still I was well past the deadline. Sean's cédula and Tamara's had expired about 6 months and 3 months previously, respectively. The long time between expiration and Thursday's renewal appointment wasn't due to sloth on my part since I'd started the ball rolling in August of last year. Residency renewal is supposed to be an easier process than obtaining it in the first place, so I thought I was being conscientious in beginning the task a couple of months early. The only requirements for us were to:

• join Caja, Costa Rica's national health care system (see footnote)
• obtain good conduct reports from the national police
• re-certify my lifetime annuity income (in lieu of pension or SS)

One Gringo Family's Experience with Universal Health Care in Costa Rica

Logo of Costa Rica's Social Security

Everyone, Ticos and Gringos alike, love to kick the Caja, especially when it's down, which it is pretty much all the time. Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) is the Costa Rican government's universal health care system implemented after the 1948 civil war, which resulted in the abolition of the Costa Rican Army and the government refocusing its resources towards social programs.

No question about it, there is plenty to dislike about the system. In general, it's underfunded, understaffed, overcrowded, and slower than a sleeping sloth. Worse, the resources that it does have are scattered about the country unevenly. While in Cañas there is a state-of-the-art clinic, here in Pérez Zeledón the hospital is an awkward maze architecturally and in terms of process. The only thing holding up the building appears to be the umpteen layers of paint on the walls.

That said, the Caja does provide access to health care for millions here, health care that citizens could simply not afford otherwise. Monthly premiums are minuscule (update: were miniscule, now 13% of income for new residents) and cover literally everything, all clinic or hospital visits, doctor appointments, procedures, exams, surgery, and prescriptions. Though there are always horror stories, there seem to be an equal number of stories about folks who have accessed the system, gotten superb care, and walked away without a bill. Obviously, one's mileage can and does vary.

Do You Want The Good News Or The Bad News First?

If you already follow my personal Facebook page then you know the latest, that my wife, Tamara, had surgery yesterday to remove a tumor surrounding her left ovary. The surgery went great and the patient is doing fine, thank you all for your kind wishes for her speedy recovery. She should be going home today to rest. We still need to await the biopsy results, but everyone thinks it will prove to be benign.

I didn't write about this situation before because Tamara wanted me to keep a lid on it until it was over. It's been a hectic two months running around getting exams, more exams, more tests, and dealing with the Caja here (the government healthcare system). In the near future I'll be writing in detail about our intimate experience with the health care systems here, which I'm sure many of you are curious about. It's one thing to hear about it in the abstract, quite another to learn about a real-life experience. Suffice it to say, in this case we went private, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't use the Caja in the future.

Now, so that this post isn't a downer, here's something on the lighter side. On my other blog, Cloud Warmer, I have the same little, blue, floating Twitter Bird as on this blog. If it's driving you nuts, you now have an outlet for the annoyance. Someone over there mentioned in a comment that the bird is "creepy", so I put up a poll to decide its fate. That poll will likely decide the fate of its twin on this site. So, you can see just how important this is and you really should pay attention!

So, if you can't stand that little innocent-looking bird, vote Yes, if you like it, vote No, and if you don't care one way or the other, please vote, "Don't Care". It's high time that you expressed your deep apathy!

The Great Cañas Sinkhole

A couple of days ago I was perusing La Nación on-line and the lead story was about some hundimiento (pothole) in the General Cañas highway in the Central Valley. After 4 years here I am nearly completely de-sensitized to any tales about holes, wash-outs, slides, etc.  I glossed over the article and didn't give it another thought. Apparently, however, I underestimated the importance of this particular whacking great subsidence!

New License Plates

This article is short-term reference for the readers who live here in C.R., but for the rest of you it might also provide some insight into how the government operates (or doesn't) down here. If you've lived here a while you get used to the idea that when dealing with government agencies, things are rarely simple or logical, especially for new procedures. Pura vida! 

Starting in January the all-knowing CONAVI (e.g the dept. of transportation) decided that everyone needs new "secure" license plates for their vehicles. I actually think it's because they are running out of numbers, since the plates are numbered sequentially and only have six digits. Whatever the reason, we're all forced to change over to the new 3 letter/3 digit plates this year. If you lost your plates or they were somehow damaged, etc. then you're going to get the new style anyway. For most folks the real forcing function is your RTV (RiTeVe) annual vehicle inspection. When your month comes up (dictated by the last digit in your plate) RTV is not going to pass your car if it doesn't have the new style plates. This month is RTV month for my small pickup. 

Chinchilla Sagging Under the Weight of Scandals

La Presidenta of Costa Rica,  Laura Chinchilla, has been having some rough times the last several weeks. She belongs to the PLN (Partido Liberación Nacional) and they tried to push through a massive fiscal law in an attempt to improve Costa Rica's debt condition. They are already at junk bond status, so just about anything would be an improvement. Unfortunately, for her and the congress, the constitutional supreme court (colloquially known as Sala IV) threw the baby out with the bath water when they ruled (unanimously!) that proper procedures were not followed in how the law was put together and passed.