Priced Out of Paradise: How much residents spend to make money

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - A new CareerBuilder survey on the cost to go to work says workers said they spend on average of about $276 a month just to dress, get to work and pay for daycare, their pet, coffee and lunch.

CareerBuilder officials said 8 of the 3,030 survey participants were from Hawaii.

The online survey done by Harris Poll for CareerBuilder examined responses from private sector workers across all industries and within various sized companies, according to the survey press release. Among the results, the survey also broke down the costs that people said they spend to find and secure a new job.

But as with most things in Hawaii, the monthly cost to go to work is presumed to be much higher, so Hawaii News Now ran some unscientific numbers based on the survey categories to estimate what a higher mainland cost would look like for someone with a child and to compare that to some Hawaii estimated costs in similar areas.

Based on estimates, a worker with daycare costs of about $500 a month could actually be spending about a $950 just to go to work each month. That's about three times higher than the CareerBuilder survey suggests. Compare that to the potentially even higher Hawaii figures of $1,110 when factoring in the higher price of gas, food and daycare.

HNN Hawaii Cost to Go to Work 
(Monthly estimate)

Gas                               $120
Lunch / Snacks           $200
Daycare                       $640
Coffee.                         $100
Clothing/ Accessories    $50
_______________________________
Total                              $1,110         
Yearly                          $13,320

That's a dramatic difference of $834 a month compared to CareerBuilder's $276 monthly costs participants believed they spent. There's only a slightly higher difference of $160 if you compare it to our HNN higher mainland cost estimates.

HNN Cost to Go to Work
(Monthly mainland estimate)

Gas $100
Lunch: $200

Daycare: $500
Coffee: $100
Clothing/Accessories : $50

Total:     $950
Yearly $11,400

HNN Cost Differences Between Hawaii and Mainland

Monthly: $160
Yearly: $1,920

In all, CareerBuilder officials said the survey was done in an effort to give workers a sense of areas they could save money.

Of the respondents the survey also found:

Commute: 84% commute by driving with 63% spending less than $25 on gas per week. Just 7% use public transportation with half of those individuals spending more than $25 a week on fares.

Lunch: 72% brought their lunch compared to those who ate out. Half of the diners said they spend  $25 or more a week on lunch out.

Daycare: 29% of respondents paid for daycare while at work. 32% said the spend between $250 to $499. 31% paid less than $250, with 26% paying $500 to $1,000 and 10% more than $1,000.

Coffee: 49% buy coffee during the work week with 71% spending less than $10.

For more survey results click here.

Copyright 2016 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.