rent: 3500 $ per month (stand alone house, 2 bedroom, 2 bat)

Electricity: 400 $ per month

No cost of water (caught in tank with rainwater)

Food: 1500 $ per month

Transport: Bus 4$ to go 35 km distance, same for ferries

In Bermuda things are expensive partly because this is an island that is 1000 km from any other landmass. There is virtually no farming, there are no local industries apart from the diesel plant for our electricity. Everything needs to be imported and the retail sector can add 400% easily. Formally there is no sales tax and no income tax. There is a small 15% tax on salaries (NOT income).

Rents here are insanely high for what you get, which comes from the time where all was possible and good. After the USA recession, Bermuda is now struggling hard. This has to do mostly with the fact that most locals had some 10000 $ at their disposal through renting out property. Now, rents are going down and people have not adjusted their style of living or cannot cope with the loss of that income.

Because prices have always been high, nobody wants to lower them, even though now we actually have poor people in the country. Government debts is huge (over a billion) and tourism is down.