Sosua Reports

[QUOTE=SubCmdr;1889303]
1000 pesos a month will feed one kid. That's right! I said 1000 pesos feeds one kid for a month. And you paying the chicas 1000 to 1500 pesos a fuck? You are helping feed her kids? Only if you are her first fuck of the month? [/QUOTE]I would like to know how you calculated this and what nutritional standards you consider to be reasonable.

I agree that rice is pretty cheap and older children can drink water, not juices or sodas, and fresh fruit is fairly cheap in the DR, but you say you can feed a child (age unspecified) for 1000 pesos a month, but one glass of milk daily or a small carton of chocolate milk would use up more than half of this budget of about US $0. 75 per day regardless of whether you buy ready made or the powders like Nido or Alpha plus that have added vitamins and minerals formulated for children. School lunches in the DR cost 100 pesos or more daily, so that alone could be 2000 pesos per month. [url=http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord131][CodeWord131][/url] are 15 pesos each if bought singly and a bit cheaper if bought in larger packs, but 2 or 3 per day would meet your 1000 pesos. How about health insurance and the cost of medications? A bottle of pediatric Augmentin is how much? I think about 400 pesos. A bottle of cough medicine? A copayment at the pediatrician office? And then there is the cost of childrens clothing, school uniforms, shoes, back-to-school supplies, and so on. Transportation to school in a guagua will run about 2000 pesos a month and not much cheaper using motoconchos. And then women may have to pay caregivers to mind the children while they work if they don't have mothers doing this.

[QUOTE=Frannie;1889543]I would like to know how you calculated this and what nutritional standards you consider to be reasonable.

I agree that rice is pretty cheap and older children can drink water, not juices or sodas, and fresh fruit is fairly cheap in the DR, but you say you can feed a child (age unspecified) for 1000 pesos a month, but one glass of milk daily or a small carton of chocolate milk would use up more than half of this budget of about US $0. 75 per day regardless of whether you buy ready made or the powders like Nido or Alpha plus that have added vitamins and minerals formulated for children. School lunches in the DR cost 100 pesos or more daily, so that alone could be 2000 pesos per month. are 15 pesos each if bought singly and a bit cheaper if bought in larger packs, but 2 or 3 per day would meet your 1000 pesos. How about health insurance and the cost of medications? A bottle of pediatric Augmentin is how much? I think about 400 pesos. A bottle of cough medicine? A copayment at the pediatrician office? And then there is the cost of childrens clothing, school uniforms, shoes, back-to-school supplies, and so on. Transportation to school in a guagua will run about 2000 pesos a month and not much cheaper using motoconchos. And then women may have to pay caregivers to mind the children while they work if they don't have mothers doing this.[/QUOTE]I agree 100%. I lived with a girl and her child last year in Puerto Plata and there was no way I could feed him on 1000 pesos a month, not even close.

[QUOTE=Manizales911;1889565]I agree 100%. I lived with a girl and her child last year in Puerto Plata and there was no way I could feed him on 1000 pesos a month, not even close.[/QUOTE]And if the child is an infant not yet toilet-trained, add at least 2000 pesos a month for Pampers and wipes. At La Sirena, they sell that stuff on par to the US, if not more.

Edit: Frannie mentioned this already actually. I called them Pampers and it was fine but he used dyapers and the word was banned.

[QUOTE=Manizales911;1889565]I agree 100%. I lived with a girl and her child last year in Puerto Plata and there was no way I could feed him on 1000 pesos a month, not even close.[/QUOTE]I live in Puerto Plata with my partner, her 7-year-old, and her (now) 16 month-old infant. I keep meticulous and detailed records of household spending and I can report that for his first 16 months we have spent just over 3000 pesos per month on him. A lot of his clothes are gifts or hand-me-downs from his elder brother and his mother makes good use of the free hospital services. His food does not cost much as he is just now being weaned. Most of the expense has been for routine medical checks and inoculations, medicines, pampers and accessories. Fortunately, he is very healthy and lives in a good environment. If, like many babies here, he lived somewhere damp, or dirty, or insect-infested, the medical bills might be a lot higher.

[QUOTE=CharlesPooter;1889585]I live in Puerto Plata with my partner, her 7-year-old, and her (now) 16 month-old infant.[/QUOTE]If what you three say is true, those that have a substantially longer and creditable experience, I take it there is an obnoxious and pompous contributor trying to preach his "reality". Banning him from the forum would not be such a bad idea, if nothing else, to avoid vile language for no good reason but for the sake of mouthing useless arguments and to display a spiteful temperament.

[QUOTE=CharlesPooter;1889585]I live in Puerto Plata with my partner, her 7-year-old, and her (now) 16 month-old infant. I keep meticulous and detailed records of household spending and I can report that for his first 16 months we have spent just over 3000 pesos per month on him. A lot of his clothes are gifts or hand-me-downs from his elder brother and his mother makes good use of the free hospital services. His food does not cost much as he is just now being weaned. Most of the expense has been for routine medical checks and inoculations, medicines, pampers and accessories. Fortunately, he is very healthy and lives in a good environment. If, like many babies here, he lived somewhere damp, or dirty, or insect-infested, the medical bills might be a lot higher.[/QUOTE]If the child is being breast fed, there will be no charges at point of service, but you need to account for the cost of nutrients consumed by the mother for breast milk inputs.

Also you might like to look at your records to determine the cost of ownership for a 7-year old. You will need to include expenses like crayons, the cost of cleaning graffiti from walls, ice cream, and papitas.

[QUOTE=Manizales911;1889565]I agree 100%. I lived with a girl and her child last year in Puerto Plata and there was no way I could feed him on 1000 pesos a month, not even close.[/QUOTE]Agreed. The notion of feeding a child for 1000 pesos a month is absurd.

Even surviving on (cooked) dry rice and beans, and water, if a kid eats more than once a day, (forget decent nutrition (vegetables, fruit) 1000RD /25 $US a month is not enough.

If you feed a kid like an Somali refugee you might scrape by.

When I do grocery shopping at La Sirena in Santiago (comparable to others in other cities) a couple of weeks worth of food, basics, runs about 7000 pesos ($155 US). Modest by US grocery standards, but illustrates that feeding a child for a month on 1000RD is nonsense.

VERY little in the DR is cheap by US standards, and when the peso devaluates (recall when it was around 30 or 35 to the dollar) the cost of everything rises. Wages do not.

[QUOTE=Tempoecorto;1889628]If what you three say is true, those that have a substantially longer and creditable experience, I take it there is an obnoxious and pompous contributor trying to preach his "reality". Banning him from the forum would not be such a bad idea, if nothing else, to avoid vile language for no good reason but for the sake of mouthing useless arguments and to display a spiteful temperament.[/QUOTE]Better yet just do like I do and ignore him. When you see someone who is bent on self destruction and lies, even after you have tried to help them, let them live in their fantasy world. It's best to stay out their way and elevate above them to keep the negative karma from coming your way. No one wants to deal with him (except the women that he over-pays) so he uses this board as an outlet to get attention that most people won't give him as they get to know him. Just ignoring him forces him to have to deal with himself and continue his misery.

[QUOTE=Tempoecorto;1889628]If what you three say is true, those that have a substantially longer and creditable experience, I take it there is an obnoxious and pompous contributor trying to preach his "reality". Banning him from the forum would not be such a bad idea, if nothing else, to avoid vile language for no good reason but for the sake of mouthing useless arguments and to display a spiteful temperament.[/QUOTE]Better yet just do like I do and ignore him. When you see someone who is bent on self destruction and lies, even after you have tried to help them, let them live in their fantasy world. It's best to stay out their way and elevate above them to keep the negative karma from coming your way. No one wants to deal with him (except the women that he over-pays) so he uses this board as an outlet to get attention that most people won't give him as they get to know him. Just ignoring him forces him to have to deal with himself and continue his misery.

[QUOTE=SubCmdr;1889764]In your reply, you jump all over the age spectrum in your estimate of costs and we both know they will differ dramatically depending on the specific age of the child. Since you desire to challenge my statement, I would like to see your age specific list of expenses for raising a child in the Dominican Republic at Dominican standards in pesos. Pick any age you would like. Give me your specific examples of how much it costs to feed your child or the child of someone you intimately know. Feel free to do this by PM if you don't want to reveal this private information in a public forum.

You have a valid point. You have pointed out that there are additional costs of raising a child (age unspecified) here in the Dominican Republic. But my post did not address those issues. I specifically addressed the costs of feeding a child. Here is what I wrote:[/QUOTE]When you are buying food for a family, it is almost impossible to quantify the exact amount of food bought for a single child at any specific age point, but you have claimed that a child can be fed for less than a dollar a day. I know of a child whose mother was paying around 2000 pesos per month for school lunches, so that is about 100 pesos per school day, so already double the amount that you state is the norm in the DR. The exact amount varied depending on exactly what she ate. It was no cheaper to pack lunches or snacks for the child to take to school.

But a small ice cream cone is about 30 pesos, a quart carton of milk is about 42 pesos, a small bottle of cold water is 10 pesos, a can of beans is 40 pesos, so how can you feed a child on about 33 pesos a day, which is what you say?

Since you have this certain knowledge that it only costs 1000 pesos per month to feed a child in the DR, I am sure there are lots of readers and lost of families who would like to know how this is done. If you can feed a child on 75 cents a day in the DR, you can probably do it on 50 cents per day in the US.

I realize you said this is just for food, and does not include other expenses of raising children, but I think that when girls say they need money to feed their children, they are just simplifying the whole story a bit to avoid going into details. If the chica's mother is taking care of the children, the chica is probably sending her money out of which the grandmother will also feed herself, buy [url=http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord131][CodeWord131][/url], milk formula, and other things the child needs. When a chica says she needs money for food for her children, that is not a promise to spend any funds received on absolutely nothing but nutrition for the child (ren).

Anyway, you have made this claim that a child in the DR can be fed on 1000 pesos a month, which is less than a dollar a day. Now please explain what this will buy for the child, so that we know you are not just bullshitting. You are the person on the ground who has this superior knowledge that we do not have. I, on the other hand have lived in the DR for more than 2 years (though I am not there now) and fed two children at various ages and do not see how one could feed a child on 1000 pesos per month even if you eliminated all luxuries and treats and minimized portions of proteins like chicken, fish, and eggs and fed the child mainly on rice and beans.

Share your knowledge with us, if you have any.

That guy won't respond because he was just talking out of his ass as usual. I wouldn't be surprised if he saw one of those commercials on TV (he never leaves his apartment) where they trick you into sending money to help feed the homeless kids. Two years living in SD and didn't know where Boca Chica was but claims to know everything Dominican. Apartment that leaks every time it rains. A big ass expensive gas guzzler to drive two blocks and back. Claims to be a photographer but most of his pictures are out of focus. Creates a forum about being a sugar daddy full time and deletes anyone who doesn't praise him. Frannie keeps exposing him as a fool and he still hasn't caught on. Never have a seen a 50+ guy so out of touch with reality. We had a great trip when he humbled himself and took it all in but as soon as he got back he was back to that weird guy.

[QUOTE=CharlesPooter;1889585]I live in Puerto Plata with my partner, her 7-year-old, and her (now) 16 month-old infant. I keep meticulous and detailed records of household spending and I can report that for his first 16 months we have spent just over 3000 pesos per month on him. A lot of his clothes are gifts or hand-me-downs from his elder brother and his mother makes good use of the free hospital services. His food does not cost much as he is just now being weaned. Most of the expense has been for routine medical checks and inoculations, medicines, pampers and accessories. Fortunately, he is very healthy and lives in a good environment. If, like many babies here, he lived somewhere damp, or dirty, or insect-infested, the medical bills might be a lot higher.[/QUOTE]So you will know very soon how expensive formula is, kids drink that stuff like it's going out of style.

[QUOTE=MrGogo;1889851]Better yet just do like I do and ignore him. When you see someone who is bent on self destruction and lies, even after you have tried to help them, let them live in their fantasy world. It's best to stay out their way and elevate above them to keep the negative karma from coming your way. No one wants to deal with him (except the women that he over-pays) so he uses this board as an outlet to get attention that most people won't give him as they get to know him. Just ignoring him forces him to have to deal with himself and continue his misery.[/QUOTE]Okay I'm lost did I miss something.

[QUOTE=MrGogo;1889894]That guy won't respond because he was just talking out of his ass as usual. I wouldn't be surprised if he saw one of those commercials on TV (he never leaves his apartment) where they trick you into sending money to help feed the homeless kids. Two years living in SD and didn't know where Boca Chica was but claims to know everything Dominican. Apartment that leaks every time it rains. A big ass expensive gas guzzler to drive two blocks and back. Claims to be a photographer but most of his pictures are out of focus. Creates a forum about being a sugar daddy full time and deletes anyone who doesn't praise him. Frannie keeps exposing him as a fool and he still hasn't caught on. Never have a seen a 50+ guy so out of touch with reality. We had a great trip when he humbled himself and took it all in but as soon as he got back he was back to that weird guy.[/QUOTE]Ugh yeah somebody on that yak.

Fellas quick question. It's been about four yrs since my last trip to Sosua, can't travel for fun any longer. Friend of mine is making his first trip on Thursday June 23. We booked our flights, Jetblue has added late night route from JFK to POP for the summer. Only issue is we arrive at POP at 2 am.

Hotel (New Garden) will charge us for a whole day even though we may not get to hotel until 3 am. Would rather pay for a nutm.

Can anyone recommend a Cabana or hotel in Sosua that does short stays. I know about the spot behind Bar Central I was looking for something a little of the strip.

Trip report to follow.