Coming out of Harvard, moving to New York City, and living the fly fabulous life of a millennial consultant gave me an interesting relationship with money. I had a lot of it, I spent a lot of it, and I honestly wasted a lot of it. Well, I probably shouldn’t be surprised that joining the Peace Corps has put my life into rather harsh perspective,* but in many unexpected ways.

See, when many people think of joining the Peace Corps, they think about living in huts, eating food they don’t know, and some sort of stereotype of living in abject poverty and hunger. But, the thing is, I don’t live in a hut. I like my food. I’m not uncomfortable here. I’m not unhappy. I live a comfortable, rewarding, and happy life here in a lower-middle income country. Seriously. And I don’t spend a lot of money at all.

In America, I wouldn’t blink at grabbing a coffee and a bagel on the way into work (about $5). Here in Kyrgyzstan, $5 can pay for almost a week of food (it’s about 380 soms). Five dollars doesn’t sound like a lot, until you realize that it’s worth a LOT more elsewhere. Once you start getting paid in local currency (which has also slid 30% since we got here), you gain a different perspective on how it all works.

I now make a salary of less than $200 per month. That doesn’t sound like a lot at all when you phrase it in dollars. In my old life, $200 sometimes didn’t even cover the per-person cost of a dinner. A New York subway pass costs $112 per month. I have friends who drop $200 on an Amtrak ticket every weekend. $200 is only half the entry fee of the Boston Marathon. And, don’t forget that $200 barely covers a single person’s share of the winter utilities in the average New York apartment. $200 didn’t even cover half of my old health insurance premium…and I was only 23 then.

Here in Osh, even living in the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan, I’m hard pressed to spend more than about $60 per month on the combination of food, snacks, transportation, and the very rare beer. I don’t exceed $60 for housing, utilities, and dinner at home with my family every night. Considering that’s just about all my essential expenses, it’s pretty crazy to think that I spend less than the average American phone bill on that.

Now, let’s play around with some perspective on my annual income, $2400 per year. I have friends whose rent alone is $2400 per MONTH. I’ve taken trips where the airfare alone was $2400. $2400 pays for one month of some prescription medications in the US (and one dose of some others).  $2400 is about a week in a hotel in New York.

The average Kyrgyz person living in Osh makes less money than I do, if you can believe it. So, these numbers can be used to compare the average person living here with some major cost expenditures that such a person might face in the US.

Take college tuition. Let’s say that in-state tuition is about $10,000 per year in the US at Springfield State University. That would take the average Kyrgyz person 4 years of saving EVERY LAST PENNY to pay for one year of college. If someone were going to a private university in the US, without financial aid, it would take them a whopping 83 years of work at the average local salary to be able to save the $200,000 that a private degree in America used to cost when I was in college. Keep in mind, too, that every Kyrgyz family has at least two children, and often closer to four or five – over 99% of families here have more than one child in my experience.

Now, for another very real example that I think about a lot. Hepatitis C medication in the US can cost up to $80,000 for a single course of treatment, a cost so prohibitive that many people even in America choose to let themselves die 8-12 years early in order to not go bankrupt many times over. Now, the same medication maybe costs less than half as much here, or so I am told. But, even then, on the average Osh resident income, it would take someone 16 years to make enough money to cure themselves of Hepatitis C without financial assistance. And, that’s without housing, utilities, or food expenses. If you factor in that half of that income goes to those (in reality, probably more does), then someone might spend three decades paying off the medication that improves their life expectancy by only about 8-12 years.  It literally does not make financial sense for a person to seek out Hepatitis C treatment here, even though it’s available.

So, I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that the reality of money is now in sharp relief to me. I make a point to walk many places in order to save myself from paying 13 cents bus fare. I’m switching from coffee to tea to save 15 cents a day (or at least, I tell myself that I am).  And I definitely feel pangs of guilt if I eat an extravagant dinner out in Bishkek that costs a measurable percentage of my monthly income.

But, I’m not complaining in the slightest.  Despite now being acutely aware of the extravagance of my former life, I still live a comfortable and happy life.  I can enjoy a coffee or a pizza with my friends when I feel like it, or splurge on a sushi lunch special when I really want to.  I’ve now got my 4G LTE internet, and a 30 minute call to the US costs less than a dollar over the phone lines.  In short, with a little work and flexibility, you can build a very comfortable life here in what is definitely one of the warmest, most welcoming places I’ve ever had the privilege to visit and live in.  It just costs a whole lot less than life in the US.

*bonus points if you get which movie I’m referencing here. Hint: it’s seasonal.