When we sold our house in Colorado Springs, the real estate agent said to us, "I'm not going to tell them that you're moving to Italy, because then they'll think you're rich and they won't want to pay what the house is worth."

The question of social class has come up again recently, but it has been around since the beginning of this adventure. So I thought it might be time again to talk about that most taboo of subjects: money.

There are many ways in which I am incredibly rich: I love my husband and he loves me, I love my children and they love me back. I can read -- something that has given me uncountable hours of deepest joy during my life and that so many monsters in the world try to take away from oppressed people, especially women and girls. Tonight I will sit down to a homecooked dinner that is both healthy and delicious. I have clean water -- both hot and cold, as much as I want. When I am sick, I can go to the doctor. When I am lonely, I can go to the pub. The sunset last night was another breathtaking sky. I am rich beyond riches.

But as far as actual money goes -- well, that's a different story.

Q: So how do we live like we are rich?

A: Social democracy.

Here is a cost-of-living breakdown for our life here. It is probably TMI, but what the hell.

TAXES

We pay about the same amount here as we did in the US. The Italian government just spends it differently. For example:

OUR MEDICAL EXPENDITURES

Health insurance: $0

Doctor visits: $0

Medicine: $0

Hospital stays: $0

The quality of care is as high or higher than in the US. Wait times are shorter. There are also private providers if you want to go that way, but because they are in competition with the free system, prices are very low. There are no health insurance companies around to deny you any care that your doctor says you need. This is socialized medicine.

FOOD

Above is a picture of the things we bought at the greengrocer on Thursday. Total cost about 12 dollars. All fresh, local, and seasonal. The eggs are organic and free range. If you want out-of-season produce, it can be hard to find. But we like eating seasonally -- the arrival of the first artichokes, the first figs, the first asparagus, whatever the season is offering up, is always exciting.

Jonathan bakes most of our bread. We get our flour from the local mill where it is stone-ground by our friends. It costs the equivalent of 71 cents a pound for the flour. Jonathan's going rate for consulting is around $150 dollars a hour, so this is either the most expensive bread in the world or the cheapest, depending on how you look at it.

For lunch at the pub, you get a first course, a second course, bread, water, a quarter litre of wine (about two glasses), and coffee for 15 euros. This is because the Italian government subsidizes these institutions because they are important gathering places for the community. That keeps the costs down.

It's more expensive for dinner. Here is a random dinner menu (it changes every day) and the drinks menu further below. Please note the 3 euro glass of wine and the espresso for 1.20 euro. Also take a look at Daniele's award-winning tordelli al ragu for 12 euros a plate. The most expensive thing is the homemade seafood sausage at 18 euros a plate.

TRANSPORTATION

Jonathan takes the train back and forth to Pisa for school. His monthly pass costs 77 euros for unlimited rides. A regular one-way ticket costs 5 euros.

We do walk a lot because everything is so walkable. But when we drive, the parking lot in Pietrasanta costs 1 euro for an hour. We have a used 2022 Fiat Panda that we bought for about 8000 euros. It uses GPL gas. Below is a picture of the pump when we filled up the tank yesterday. You have to convert litres to gallons and euros to dollars, but it comes out to about $3.65/gallon. And this is yesterday, after Trump stupidly made gas prices go up all over the world.

HOUSING

We rent this house for 1250 euros a month. It has seven rooms, plus two bathrooms, a terrace, an enclosed garden, a wood-burning fireplace, all mod cons (except no A/C and no dryer), and an incredible sea view. We have free parking on the street. The internet costs 80 euros a year. A. Year. We don't have cable or a TV or any streaming services. No landline -- our cell phones cost about 10 dollars a month. Our utilities are about the same as they were in the US when we left four years ago. Trash pick-up is a city service that is included in our taxes.

OTHER

What else do we spend money on? Jonathan's law school tuition is about 750 euros a semester. It is tax deductible. My weekly Italian lessons (private, one-on-one) are 30 euros an hour. Also tax deductible because the Italian government thinks that having an educated populace is a good thing and worth supporting. Books cost the same as anywhere else, but textbooks are much, much cheaper. A ticket to the opera during the Puccini Festival runs about 40 bucks -- we go once or twice a summer. The choral concerts up here in the hills are always free. Our biggest expense is probably our membership to our beach club which costs us 350 euros for June and 600 euros for July. It would be more in August, but we don't go then.

It cost us about $30,000 to move all of our household possessions -- books, clothes, furniture, rugs, dishes, wall art, sheets and towels, children's toys, cookware, art supplies, old photos, tchotchkes, rakes and shovels, boxes of random useless computer cables, etc. etc. -- from Colorado to here. As a consequence, we haven't bought many of those things.

So that's what it costs us to live here. We walk places, eat seasonally, entertain ourselves with reading or baking bread or looking at the sea. It's a very quiet life, but like I said at first, I am rich beyond riches.