Picture this: you wake up to $7 in eBook royalties, enough to buy breakfast for two at a local cafe. Later, $5 in YouTube ad revenue comes in, paying for a high-protein, home-cooked dinner. As the day ends, a $15 dividend hits your brokerage account. Rent is now covered.

For $1,000 per month, you could live a fairly comfortable lifestyle in Paraguay. This is especially true in almost any town outside Asuncion.

Paraguay gets a lot of hype online, so I wanted to share what living in this somewhat obscure country is actually like. And, I'll also explain why I wouldn’t move there, even if my goal were to save money.

If you enjoy reading about travel, business, or food, this special report is for you.

Let’s kick things off with the two main reasons expats flock to Paraguay: a low cost of living and an extremely low tax rate.

While Airbnb prices are often ridiculously inflated, a typical apartment in Paraguay rents for $300–$500 per month. Even on Airbnb, which mostly consists of listings from expats subleasing units at significant markups, you can still find hundreds of apartments priced at $500 per month or less.

Paraguay’s biggest savings advantage, however, comes from food.

The country produces roughly nine times more food than it consumes, which keeps prices low. At most supermarkets, you can find $1 steaks or buy an entire day’s worth of groceries for less than $5.

Restaurants are also surprisingly affordable. I’m a pancake guy, and here’s a pancake and iced coffee combo I ordered for breakfast in Ciudad del Este. Total cost: $3.

In one of Paraguay’s smaller towns, I had this pancake breakfast, plus a coffee and orange juice, for $2.45.

And at the local “Supermercado Stock,” I routinely bought a day’s worth of groceries for less than $5. Eggs, cheese, bread, ground beef, limes, and juice. All for the price of a Starbucks latte.

Even one of the nicest steakhouses in Asuncion costs about $18 per person, assuming you aren’t ordering wine or cocktails.

If you cooked most of your meals at home, you could live a decently comfortable — albeit boring — life for under $1,000 per month. During my time in Paraguay, I noticed this was the primary draw for many expats.

The other major draw is Paraguay’s low tax rate.

The country has a flat 10% tax, and only Paraguayan-source income is taxable. Foreign income is exempt. As a result, many remote workers, especially Europeans, and people running online businesses move to Paraguay to reduce their tax burden.

Paraguay is cheap for a reason. It’s boring, the infrastructure is poor, and the weather swings between unbearably hot and freezing cold.

Much of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city, looks like hundreds of small towns all spaced one or two acres apart from each other. You’ll have an empty field and then a tiny pocket of buildings where 200 or so people live.

Paraguay is also a landlocked country where much of the population work on farms. Even its cities often feel empty. For example, here’s what the beaches in Ciudad del Este looked like on a Friday afternoon.

When it comes to infrastructure, the power goes out regularly, streets flood, and many buildings simply look rundown.

This is the rooftop view from the Palmaroga Hilton in Asuncion.

Here’s downtown Asuncion on a Sunday afternoon.

I know Sundays are quiet in certain parts of Latin America, but this picture was taken on the main block of the country’s largest city.

Personally, I despise lackadaisical places where nothing ever happens.

There isn’t anything inspiring or motivating in these locations, and it is very easy to fall into the trap of doing just well enough to coast on minimal effort.

That said, there is one reason I would visit Paraguay.

Paraguay gets a lot of hype online because of the country’s lack of foreign income tax. If you work remotely and are from a high-tax country, getting a Paraguayan residency could be a huge savings. These residency permits are relatively easy to get and fairly inexpensive. In addition to the tax savings, a Paraguayan residency also gives you visa-free MERCOSUR access to neighboring Brazil and Argentina.

So if you’re already an expat, or planning to spend extended time in South America, it may be smart to apply for Paraguayan residency.

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Disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice, always do your own research.