# Planning a move to Portugal, have several questions



## MisterPanda (Aug 4, 2013)

Dear forum members,

I am planning to move to Portugal with my wife next year and, of course, we are both excited and scared and I was wondering if you could maybe answer a couple of questions to put my mind at ease 

First, I am a French national with a Portuguese father so I do know Portugal a bit (mostly Lisbon and Central Portugal). I have a basic command of Portuguese (I understand it but speak it very awkwardly). However relations with my father are a bit tense so he is not able/willing to help me as much as I'd like. My wife is a Chinese national with no knowledge whatsoever of the Portuguese language (but eager to learn).

I am a professional magician and also have a company producing magic tricks and selling them worldwide and am planning to move the company to Portugal and conduct business from there with the help of my wife.

Now, on to the questions !

1. We are planning to move to the Setubal Peninsula. The reason is it is close to Lisbon (Shanghai has 23 million inhabitants, I do not want my wife to get too big a cultural shock) and I am hoping that maybe there will be some shows for me available in the city. However, I do realize Algarve may be a good place to live in if I want to get entertainment gigs. What are your thoughts on the matter, which area is most expensive to live in (Algarveor Setubal Peninsula ?)

2. My wife is considering offering Mandarin lessons. Is that viable or is there already too many offers ? Can this be done at home ?

3. I am also thinking of setting up a magic shop online dealing mostly with the rest of Europe (magic is not very developed in Portugal at the moment). If I were to buy a house with a garage, would it be legal for me to turn the garage into a showroom and receive customers ?

4. We are looking for a 150 square meters house with a garden (does not need to be gigantic but at least 100sqm). Our budget is 100,000 euros and the house need to be livable (just minor work like painting or tapestries). Is that doable ?

5. How much money monthly do we need to make to live properly (most of meals at home, the occasional night out, nothing too fancy but we do not want to be counting pennies either), considering we will not have to pay rent and are two people at the moment but willing to add a third one when time is right  ?

6. We would be very grateful if you could make a list of expenses such as car insurance, house insurance, etc...

7. If you have any other advice, they would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for reading this long post, we will appreciate all replies.

Regards,


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