# Help The Aged!!



## SimonJohnJones (Feb 7, 2016)

Hello,
I have retired and have just exchanged contracts on a property in Caldas da Rainha 
With completion in early June.
Slight panic as the £ falls and Brexit vote cometh---- but timing was never my strongest virtue!
Nevertheless ,looking forward to anew life and challenge.

Can any one help me with a few specific questions? 

How easy /difficult is it to sort out telephone, Internet,TV etc and rough cost.

Most houses have wood burning fires with some sort of system that is meant to spread the warmth .the house I am buying has it. Anyone any views on heating in that region which can get cold in winter months

Can you buy in to the Portuguese Health Service?
Finally, if you had to give only one piece of advice about living in Portugal, what would it be?
Thanks in advance. Hope to meet some of you when I arrive.


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## SpiggyTopes (Feb 1, 2015)

I'll have ago at this!

Internet ... read a recent post about this. We have MEO fibre 300Mb/s and TV (awful selection of channels) for E 33 per month. Easy enough, but be patient and persistent.

We have a very good log burner with circulating fan just for the sala, and a stove in the hallway. Nice and toasty if you feed the fires, but chilly in the mornings, and we are weakening and thinking about central heating. Live here for a year first then decide.

If you are retired, you lodge a UK form here and get a social security number which allows public treatment the same as the Portuguese. We elected to get private cover for the first year. I don't think that you can "buy in" to the Portuguese system, but of course you will be treated if you pay. About E 30 for a consultation.


One tip? Patience, politeness and persistence with the bureaucracy.

Otherwise,we love it here.


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

Simon

Welcome to the forum. 

Internet varies from location to location but if you can get unlimited fibre optic or even a good broadband connection, you can then use kodi.com (bit hard to install but well worth it) to get endless on demand movies free of charge and legal and mobdro.com for shed loads of TV channels that are also free of charge and perfectly legal.

MEO are the biggest internet/TV/phone company but you need to be ruthless with them because they'll often promise more than they can actually deliver and then will give you BS excuses until the cooling off period has expired and then hold you to a contract you don't want/need so if they don't give you what's promised just cancel immediately...... For what it's worth, our contract with them gives us unlimited super fast fibre optic internet, a fair number of (mostly Portuguese) TV channels, a landline with mostly free or nearly free calls and 2 cellphone sim cards that give us 600 minutes of calls and 600 SMS messages per card per month and we pay about €50 per month for that. 

Heating: First make sure your house is well insulated and if it isn't then insulate it...... Then look at a good central heating system. Wood pellet fired ones are expensive to install but very cheap and easy to run. Other energy sources tend to be significantly more expensive to run. 

NHS: Is VERY good here and no need to buy into the system because (assuming you're a Brit) you're entitled to it....... but it must be said, it's easier to get registered in some areas than it is in others. 

Single piece of advice: Get to know the locals because they're really good people.


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