# Cost of living in Spain



## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

Hi there. I'm looking into the cost of living in Spain, with plans to move there in about a year. Of course cost of living is the crucial question for anyone moving anywhere. I found a site that claims to give the cost of living in different areas of Spain. It looks unbelievably cheap to me, so I'm suspicious that this isn't right. I'm hoping some of you living in Spain can verify whether or not these numbers sound right. Here's the website: Cost of Living in Spain. Prices in Spain.

Thank you in advance for your guidance.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

AllHeart said:


> Hi there. I'm looking into the cost of living in Spain, with plans to move there in about a year. Of course cost of living is the crucial question for anyone moving anywhere. I found a site that claims to give the cost of living in different areas of Spain. It looks unbelievably cheap to me, so I'm suspicious that this isn't right. I'm hoping some of you living in Spain can verify whether or not these numbers sound right. Here's the website: Cost of Living in Spain. Prices in Spain.
> 
> Thank you in advance for your guidance.


certainly the grocery prices seem about right - & I rent a 5 bedroom house for about the higher end of the rental quoted

I'd say utilities are underestimated for most people though


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

AllHeart said:


> It looks unbelievably cheap to me, .


Cost of living is tied to your lifestyle. 

The other thing you might want to do is compare the median Spanish income. Remember the average Spaniard needs to live on those incomes. An expat has certain disadvantages. All the costs of setting up a new home . The lack of a support system.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Yep seems correct.


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

Thanks for your replies. So we're in the right ball park basically according to you guys. 

I just thought to see what the website said about the cost of living where I live now, and the numbers are all pretty much bang on. So that's a good double check.

Great idea to look at the average wage of people in that area, which I did. Thank you. 

As for supports in Spain, I'm hoping to find my family in Spain before moving there. 

Yes, lifestyle is exactly what I'm looking for on the website. I'm comparing my lifestyle costs here. I'm not a very fancy gal and I enjoy living quite a simple life.  The most important thing for me is a nice place to live. By nice, I mean clean, safe, respectable and friendly. I actually like apartment living here in Canada, which is what I'll probably be looking for in Spain too. The cost of setting up an apartment shouldn't be too much. Are apartments popular in Spain?


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## el pescador (Mar 14, 2013)

gotta smile at the rent section.
Its those prices per week round here.


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

With the link I gave, it just goes to the general site for cost of living in Spain. Did you select the actual city you live in? Please say yes, because quadruple what was shown is definitely not doable for me. Yikes!


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## lavidabuena (Nov 27, 2013)

Thank you for sharing this link! Very useful information


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## Goldeneye (Nov 12, 2011)

AllHeart said:


> With the link I gave, it just goes to the general site for cost of living in Spain. Did you select the actual city you live in? Please say yes, because quadruple what was shown is definitely not doable for me. Yikes!


El Pescador, shows 'Location' as England hopefully he/she is living in England, in which case I believe the comment made was with regard to prices over there..
(I sure hope that's the case too ) LOL

...
.....


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

You're most welcome, lavidabuena. 



Goldeneye said:


> El Pescador, shows 'Location' as England hopefully he/she is living in England, in which case I believe the comment made was with regard to prices over there..
> (I sure hope that's the case too ) LOL
> 
> ...
> .....


Ah, that makes much more sense. I prefer your interpretation.


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## el pescador (Mar 14, 2013)

Goldeneye said:


> El Pescador, shows 'Location' as England hopefully he/she is living in England, in which case I believe the comment made was with regard to prices over there..
> (I sure hope that's the case too ) LOL
> 
> ...
> .....


yes still in blighty....sorry for the confusion.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

You will have no trouble finding an apartment to rent anywhere. The Spanish are the biggest apartment dwellers in Europe.

( See the link for an apartment that 'Lonely' posted on thread, " Heating in Spain ". 250/month, 4 beds !!! )


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## zenkarma (Feb 15, 2013)

Those prices look about right to me. 

As someone else mentioned, I'd say the utilities were wrong though, they're higher than that. Electricity, water, IBI, Basura (garbage), Communidad (building common parts maintenance) and property insurance would add up to more than €100 a month for a 1 bed flat. I'm paying about €140-150 a month on those things with it only being occupied for about 6 weeks of the year.

And yes, rents in the UK are way, way higher than in Spain by a factor of about 2-4 times depending on location.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Spain now has the third highest electricity prices in Europe, after Ireland and Cyprus. Internet has got much cheaper now there is competition, but is still more expensive than the UK. 

Food depends on your lifestyle. Learn to live on seasonal vegetables and garbanzos and you can live very cheaply, but chase around looking for out-of-season fruit or familiar British brands and your bills can soar.

If you like a drink you are better off here. Decent red wine for less than €3 a bottle, beer for 25 cents a can, a litre of Spanish gin for €8 ... as an old Irish friend of mine used to say, the more you drink the more you save! :tea:

My biggest expenditure is on trips to the UK to see my family ...


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

Thanks for the clarification El Pesqador. 

Gus-Lopes, ab-fab news that Spaniards love apartment dwelling too. (I did check out that thread. Too funny!)

Zenkarma, thanks for the tip about utilities prices. They list "Utilities" on that site as "electricity, heating, water and garbage," and you've listed other things on top of that. Since this is an international comparison, I think they are just keeping it to those specific utilities so that comparisons can be made between countries. But those other things you list are definitely other prices that have to be considered as you still have to pay for them. So I'll ask about those other things... What's the typical rate for property insurance and for communidad for an apartment?

Alcalaina, I've read that from others too - that food in Spain is cheap if you buy locally, but that imports are very expensive. I do like garbanzos. I'm confused about your Irish friend. So the more you drink the more you save because you save more with each bottle consume? Or is it that you're too drunk to count how much you've spent?


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

I had to visit Tenerife on Thursday, Diesel was selling for 99cents a litre, here it is €1 6.5cents


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## zenkarma (Feb 15, 2013)

AllHeart said:


> What's the typical rate for property insurance and for communidad for an apartment?


Obviously it would vary depending on apartment, location, facilities and so on. 

My apartment (average sized, 1 bed) which has communal lifts (elevators!) underground parking, two swimming pools and daily common parts cleaning, costs around €50-60 a month on average for the Comunidad costs. Insurance about €20-25 a month for fully comprehensive including third party liability.

So as you can see, that adds significantly to the estimated €100 a month utilities that site is quoting.


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## webmarcos (Dec 25, 2012)

zenkarma said:


> Obviously it would vary depending on apartment, location, facilities and so on.
> 
> My apartment (average sized, 1 bed) which has communal lifts (elevators!) underground parking, two swimming pools and daily common parts cleaning, costs around €50-60 a month on average for the Comunidad costs. Insurance about €20-25 a month for fully comprehensive including third party liability.
> 
> So as you can see, that adds significantly to the estimated €100 a month utilities that site is quoting.


If the OP is renting, surely they wouldn't be paying the Comunidad bills - or does that differ according to rental agreement?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

webmarcos said:


> If the OP is renting, surely they wouldn't be paying the Comunidad bills - or does that differ according to rental agreement?


varies

sometimes you pay it as an extra charge - sometimes the landlord does - though I bet he includes it in the rent, really .....


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## zenkarma (Feb 15, 2013)

webmarcos said:


> If the OP is renting, surely they wouldn't be paying the Comunidad bills - or does that differ according to rental agreement?


I wouldn't have thought so. Those type of costs should be considered an overhead of owning the apartment but then so should IBI and Basura (rubbish collection) as those costs are paid regardless of whether the property is occupied or not.

The only costs that a tenant should be responsible for would be the 'variable useage' costs such as electricity, gas, water, internet, phone etc.

But it all depends on the rental agreement I would assume.


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

What's IBI?

The Communidad and basura costs are something that apartment dwellers don't pay here. It is included in the rent. However, these are additional costs to people who own apartments, i.e. condominiums and town houses. They're called "condo fees." Like there, the costs range according to how nice the place is - an average place about $300 to 500 per month (450 to 750 euros). When you look at the Cost of Living website, all these variable costs are not reflected in the international comparisons. So that's a huge factor to take into consideration.

Home insurance is always an additional cost here whether you own or rent. Again it depends on how nice your home is. For rental, the cost is lower because the building owners have insurance on the building. Often people don't have home insurance when renting, but in the last few years there is a push by landlords for renters to have insurance, with insurance sometimes being a prerequisite on approval for renting. But it's pretty cheap - about 50 euros a month for an average apartment. It used to be that you didn't need insurance for owning property, but now it is law that you cannot own property without insurance.


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

:doh:

Crap! I did my conversions in reverse... I put in 50% more, rather than 50% less! So condo fees of $300 to $500 CAD a month is actually 200 to 350 euros. For insurance, where I said 50 euros, that should have been about 17 euros.

Notes to self: 
1. Do calculations with online conversion calculator before posting conversions.
2. Always check if post has "edit" option when doing math.
3. As a blonde, never do math before second cup of coffee.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

AllHeart said:


> What's IBI?


Impuestos de bienes inmuebles - property tax (paid to the local town hall).


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