Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I'm in Santiago de Compostela, Spain now but have lived most of my life in the US. I tried Barcelona and Sevilla but this city and climate are a little more my flavor.
Been eying some condos and for around €60,000-€100,000 I can buy a nice 1-br or a decent 3-br.
What's nice is that you pay the sales tax upfront much like when you buy a car in the US. Annual taxes are very low.

The reason I'm bring this up is because I wanted to see if someone could fact-check me as far as whether I've accounted for all proper monthly living expense categories below. I've listed how much I would be spending based on what I have priced out:

House (if paid off)
Electricity - €45
Water - €50
HOA (incl. insurance) - €25
Property taxes - €10
Food - €300
Health insurance - €55
Transportation (bike) - €5
Cell - €10
Gym - €45
Clothing - €10
Travel - €80
Entertainment - €100
Edit: Jamon - €50
Edit: WiFi - €40

Total: €825

Can't think of what else I could have left out. The last 2 items on the category are really just there as extras, in case, I suppose. But never been a big traveler so perhaps not pertinent.

Hmm, seems reasonable overall. I think I spent around $800 euro/mo living in a shared apartment in Madrid.

How are you handling heat in the winter. Is that factored into electricity?

Also what about internet?

I will be visiting Santiago de Compostela for a friend's wedding in late June, excited to be back! So beautiful there, and love the Galician bread.

Ah, I forgot the internet - good call.
I get about 7 GB with the €10/month cell and I use it for hotspot as well - so maybe I wouldn't need home WiFi.

So far that seems to be the average monthly electricity. It gets cold in the winter so electricity goes up but not a lot of A/C users here in Galicia so I'm guessing it averages out. Highest of 100 euro and lows of 20 per month.

If it were me I would have a 50 euro allotment for jamon as well but to each their own

FRx wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 27, 2019 3:58 pm

Electricity - €45
Water - €50
HOA (incl. insurance) - €25
Food - €300
Health insurance - €55
Transportation (bike) - €5
Cell - €10

These seem all pretty reasonable estimates to me. You can save something on food fairly easy if you cook mostly at home. You can get it to 200€ without much effort.
Spain is as cheap as Italy.

FRx wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 27, 2019 3:58 pm

House (if paid off)
Clothing - €10
Edit: WiFi - €40

The house will have costs even if you own it.
They may materialize in terms of one offs (ie you do the roof once every 15 years) but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Clothing seems low, Spain has 4 seasons so you can’t live in shorts and t shirt all the time.
I would double, maybe triple the amount.
WiFi seems a bit expensive, did you scan all the options? 7-8 years ago in Valencia it was 25€ per month and WiFi hasn’t suffered from much inflation I would think.

I would also budget for unexpected expenses. Those always come up in some shape or form.

Overall 825€ is definitely doable in a non-capital city in Southern Europe with a (small*) owned house, you can live an optimized middle class life without trouble.

*don't sleep on the “small” part. A smaller house is cheaper to heat, cheaper to electrify, pays less taxes, cheaper to repair, etc.