Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2023 9:24pm
A question that comes up on a regular basis. Many things are cheaper here than UK and many things are more expensive (well, I bet that helped)
First of all, taxes. Council tax is much cheaper here. For a 3 bed semi detached I paid 242 euro last year. Yes, for the year.
Bin collection tax and water rates. These used to be billed together but are now split. Bin collection is about 78 euro a year and water rates, if you keep to the allotted quota, are 35 euro per quarter so 140 euro a year.
Car tax. It is different in every town. In Rojales a 1.6 SUV is just over 36 euro a year but Torrevieja is closer to 100 I think (more roads to look after).
If you are going to live on a community or urbanisation, you will probably have community fees. Depending on the facilities this can be anything from a couple of hundred euro a year to a couple of thousand so always check what they are. They pay for swimming pool and garden maintenance, street cleaning, lifts, electricity for the street lighting and so on. Always check.
Food. Believe it or not, fruit and veg can be more expensive here even for goods grown here. Lettuce, carrots, potatoes etc can be double the UK price. You will get them cheaper at the market. Other things are much cheaper and you will have a huge amount of supermarkets to choose from so shop around. For example. 500g dried spaghetti in Lidl at 77 cents yet Consum have branded stuff (what's the difference?) which can cost around 2 to 3 euro. Chicken, pork and even beef is reasonable but lamb is quite expensive and fish has gone up a lot lately. Unless you like hake which is really cheap.
Electricity bills. Will vary and it will depend what tariff and contract you take out. I pay around 47 euro a month (all electric) but others pay a lot more so check the best options.
Diesel is now about 1.35 euro a litre with petrol slightly higher. Again, check out the garages near you as there can be vast differences.
Alcohol much cheaper. A decent bottle of wine for just over 2 euro (some cheaper but not that decent) or 3 euro for a reserve. Beer has gone up and now about 90 cents for a 50cl can (some even more). Non branded spirits about 6 euro a litre with branded spirits around 10 to 12 euro a litre (super brands maybe a euro or two more). Eating out is cheap. You can get a 3 course Chinese meal with wine or beer for less than 10 euro a head. A decent tourist menu which is 3 course plus wine for about 11 euro.
Clothing is pretty expensive although we do have a Primark and a C&A which are very reasonable. White goods are coming down and used to be far more expensive but now fairly compatible with UK. Plenty of furniture shops to choose from cheap through reasonable to very expensive. You'll generally get them delivered in a day or two so no waiting 6 weeks or so like I did in UK.
That's about it. I get one pension here of around 1700 euro a month and generally 1000 euro is ample for everything, including going out a couple of times a week. Definitely find it cheaper and also the quality of the food seems far superior (no stuffing chicken, pork, bacon etc full of water) veg is naturally ripened unlike the green stuff ripened under gas in UK.
But as said, if from UK you will need a work visa (with a definite offer of work on a contract) before you can enter Spain. If not UK but a EU citizen then much easier but still some hiccoughs with language requirements etc. From UK I would say that, unless you are in a shortage job (engineer, IT manager, medical research etc) then it would be very difficult. Whoever offers you a job must show the work cannot be carried out by an EU citizen.
Enjoy yourselves, it really can be good.