Bills

marcliff wrote on Wed Dec 13, 2023 11:21pm:

Obviously depends on the type of house, if you have a pool, gardening use (watering system etc).

However, we have a 3 bed semi detached with no pool and with Iberdrola for electric (no gas) and our monthly bills with a contract that allows us to choose 8 hours a day on cheap rate, our bills are around 50 euro a month. Goes up a bit in winter when we have the aircon for heating and in the sum...

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...mer when we have it for cooling but less in months we don't use these. My average bill over the last year has been around the 50 euro mark. Be aware that, due to the high inflation and cost of living crisis, the government reduced taxes on charges from 21% to 5% and the special electric tax (eco type thing) from 5% to 0.5% and this may change in the new year. However, our bills prior to these reductions were still around the 57 to 60 euro a month. 

Water is a bit funny at the moment. Our bills were around 50 euro a quarter. Again, due to the cost of living crisis and inflation, they scrapped the sewerage charges and our quarterly  (every 3 months) bill went down from 50 to 35 euro. That's been great for the last two years but they are now clawing that back and our water bills (no pool) are now 55 euro a quarter.

The great saving is council tax. We pay (and it's different in every town) 242 a year (yes, a year) but this will also be going up next year by 7% so our annual council tax will be around 255 euro a year. Magnificent saving to what our UK one was.

There's also a waste collection tax which is separate from the council tax. At the moment around 80 euro for the year but there will be a big increase next year due to new EU rules and this could rise to around 120 euro a year. 

Electricity also depends on how much power you are contracted for. We have 5.75Kw which is ample for a modern house. You pay extra for each Kw you are contracted for which is totally different to UK. If you have a lower amount you pay less but could find your electric tripping out if you are using too much at one time. Contract for more you will pay more but is not really necessary.

The reduction in council tax is the big thing for us. Compared to what we paying in UK it pays for all our other bills. 

marcliff wrote on Mon Dec 18, 2023 8:26pm:

Just an update as I have just gone through my accounts for the year.

All my bills in Spain including council tax, electricity bills, water bills, car tax, community charges (we live on a big complex with 5 pools and extensive gardens so that's expensive), broadband, telephone, local taxes like rubbish collection and so on have come to just under 3,000 euro for the...

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... entire year. That's about £2,600 for the year.

I haven't included income tax in that as everyone will be different but mine is about 500 euro a year more than I was paying in UK on one private pension and my state pension (my government pension is still taxed in UK).