sun lover

Hello every one I am new to this site and will be looking to move from Greece to cental Portugal hopefully in the near future.
This has probably been asked in the past but I have not found it as yet so would like to ask the question anyway. What would the avarage monthly living costs be to live in central Portugal taking in account of no mortgage or rent to pay, so food, electricity, gas, car insurance, local tax, phone/internet etc. (What would be the bare minimum required to live on might be a better question.)

Any help would be appeciated.

tomarense

Hi sun lover,

My experience, over the past two years, here.

€300/350 + food

Food/entertainment: A bit more, but not much, than Greece (comparing like for like 2yrs ago).

Petrol is expensive, and you need a car for most places in C. Portugal.

Hope this helps,

Cleri

Yeah, I would agree with that

Umpatan

Wow, now that price is comparable to Changmai Thailand.

CHOPPER

Yes cars are expensive, my wife was at the hospital in Faro for tests today and I wandered into the Skoda garage next door, the car I looked at was 29000 euros, the same car on the UK website is 16000 pounds so work that out at todays exchange rate.

PubChampion

€400-500 plus heating. My heating bill was €120 in January, but from May to the end of October it was 0.

If you really have to cut it to the bone, €300 should be enough to get by.

steppitoe

We have had this discussion and those of us without mortgages reckon on 1000 per month.

This is taking internet, phone, electric, gas, shopping into account.

Cleri

Aint that the truth

PubChampion

That's in the Algarve, isn't it?

tomarense

I would resemble that comment

steppitoe

Yep Algarve, although we don´t go to Expat places or shop in English shops. We live fairly simply really but the utility bills are pretty high here.

anna58

2 years ago I wrote it down for a year and found that I needed to put €400 a month aside for utilities, insurance, heating, car expeses etc.

PubChampion

Sounds like you also budgeted for more than one person.

steppitoe

Just me during the week, two of us as the weekends. Most of the bills are the same regardless of how many of us are at home. Perhaps the water and gas are a little higher with two.

gazz

All relative to area and size of family i suppose, our cost is possibly closer to 2000 euro´s a month, thats all in with two adults, 4 kids , 1 dog, 1 car, 1 mortgage, bills, in the Algarve etc........god , now i´m depressed