ok, so as you all know, me and my boyfriend are hoping to move to Benalmadena at the end of May and are still looking for an apartment to rent.

OK, so my big worry is just how much should we spend on rent? In the UK we spend £500/month and so we have been looking apartments for around 800 euros. But, then i wonder what are the pay conditions like in Benalmadena? We are both planning on just getting summer bar/waitress work etc... which i'm guessing won't pay too well, but seeing as you don't have all the other utility bills as we do in the UK will we be ok?

VERY CONFUSED!

The average wage in Spain is, I have read, around 13000 euros a year and I'm guessing that bar work isn't going to be above average, plus its presumably going to be seasonal. I understand that one of the most common reasons for people returning to the UK from Spain is the inability to get good work.
From what I have heard, you should be able to get an apartment for less than 800 euros a month, depending on what you want, although I'm not familiar with Benalmadena

You should get a 2 bed apartment for around 600€
Pay is crap and if you earn 3 or 400€ a week between you doing bar work you will be doing well, there is so much competition for jobs.

What utility bills don't we have in Spain?

thanks for that! please correct me if i've got it completly wrong but i'm under the impression that if i rent in spain all i will pay is my rent and electric? whereas in the ok, i pay rent, gas, elec, water, maintenance, council tax.

the agent i spoke to said we would probably only have electric to pay for as the majority of properties don't have mains gas?

you still have water bills, some places you will have to pay 'community charge', and although there is no mains gas in many areas, a lot of people will use gas bottles for cooking & heating, and believe me, you do need heating, and in the summer, you will either need aircon or electric fans

even if there is no gas, you will still have to pay electricity for cooking & heating/cooling

We pay rent and mosts costs are included in the rent except, elec, water at a staggering 15€ for 3 months ;-), and buy bottled gas at 11€ a refill.

thanks JDR, i was starting to get incredibly worried!

Think you have to shop around and check what you have to pay before you set your heart on a particular apartment. We have now rented 2 separate apartments - one from an English guy and all we paid for was water and electric and phoneline. But the second apartment we rented through a Spanish lady, the rent started at 400euros per month excluding bills (water, electric, phone and bottled gas for water heating) but ended up as an extra 50euros per month for insurance and community charges and an extra 50euros per month for council tax and an extra 20 euros per month for a parking space. We managed to get her to give us the parking space for nothing but obviously an extra 20% on top of advertised price made a big difference. We did take the apartment mainly as I had set my heart on it but if we had known about the extras we may have thought twice. The same thing has happened to various friends of ours where apartments were advertised for X per month and ended up 100 euros more expensive, so we weren't just being taken for mugs! By the way, we live in South Costa Blanca Inland, hence rental prices are a bit lower, so take no notice of these as an indicator of what you will be paying. Hope this helps!

Not sure what the state is in Benalmadena, but here on the Costa Blanca, apartments are about 550 Euros a month, bills paid, 450 with bills, Yes you DO have utilities unless you opt for rental that includes bills. Most rentals with bills DO NOT include internet access

I used to live in a village near Benidorm and paid €550 a month rent plus a community charge of €50 , we also had to pay electricity, water and waste charges (dustbins) . We both worked in bars and earned about €40 a day working six days a week, plus tips (this was the going rate every where in benidorm). But this was back in 2003 so will probably have risen by now. I wouldnt work out your costs based on english prices as you wont get paid anything like an english wage in a bar in spain.

If renting from the Spanish, if anything breaks down, ie washing machine, they expect you pay for repairs.

our current landlord, english, had a clause in the contract along those lines.......we had them remove it, & replace it with one saying that they were responsible for normal 'wear & tear' type repairs, whereas if we actually damaged something then we would repair/replace it