The Spanish guy who repaired the rendering and painted the outside of my house charges 60€ per day (and often worked from 9.00 am to after 7.30 pm with a one hour lunch break for that). We have got to know him quite well, he has a wife who has a part time cleaning job for a couple of hours in the morning and two small children. If he doesn't have any work on he is earning nothing at all, and they are buying their own house on a mortgage. I often wonder how on earth they manage.

I said there was no way I would contemplate moving over to Spain on a permanent basis until we could survive financially without needing to work, and nothing I've seen since making the move 16 months ago has changed my mind about that.

The quote was £600 not €600 so it's about right hence the headlines that keep appearing in the Spanish press such as "Ojalá fuera mileuroista" or "Ojalá ganara mil euros". Even in the capital a person with a degree would be extremely lucky to find a job that paid €1000 and then they would be expected to work from 9 in the morning until 8 at night and take work home. Foreigners get a lot less (however well qualified) normally around the minimum wage (€500) and the elderly are expected to live on around €300 a month.

It just can't be possible. My family of four spend at least 150€ a week on food alone and we don't tend to include alcohol or brit foods. Kids need clothes and shoes. Cars need fuel. Gas bottles are about 13€ each, then there's electricity and water. The kids and parents that go to the local school in my village are certainly not in rags nor drive clapped out old cars.

I just don't see how a typical family can get by on less than 1000€ a month.

Being poor doesn't mean dressing in rags; that's just what rich people think.

By the way we are talking average wage, not family income; the average family has 1.6 persons employed so these figures equate to an average family income of about €1700 for mature parents.

I'm part of a family of four and you can certainly shop cheaper than you are doing and still eat well. I'd say €60 could cover it easily (€20 in the veg market, and €40 in the super market), you just have to know what to buy and which shops to buy from. If you've got a bit of land can grow your own if you have the patience. As for clothes there are shops that do reasonable ones at bargain prices (Kiaba, Primark, etc; buy a sweatshirt for €9 and take advantage of the 6 for 1 offers). Decathlon is great for shoes.

I use gas for hot water and cooking and the €13 bottle lasts 2 months. For heat we have a wood stove and burn about 2 tons a year. Most was harvested from my olive and pine trees (without killing them) and about 1/2 ton was bought (€75).

The majority of cars are either old or on 120 month credit agreements.

The World factbook says that 20% of Spaniards are living below the poverty threshold.

One last thing, if you don't live in a poor area you are never going to see poverty.

I earn about that, part time hours though & split between a job teaching in a language school & some private tutoring. Anyone know a fulltime hours job going

we just moved, and were forking out more than that in rent a year (considerably less in the new place, but no pool), so it´s a good job we don´t have only my income!

Blimey! You ARE still here!
Tim

The first set is gross salary, the second net.

yes I´m still here

not on the internet at home in the new place at the mo - so I´m using the puter at work - supposed to be researching the DELE (Diploma Español como Lengua Extranjera) to give us another string to our bow here.

One of my private students (not here at the school) has put herself in for the beginner level for November - I´ve only been teaching her a couple of hours a weeks for 4 months, & she did a ´trial´on the internet & got 60%! Thought maybe I ought to do something myself so I´m having a look.

Here in London, a NQT earns 18k pounds net the first year. In Galicia, a NQT (after passing hard exams, though), gets 21k euro net = 15k pounds.
In London, the teacher will work 40 hours+ (near half doing paperwork), 39 weeks per year. In Galicia, 25 hours per week, 36 weeks per year.

The cost of living in London is more three times (or more) the cost of living in Galicia.

So: shortage of teachers in London, excess of teachers in Galicia. Same rainfall per year, though.

Ah yes so it was, just took it for granted it was euros as that is what people earn in Spain.

My brother-in-law is an NQT in Madrid. Teaches secondary. He gets €18.500 gross. Take €2916 off that for social security (12 x €243) and about €4.000 tax and you're left with €11.584 which divided into 14 payments equals €872/each.

So after 5 years an NQT is on what ??? £30K + tlrs say £35k, are the Spanish teachers still on 20k euro or are their salaries comparable?

The UK average earnings are £25k gross - say 33k euro I don't believe the cost of living in spain if half that of the UK - but their salaries are - It simply doesn't add up, sorry - I reckon the whole country must be on the scam to keep the figures so low. It's the only way they could afford to live - IMHO.

Bokeh: your brother in law is working in a private school for sure, and they are paying less than they have to, by law they have to pay him more.
In a public secundary school in Madrid, a NQT is paid 30.602 Euros gross per year. In all schools. Catalunya, Basque Country, Baleares pay more. But the salary in public school is fixed for the whole region. If they are paying him that, either is part time or an international school (out of the agreement between government and trade union) or they are taking the piss

Leighbloke, the pay raise increases every 3 years, not like the UK pay spine which increases every year. Also, the head of department earns more, so the head teacher, but not as much as head teachers in London, no way. Also, there are not "advanced skills teachers", just "catedraticos" ie, head of department.

It is true that near everybody who is not in a payroll, will earn much more than he says, specially trade men. The black market in small towns is a way of living.

The difference of the cost of living between a Galician town and London, is more than double, and triple. I can rent a 100 square meters flat in my grannie's town for 300 Euros. That is the cost of a week rent in London, if I am lucky. This morning I had a mocca coffee and a slice of cake in Starbucks, I paid 5.5 £. Same thing with better coffee, 1 Euro in the mentioned town. The cake come for free. I don't know the rest of the UK, but London prices are absolutely stupid.

Actually no. His employer is El Departamento de Educación de la Comunidad de Madrid.
The following is from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/51/21/37392840.pdf

Teacher salary scales in Spain are very flat. Spanish teachers have a relatively high starting salary but their salaries increase slowly with tenure relative to other OECD countries. The salaries of Spanish teachers after 15 years of service and then at the top of the salary scale are similar to other OECD countries. If the motivation and retention of teachers within schools is influenced, at least in part, by the size and frequency of salary increases within a job, then difficulties may arise in countries where the pace of these changes is slower and the salary increases lower. At lower secondary level of education, the ratio of the salary at the top of the scale to the starting salary is 1.43 in Spain compared with 1.7 on average in OECD countries and it takes longer than average to progress from the starting point of the salary scale to the top of the scale (39 years in Spain compared with 24 years on average in OECD countries.

Well one thing is true, Spain has a huge black economy. There are more €500 notes in Spain due to this than in any other European country. The notes are know on the street as "bin laden" because (apparently) no one has ever seen one.

As for cost of living I would say you can easily live to the same standard for half the money.

bokeh, the salary I posted before is the gross salary official for a NQT after passing his oposiciones in Madrid. They are fixed salaries for public schools. If he is teaching in a public school in Madrid he has to earn what I said. Not because I said it, just because it is public.