work advice please
 

Hola all

I would be grateful for some advice on work in spain please.

I'm guessing that it is pretty well sewn up over there but would like to offer a cleaning service for villa/holiday home rentals and wondered how easy/hard it would be to get started. Is this something that the locals do and it would be hard to get a foot in the door?

i dont suppose it's easy anywhere at the moment but for someone who is determined , hardworking and would try their hand at anything, what would people advice be? and just how difficult is work to find in spain?

Apart from schooling in spain which i am starting to get a bit more informed on ,this is obviousley my main concern so absolutely any advice or input would be greatefull received.

thanks ;)

lee

Re: work advice please
 

Hi Lee and welcome to BE, I think you answered your own question in your first sentence of your 2nd paragraph:) I think to achieve a successful business in that field you really needed to be in an area when it first takes off.

I'm in a place called Chiclana a holiday area Costs de la Luz and I would think we have more than enough peeps doing what you want to do. Having said that don't let me put you off but it ain't gonna be easy and you will need money to see you through at least two years here without making any to live off. Good luck, I'm sure there will be others along soon.:thumbup:

Re: work advice please
 

Welcome I hope you stay a while. I wish you the best of luck with your quest my only observation would be in the South a lot of Estate agents have moved into this field in order to generate some sort of income as house sales have dropped off.They already have a foot hold. I would take the advice already given that you need funds behind you and for that 2 years you can try and establish yourself. You really need to be onto these things in the beginning and try to provide a cost effective service that people would rather someone else
do for them. I must say I have never seen a domestic window cleaner in my part of the world............ hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....;)

Re: work advice please
 

There are literally hundreds of people doing just that, from looking after just 2 or 3 homes to looking after 50 or more, these are mainly working off the books, and then there are the legal professional property management and letting companies. You would be better to try and start off with one of those, and then build up a private listing.

Re: work advice please
 

morning and thankyou for your advice.

i was pretty sure that this would be the case.
i've been driving the hgvs for the past 5 years but another post pretty much seems to rule that option out.
for the ten years previous i was a commercial window cleaner in the city and did mean to ask about about reidential window cleaning in spain and do they have domestic window cleaners as we do in the u.k.
by saying that you dont see them , is this because the spanish generally do this themselves and that there is just not the call for the work out there?

6 weeks unemployment in the past & watching this morning and trisha soon got me back into the swing of things and ive pretty much always been able to turn a pound note , but a euro? in the current cimate, hmm whilst it wont hold me back i guess this is one of the biggest most concerns for anybody when considering such a big move.

with regards to covering ourselves financially during the first 2 years. i know no exact figure could be given but once the move was covered, would people be able to give me rough idea on the basic cost for living, i.e household energy bills, groceries (2 adults 3 children) etc , rent i've been looking at and we would either pay all upfront or put in a seperate account so wouldn't be a factor in the first 2 years. however would not want to underestimate what it would cost to support ourselves, ive personally been basing things on the cost as it is here and feel(hope) that that should be suficiant.

still got lots and lots of research to do so ill go off and have a further look around the forum and thanks you for your help.

regards

lee

Re: work advice please
 

Hi Lee

I have never seen a domestic window cleaner in the 3 years I have been here. I have only seen the shops having their windows cleaned by a big company. You see the little old ladies every morning sweeping the little area outside their houses so I guess they clean their own windows. We tend to have high winds in the winter here in Catalonia and that causes dust from the olive trees and in my case Fir trees which dirty the windows. We have domestic help that takes care of that as Mrs Posh likes to shop and cook.:o So I guess there would be lots of people on Urbs who would be glad of someone to clean their windows and from that come other jobs....Pool , Garden Etc. I love it here and would never go back to the UK and would always say to people come and give your dreams an airing no use in ten years time wishing if only bla bla. The UK is only 2 hours away from London Birmingham would take longer to travel to if you ever wished to go there but what I mean friends and family are never far away.Good luck bring a sack full of cash and a head full of dreams and you will not go far wrong :thumbup:

Re: work advice please
 

certainly a number of people offering window cleaning services, don't forget that most windows have grills in front, so you would have to have cleaning equipment that would cope.

Re: work advice please
 

Personally with three children I would think twice in this economic climate As far as I am aware people are struggling to find work who have been well established. Prices in the shops seem to be rocketing too. Where as a few years ago it was cheap to live in Spain this is no longer the case. As for how much do you need to live on as a rough estimate not including rent/mortgage as a ball park figure I would say about 1000 GBP.

Re: work advice please
 

thankyou all for your replies , it's nice to get some encouragement and hear how people love the place and will never come back along with some solid experienced advice.

It is a horrible time for a lot of people at the moment and i appreciate your advice with regard to uprooting the children in such unstable times, i personally have good job stability here being a hgv driver and agencies are screamimg out for us so although we could substain ourselves with my savings , should the need arise , i would have no problem coming back for a month,working all the hours god sends and then come back for a couple of months if it gives my family the quality of life no longer found here.

At present we pay £850pm rent, with gas and electric £180pm,food is through the roof and my savings were meant to be for a mortgage but noone will even lend to me with 15%. so i asked myself why?

and spain was the answer .

On another quick note, How are the junior football leagues structured out there , is it as it is over here with parks packed out on a sunday morning and are clubs easy to come by?

lee

Re: work advice please
 

Agree with chiclanagirl re £1000, HO and I live on £800 a month and at the moment we are not getting mcuh more in euros, there is just the 2 of use, we have no mortgage to pay and no kids educate and clothe.

A rough yearly account of what we pay out is as follows:
184eur for rates
414eur car insuance
76eur for community charge
1,200eur electric
195eur house insurance
156eur very basic medical cover
156eur refuge collection
68eur IVA for car tax
840eur for telephone and boardband
432eur for Alarm System
99eur mail box
Gas per bottle 15eur we use about 10 - 150
Wood for fuel in winter 175eur


a total of 4145eur per year that's about 345 per month, that's before we add on everday living such as food, clothing, petrol, ware and tear on car and house and replacement of major electrical and gas appliances.

As chiclanagirl says the cost of everyday living has gone up here and we are spending on average 100eur weekly on food, water and household products. Not a lot left from the original amount to spend on having a good time. ;)

Hope that helps a little, when you look at it you will think whow we are paying out a lot more in the UK but in the UK I think you will find you have much more money per month and if you don't then there is help from the social. There is nothing here in Spain to help you if you have no money.

I have just seen you post above, the average wage here in Spain is between 13,000eur - 15,000eru a year, depending on where you are thinking of settleing then the rent could be from 500eur - 900eur a month and basic contribution into the social system here is 250eur a month that would give you and you family some health care.

Re: work advice please
 

Re the bit about food being through the roof, I think you will find that now it is on the par with Spain if not cheaper in the UK. I think that the idea of working in the UK and living in Spain would be your best option.

Re: work advice please
 

thankyou for taking the time to break that all down for me , it will give me a great idea to work things out more easily and also for everyone else who has replied with tips and advice.

ive lots to do and think about and your advice has helped loads and i will take everything into consideration.

i will be trawling the board quite a lot i dare say and will keep you updated and more than likely be back soon for any other help i cant find too easily.

all the best
lee

Re: work advice please
 

We come to this sort of North / South divide though.
I go back to the UK regularly and the cost of living here is still cheaper than in the UK. Its narrowed a lot for sure, but our food bills are still less here

Then when you take into consideration "rates" (€400 against £1500), car tax etc, the differences mount up

Re: work advice please
 

Crispy use the small local shops daily instead of the supermarkets once a week and you will at least halve the 100 euro a week :eek: shopping bill. The two of us eat well, and heathily on around 5 euros a day.

Re: work advice please
 

Bigwheel I spend most of my week going from one shop to another I don't buy everything from just one supermarket; I do use local shops for a lot of my shopping. I live in a very expensive area when it comes to food shopping, in fact any shopping; as Chiclanagirl has already said in this area prices have gone through the roof.

I do on the other hand want good quality meat and fish so I am prepared to pay a little more for it, I use an independant butcher not a supermarket. I do how ever buy my fish from Murkydonna as after much research and shoe leather it is in my opinion on par for price and excellant quality with fresh market place in my local town. Although I have been known to go to Puerto Real and Sanluca for my fish because it is even better and a lot cheaper but then there is the petrol to consider. At least 30euros of my budget goes on fresh meat and fish every week and another 20 on fruit and veg.

If you are only spending 5euros a day then I take my hat off to you and mrs bigwheel.:thumbup:

Ok forgot to say we don't spend all the money on food and drink there are other things to buy just the other day we spent 30.00 eurs on ink for the printer and some sponge pipe lagging to keep the birds from nesting in our garden shed.lol

Re: work advice please
 

Wow! 2,50 € EACH per day? Can you give us a few examples of menus?:)

Re: work advice please
 

Sounds reasonable, fruit and veg are cheap at the market, 1/2 kilo mince 2.50€`s pack, chicken breast just over 1€.
Two meals there for a start, with enough left for scrambled eggs and toast for brekkies.
;-))

Re: work advice please
 

OK, but what about dairy products, bread, rice/pasta, etc.. to make up balanced meals, and all the necessary odds-and-ends? My elderly neighbours on English pensions eat very little meat or fish, and spend 70 € a week for two, AND they have seasonal vegetables from her garden. (Mind you, we're in France, which may make a difference...):)

Re: work advice please
 

Subject to how much you can take home in the UK and having made allowances for the cost of you living there & allowing flights to & fro at least monthly, if not fortnightly, I'd say that's the best option too. We work on that system: OH Uk based, comes to & fro about every fortnight, sometimes more sometimes less, usually 4 or 5 days at a time (sometimes more, sometimes less:D). We're not the only ones doing this by a long chalk. Friend who's a prison officer works a week of nights then is here for a week. Friend who's a plumber works here and then goes back to supplement the income with bigger contracts there. There are downsides with all ways of looking at it, though.... how do you think the family would cope with you being an itinerant father, you'd have to work even harder at integrating when you were in Spain since you wouldn't be here all the time.:thumbup:

Re: work advice please
 

That is about what we spend a week and a lot of it is bought at a French shop. ;-))
Are they buying British ripoff stuff, or have they converted to the local equivilent ?
Rice and pasta, margerine, milk and wine are cheap enough too, 2 kilos of oranges for 1€.

Re: work advice please
 

Being elderly, they don't go to the UK very often, and they eat French.
I'm still interested to know how two people can eat "healthily" (i.e. a varied diet providing enough calcium, iron and necessary oligo-elements) on 5 € a day.:blink:

Re: work advice please
 

Maybe someone'll work it out for us, but I wouldn't be surprised - the average person needs a lot fewer calories than we tend to assume so the actual amount of food is relatively small.. making it well balanced shouldn't be so difficult if you look at the variety of pulses/nuts/veg available plus some dairy, fish & very little meat.

Re: work advice please
 

Where on earth can you buy chicken breast for two for 1 euro. I spent 12 euros in our local market on fresh fruit and veg and nearly died at the cost.

Re: work advice please
 

well you can only imagine what kind of chicken that may be (if its chiken at all :unsure:) ----for 1 euro!!!!!

Re: work advice please
 

Where do you live crispy?

Just curious as we find food, and like you say, everything else, rather expensive here in San Sebastian, and we sometimes wonder what it's like in other areas.
:)

Re: work advice please
 

Hi Featherbum I live in Chiclana de la Frontera near to Cadiz, Costa de la Luz; Chiclanagirl lives in the same area in fact we are meeting for lunch tomorrow so I expect we will have a good old moan about the cost of living.

It is a very popular holiday resort for the wealthy Spanard (if there's any of those left that is:rofl:) A lovely quite place for 9 months of the year and then for 15 weeks in the summer it goes made, during this time I travel to a small white village to get my shopping about 15/20 klm away to avoid the crowds and the summer increase in prices. Last summer in the fish market they were asking 15eur for a kilo of Almejes:eek: once the summer is over they go back down to about 7eur, of course this could be due to the season I don't know enough about fish to know when the season for certain fish/shellfiish starts and ends. At the moment Dorado is 6 eur a kilo but in July and August it goes up to about 11eur, I even see it for 16eur last summer.

I too hear people talk about the cheapness of things in other area's, I was chatting to a lady who has family in Madrid and they have now stopped coming to Chiclana for the summer break as they feel compared to other areas it is very expensive. I cannnot undestand why because Chiclana area is very much a working town, if I travel to Puerto Real about 30klm away things are a little cheaper but then the choice is not so great, so swings and roundabout I guess. Mal and I enjoy going out to other places and to explore what is on offer there, after all we have nothing else to do with our days as hard work is behind us now.

Re: work advice please
 

A few examples.
Milk (skimmed) 1ltr €0.54c
Eggs 1 doz (large free range) €1.20
2 x pigs kidney €0.30c
5kgs potatoes €2.00
2kgs carrots €1.50
2kgs oranges €1.00
1 very large cauli €1.00
2kgs onions €1.00
1/2kg liver €0.80c
2kgs pork ribs €4.00
2x chicken breasts (large, pink, no water added) €3.20
2kgs onions €0.90c
1kg minced pork € 3.20
1kg tomatoes (class A) €1.00 class B €0.80c
1.5 kg pork tender loin €4.80
Extra virgin olive oil €17 for 5ltrs
just a few prices from the last few weeks:cool:

Re: work advice please
 

have highlighted above ,just an example of tesco online which we use,obviously comparisons wont be an exact match but will give an idea of food prices at the cheapest (?)supermarket.

we use online shopping as we often dont have time or dont want the hassle of packed supermarkets as we could only get there on a saturday or 12.00 a.m and the way we live now cooking a good well balanced meal is as bad as it is to say , a hassle.

this is part of lifestyle change that would be more than welcome.

also on another note, looking at rental prices.

cant remember exactly where they were , poss 10 k inland aroud cadiz area but 3 bed acc was avg £650-700 euro pm. what would these averages have been say 1 year ago ? and as areas pick up and more tourists are coming over again , will this cut off the supply of long term lets forcing those prices up? i'm also looking at it as when the euro was say 1.50 against the £ , i would have been getting maybe 2 more months rental for the same money as now OR would those prices have been higher anyway?

not really up on these sort of things and have never until now really bothered about exchange rates but again , it's another major consideration to take into account.

lee

Re: work advice please
 

Ah Cadiz, we have been talking about visiting (cant remember the name of the place, my friend recommended it as she goes there every summer) i hear its very pretty there! Cant remember the name of the place, will fnd out and ask your opinion!:)

As for food prices- i only have the uk to compare it to really, as i have never been a grown up in spain before :p
then again i seem to remember, from previous holidays at home, that it used to be cheaper?
Tell you a few things that i think are HORRIFICALLY more expensive than the uk, see what others think? cause i am wondering it its just san sebastian that is so expensive????
(same as your area, this is, or was lol, a wealthy kind of place).

-shampoo and conditioner:ohmy: i'd say it costs double
-make up- sometimes double, even triple.
-perfume -lets not even go there, i just order online.
-home things (furniture, decor etc, shops seem to only be mega posh, nothing in between??).
-gym memberships- 80-90 euros per monht :eek: - luckily we have a nice beach for long walks here instead!
-white goods - we bought a tumble drier in eroski the other day, 230 euros, same day it was in argos for 130.:frown:

cant think of anything else, would be good to know what others think- and to find out if we just live in a mega expensive place!

Re: work advice please
 

I think all electrical good are expensive, we bought a 22inch tv for our conservatory just before Christmas after spending days going from one store to another we ended up paying 345eur for it, it has a built in DVD player and it was by far the cheapest one we could find. Back in UK a couple of weeks ago we could have picked up the same thing for £199.00. We are having to replace our oven if we can't get the part we need for it, so I have started looking already the same model is over 600eeur:eek: not sure what we will do as this seems a lot of money, well have to do a lot of research before we buy.

Big furniture is very expensive compared to UK, when we moved here we went to a local bed shop and they wanted 6ooeur for the bed base and another 6ooeur for the mattress, told them they were having a laugh and we would think about it. Ha Ha never went back but the cheapest we could find that was 650eur for a double bed. It was just for the spare room so didn't want to pay an arm and a leg.

Don't do makeup or gym so can't comment, (perfume I buy once every couple of years in dutyfree) shampoo works out expensive because I have highlights and the sun/sea and pool water really causes a lot of damage to my hair. My shampoo I usually pay 12 euros a bottle and about 10 for the conditioner. I don't let anyone else use it, for OH and visitors I buy Murkydona's for 3euro.

Let me know the name of the place when you find out, the local beach to me is called La Barrosa.

Re: work advice please
 

Wow! (again). Pardon me while I come and do my shopping in Spain!!!!:)

Re: work advice please
 

Featherbum, I would agree. We wanted new settees but the prices were really expensive and not even what we would want. We ended up buying a load of second hand furniture from relations in Estopona instead. Replacing anything here of that ilk is a lot. Need a new tv but thinking whether we could get it in Gib if it is cheaper. Have to check that one out.

Re: work advice please
 

Hola chiclanagir/crispy

yeah we find furniture is horrifically expensive, crispy, you got off lightly, when we went bed shopping they wanted, wait for it, 2500 euros for the bed only, no mattress:ohmy::rofl: and it was MDF, very pretty i'll give them that, but MDF, should be made of GOLD for that!

i think ikea is the only place where we wont have heart attacks browsing, we have one 1 hour away, havent visited yet, but wonder if its more expsnive than the uk, wouldn't surprise me LOL.

As for white goods, yes they are pricier, the least rip off we have found so far :the redcoon website and the eroski supermarket the best so far. We actually bought a tv off redcoon and got a really good price.

Re perfume, the one i use costs 66 euros here, i bought one off a uk website for 25ish. They delivered to spain for 2 euros:thumbsup:

Oh and another thing i miss... buy one get one free!:lol:

Re: work advice please
 

We have an Ikea in Seville about one and half hours drive away, went back in October to buy some book shelves and you will be please to know the prices are very good, so go and enjoy yourself there.;)

Eroski do buy one get one half price on loo rolls sometime:thumbsup:

Re: work advice please
 

Great that'd be the highlight of my week :lol:

Re: work advice please
 

Happy wiping. lol

Re: work advice please
 

this thread is taking a sinister turn now :ohmy:

Re: work advice please
 

It`s going down the pan...

Re: work advice please
 

If you were still an mod you could of pulled the chain on it.:)

Re: work advice please
 

Hi Crispy

spoke to my friend last night- the area she goes to is called 'conil de la frontera, i think in playa del palmar? i think its near you?

I take it in the summer it'll be v v busy? as we have to work the whole of June i am thinking of taking our hols in sept (if we can afford it after the iberdrola bill that is :curse:), cause i am guessing holidays are busier/pricier in july/aug...

xxx from chilly SS. xxx brrrr!