Expenses Through The First Month Of Living In Portugal
One of the many reasons I moved here is the cost of living is very low. That is put to the test by actually living here. Could we do it living on our investments?
After the first month I can safely say YES. I’ve been keeping track of all of our expenses (except rent) on google sheets. I logged every receipt and every time I spent cash and would do a tally every so often to get an average.
Below:
| Start Date | End Date | Total | Number Of Days | Average Per Day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/31/2022 | 11/16/2022 | €557.81 | 16 | €34.86 |
| 11/17/2022 | 11/26/2022 | €341.77 | 9 | €37.97 |
| 11/26/2022 | 12/1/2022 | €83.97 | 5 | €16.79 |
| €983.55 | 30 | €32.79 |
This list doesn’t include the following:
- €1,100/month for our AirBnB in Quarteira
- Around $250 we spent on our cellphone apps to keep our number and to be able to call and text people in the US
- Streaming services (we currently have HBO Max which is €45 a year, Netflix which is €15 a month, and NFL GamePass which is €60 a year)
- Side note: We can get what they call SkyShowtime (which we did for a few days then realized it didn’t have ALL Showtime on it). This service is very new so they’re still working out the bugs. We might subscribe to something else which gets us Showtime/Paramount next year.
A lot of this cost is miscellaneous expenses such as:
- A new jacket (I lost both my jackets somewhere along the way to our AirBnB the first day)
- A new pair of shoes (I think we’re going to need a lot of shoes since we do a lot of walking)
- We went to eat out maybe 6 or 7 times (plus a few random cafés, pastelarias, and bars)
- The first two days we had a rental car which was €250 to rent and €50 in gas
- Two sim cards which have 15 gigs for €15 a piece
- I drink A LOT of juice!
We could have been a lot more frugal (like not going out to eat or cafés or drinking so much cerveja) but I don’t want to do that. We could have also spent a lot more.
The US dollar to date is also a little bit weaker than the Euro so that total isn’t in US dollars.
I’m going to continue to do this for a few months until I feel comfortable and to get a good idea of how much it costs to live here for two people and two dogs.