Living in Spain: Cost of Living for Foreigners in Spain 🇪🇸

i've got a coffee and a green smoothie and i'm in a market in spain it doesn't get any better than this for me you guys this is all i need in life i'm a happy camper there's a lot to love about spain from the food to the weather to the history culture and people but one of the biggest perks about living in spain has to be the country's affordable cost of living if you're new here i'm kristen and i've traveled to more than 60 countries in the last 20 years and on my channel we do a lot of cost of living guides from estonia to buenos aires to bulgaria to japan and in this video i invite you to nerd out with me as we take a deep dive into spain's cost of living there are a lot of places that you might be considering living in spain and so to help you compare and contrast them i've organized this video into five of spain's top destinations so we're gonna start with the most expensive and work our way down to the most affordable so you'll have to wait till the end to find out which one is the cheapest on our list today we have malaga madrid savia valencia and barcelona and for each one we're going to cover the most important categories of cost of living expenses so things like housing utilities groceries restaurants banking health care insurance and more the good news is that you really can't go wrong in spain because overall there's only one spanish city that ranks on the mercer index when it comes to the most expensive cities in the world and that's madrid but it only ranks at 82 out of 100 cities so we're starting at a really average cost of living and working our way down now before we begin just a disclaimer that your specific cost of living is going to depend on a few different factors how long you plan to live in spain and also where you live the longer you live in a destination the lower you can get your cost of living you can get access to more affordable long-term housing but the other thing is that you start to develop this kind of sixth sense about the place that you're living in so all of a sudden you go from feeling like a fish out of water to really living like a local you start to dial in the local transportation you know where you're gonna go to get your groceries and you know what the best restaurants are that have the best value the best food and aren't tourist traps so the longer you get to know a place the lower you can get your cost of living and then on the other side where you live is also important so hopefully this video will help you choose a destination out of five of spain's most popular expat cities so let's start with the most expensive place to live in spain i already gave it away and it's madrid madrid is spain's largest city and it's also the third largest city in the eu expats tourists and locals alike love madrid for its really nice atmosphere amazing food art culture nightlife and shopping scene madrid is also known for its high number of palaces parks and gardens and it has a very mild climate with up to 350 days of sunshine per year a fourth sunniest city in europe just behind lisbon portugal the cost of living in madrid can be about 35 lower than living in a place like san francisco or new york city online estimates for the cost of living in madrid are between two and four thousand euro per month however experienced expats have shared online that they're able to get their cost of living down to two thousand euro per month or even fifteen hundred the biggest difference there comes with the rent prices nomad list has studios in the center going for about nine hundred dollars per month and airbnbs for an average of 18.75 but i checked prices on airbnb for one month at different points throughout the summer and i was able to find fully furnished one bedroom apartments starting at just around a thousand dollars per month for utilities you're looking at an average of about 170 dollars per month and among those your internet can run you between 30 and 50 dollars depending on the speed now in spain telecommunications are pretty standard across the country with a few main providers so as an expat or a tourist if you get a prepaid sim card with a company like vodafone it's going to run you between 10 and 20 euro per month and that's going to give you between 16 and 40 gigs of data so not too bad let's talk food one of my favorite topics so i'm walking around in the old town in san sebastian and just basically on my own food tour a kilo of apples in madrid could cost you two dollars and 30 cents a dozen eggs are 285 a loaf of bread only 54 cents chicken 350 per pound and a bottle of wine less than eight dollars if you're gonna eat out in restaurants expect a cappuccino to cost you around two dollars and seventy cents a beer depending on what type it is between one and four dollars a bottle of water less than a dollar lunch like the plate of the day a drink a main course and maybe a dessert around thirteen to fifteen dollars and depending on how big you wanna go a meal out for dinner can run you from fifteen up to sixty dollars finally tapas for tapas you're looking at about two to five dollars per plate for transportation in madrid if you don't have a car you can expect to pay around seventy dollars per month for public transit thirty dollars for a taxi from the airport to the city center and strangely i found that an uber was more expensive at around 42 a co-working membership in madrid could run you anywhere from 70 or 80 for a hot desk up to and seventy or even two hundred dollars for a dedicated desk but services are pretty affordable and you can expect to pay between ten to twenty dollars an hour for something like cleaning minimum wage in spain is quite low though coming in at 1050 euro per month which is right between the minimum wage in france and portugal so if you're living in spain or any foreign country naturally you're going to want to have a local bank account but this is one of those things that can get really complicated really fast especially if you're a us citizen now how to open a bank account in a foreign country and what the requirements are is a topic for another video but when it comes to your monthly banking fees if you were to open a traditional bank account in spain right now a bank like santander is offering their cuenta mundo account at fees of 10 euro per month and then on top of that you'll also want to budget for atm service charges and also atm withdrawal fees so according to santander's website that could be anywhere from 0.2 up to 4.5 with a withdrawal fee up to 350. the real complexity and the high cost of banking in foreign countries is one of the reasons that i've been using for so many years now transferwise was nice enough to sponsor this video but i've been using their digital bank account for years before i ever launched this youtube channel and it's made my life a lot easier transferwise is an international account that lets you manage your money internationally and you can send and receive money in different currencies for really low fees you could use your transferwise debit card in countries like spain and in most places where debit cards are accepted and you can also minimize your international transfer fees atm fees and forex fees if you're curious about opening an online account with transferwise check out the link in the video's description and get your first money transfer up to 500 british pounds free another expense to budget for is health care and insurance so i like to get a policy that covers me in a lot of different countries around the world but if you plan on staying in spain for an extended period of time and you're not a european citizen and you don't have a european health insurance card then you may be able to qualify for expat or non-resident coverage through a local insurance provider and those rates will vary widely depending on the type of plan and company you get and also your age but you could expect to pay between 50 to 200 euro per month i usually only use my travel medical insurance for emergencies so during other times i'm just paying out of pocket for medical care so if you wanted to get a dental cleaning in madrid that can cost as low as 10 euro up to 50 on average and just a regular doctor's appointment will probably cost around 40 or 50 euro you can even get a hotel or a home visit from a doctor through a company like my doctor in madrid.com for 120 euro so the second most expensive place to live in spain is barcelona and it actually ranks 102 on that mercer index of the world's most expensive cities but it's really similar to madrid in cost of living and also days of sunshine so whereas madrid is the fourth sunniest city in europe barcelona is not far behind in ninth place the only notable difference in the cost of living between madrid and barcelona is that the rental prices are slightly lower in barcelona so you can expect to pay between 50 and 100 euro per month less but almost everything else from groceries to utilities internet plans transportation and meals out are going to be very similar now it's time to head down the coastline to valencia spain's third largest city and right in the middle of our cost of living list it also has a slightly milder climate than madrid so it's a little bit cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter and it's known for having a little bit quieter and more relaxed pace of life but that doesn't mean it's boring valencia is also known for its beaches nightlife festivals live music and more so again the big difference here and the cost of living between madrid barcelona and valencia is going back to the cost of housing the same one bedroom in madrid that could cost 1 000 euro per month or 9.50 in barcelona will only cost you 750 euro in valencia whereas a three bedroom that cost 1600 or 1500 in madrid in barcelona will only cost you 1200 in valencia utilities and groceries are also slightly lower as is the cost of transportation and for more help comparing and contrasting the five destinations in this video you can get a link to my cost of living in spain google sheet as well as a budgeting and planning template for digital nomads and expats and the link in the description below getting down to the cheapest destinations in our list the second most affordable place to live in spain is malaga on the sunny cosa del malaga is one of those quintessential spanish beach towns and i passed through there in 2018 on my way to board the nomad cruise and i was immediately surprised by how affordable everything was i remember my food bill at the market across from my hotel and out at restaurants and bars was really low and i went back and pulled up my credit card statement from when i was in malaga and it looks like i was paying 75 per night for a furnished one-bedroom apartment that was really nice in the city center so that was on short-term stays nightly and weekly stays but the people who i talked to at malaga like hostels and out and about were just raving about how low the cost of living was for them just to compare i was paying 75 per night for just a room in san sebastian spain on the north coast so malaga is a lot more affordable and the last city on our list is you guessed it seville located just inland from malaga ceviche is the lowest cost city on our list today in seville rather than over 1 000 euro per month in madrid you can expect to pay between 400 and 600 euro per month for a monthly rental and in my property search for this video i even found studios and rooms as low as two to three hundred euro per month your utilities will also be about 10 to 20 euro lower per month compared to madrid or barcelona and your grocery bill will be about 100 euro less per month transportation is also slightly cheaper at around 30 per month compared to 40 or even 70 dollars per month in madrid and eating out is lower as well with a very nice dinner for two running you about 30 euro rather than 50 in madrid and barcelona so just for comparison's sake whatever your cost of living is in madrid or barcelona you can probably cut it in half by living in a smaller town within spain or one of the towns on the mediterranean coast as a general rule of thumb the north coast of spain is more expensive than the south and the bigger cities are more expensive than the smaller towns and villages i read that one travel blogger was supporting a family of four on just 2100 per month in malaga and that same thing or even less is possible in seville are you planning on moving to spain anytime soon if so where let us know in the comments below and make sure to subscribe to my channel for more cost of living guides to help you travel the world and work from anywhere so i've done a lot of hiking in my day but there's something about this walk that it's so exhilarating like i feel so much happiness right now just walking on this path there's definitely something special about it for sure

Channel: Traveling with Kristin

Views: 194,425

Rating: 4.9155555 out of 5

Keywords: living in Spain, cost of living, cost of living in Spain, Cost of living spain, Moving to spain, Move to spain, Living in spain as an american, Living in spain as a foreigner, How much does it cost to live in spain, Live in spain, Life in spain, expat, expat spain, expat living, Cost of living in madrid, Cost of living in Valencia spain, Living in Valencia, Living in malaga, seville spain, moving abroad, Digital nomad cost of living, digital nomad, Traveling with Kristin

Id: Q2v_A-iHGvc

Length: 15min 29sec (929 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021