Living here for the past 8 months I can appreciate why it is so easy to live in Spain and why Americans would move here. Besides the wonderful people, the great food, the amazing history and incredible cities with many cultural experiences AND what sometimes seems like the almost daily fireworks, plus many, many fun and exciting events it is also........the cost of living! The big expenses like rent, health care and food are all considerably lower.
The biggest expense is rent. Our 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a terrace in one of the most convenient and nicest part of Valencia costs about 1/4 what it would in the Bay Area. Of course we live in a bubble in NORCAL so it's not really fair to compare our rent here to home....but it is what it is!
Spanish health care insurance would have cost us around $4, 000 total for both of us for the entire year. That is what we pay for about 2 1/2 months at home with a HUGE deductible.
As for food, that too is cheaper. We usually shop at two places within 2 blocks Mercadona (like Safeway) and El Corte Ingles Supermercado (like Molly Stone's). Our preference is to shop at the numerous fresh fruit and vegetable small shops with local owners near us, however they don't always have what we want and their hours of operation are not consistent. We buy our bread and pastries at some of the many bakeries, like La Petite Brioche or Pan Pan Atelier, etc.
We also LOVE the Mercat Central and Mercat Russafa for veggies, eggs, cheese and our favorite hummus. Each of these Mercat's have between 100 to 200 vendors selling all of these items in addition to Jamon, all other kinds of meat, baked goods, dry goods, olives and everything you can eat from the Mediterranean Sea. We do however, try to avoid these Mercat's on the weekends because they get PACKED.
Spaniards don't seem to shop much at organic stores. We found one 2 blocks from our apartment called Ecorganic. We buy dry grains and some canned goods but their produce does not look good so we don't buy it.
Valencia is a lot like California, known for agriculture and provides produce for much of Spain. For the most part they generally sell products that are locally grown and are of the season. Therefore even though the produce may not be organic it is grown and sourced locally from Spain. We feel the produce is healthy and of good quality.
Below is a comparison of prices from Safeway.com of the Bay Area to our local Mercadona. The chart is converted from kilos to pounds and liters to ounces and euros to dollars. What is not included in the Safeway total is sales tax, here the sales tax is already included in the price. So as you can see the cost in Valencia is about 50% lower than the cost at home.
Comparison of typical things we buy, prices at Safeway (US) vs. Mercadona (Spain). Mercadona is 43% cheaper.
One other major difference in prices is Wine.....they have amazing wine here for as little as say 8 euros ($8.43). Right now the euro to dollar currency exchange rate is 1 euro equals 1.05 dollars. We have purchased very nice every night wine for a low as 1.40 euros.
Here is a link with some further details on wine costs, etc.
Recently I bought 18 of my favorite beers, Turía, for our Solstice party....it cost me 11.16 euros (62 cents each), less then the cost of ONE beer at AT&T Park!
Living in this city we do not have nor do we need a car. We mostly walk everywhere or we can take the Valenbisi, the bike system. We also get around via the Metro or Bus. It is simple and cheap, 72 cents. Not paying for gas, insurance and the car is a tremendous saving for many people living here.
Things like going to a fútbol game can be about the same 40 euros + for a good seat or going to see a movie is about 8 euros. Surprisingly when we went bowling that was more expensive than I remember it being.
While we knew we lived in a very expensive place we didn't expect Spain to be as inexpensive, as it has been. Now I can understand why some Americans would be willing to move away from home and make this their new home!
It has been a reality check for us. I think we maybe in a bit of sticker shock when we get home!
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