Forgive me, I am sure this question has been asked many times before but I am not able to find it on the Forum.

My wife and I are considering relocating to Spain (probably inland Valencia) and will have a regular income of approx Euro1,000 per month.

The intention is to semi-retire and for me to take part time or occasional work (if and when available), so our budget will increase by any earning potential.

We will own our property and wonder how far our 1,000 per month would go towards supporting a modest lifestyle.

We would be pleased to hear any views.

Additionally, properties that we are considering often have between 8,000 - 10,000m2 of planted olive trees which we would like to continue farming. We are told this would usually generate an income of 5,000 per year although we are unsure if this is a net income after the actual cost of upkeep, irrigation and so on. Any veiws on what maintaining a plot this size really entails?

Thanks.

Hi Kevin,
Did you read our page on the cost of living yet? I think that’ll help.

No idea about the olives though, but that sounds nice!

We have read the Cost of Living in Spain page. Whilst it is informative, we were hoping for comments from people in a similar situation to ourselves.

Thanks for the reply.

Great site.

ps I really like the idea of maintaining the olive groves. We plan to be visiting in Feb, if I can get the real low down on what this entails I will post a write up.

Please dont think it is easy to maintain any olive / almond / fruit farm.

The price of the harvest of olives can vary between 50c and 1 euro per kilo depending on the year and demand for the crop.

The interim work involved in getting this harvest is damned hard work. After the harvest, the trees need to be pruned, which is a manual job. then obviously the fields have to be ploughed, because the yield will suffer otherwise, irrigation obviously helps, but olives will produce anyway.

The local co-operativa of olive mill will buy your produce, but it is them who decides if your produce is worthy of table olives or for oil production. Then unless you have the mechanical machinery to harvest the fruit, i’m afraid it is handpicking, which again is bloody hard work, and if you employ anyone…........even Romanians at 4 euros an hour, your profit starts disappearing before your eyes.

It has to be a labour of love, and what you get from the end result is a bonus.

Thanks Jools

Much as I suspected.

hello,

In view of cost of living in Europe that you have mentioned here, I found that a global perspective has quite helped me. Here’s a little report from Korean Newswire:

Europe dominates cost of living ranking, says Economist Intelligence Unit

Hong Kong, Mar 06 (Korea Newswire)—Those travelling on a budget would do well to avoid Europe, according to Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Worldwide Cost of Living survey. Tokyo, unseated last year as the world’s most expensive destination by Oslo, has now also been overtaken by Paris, Copenhagen and London. Jon Copestake, the survey’s editor, comments: “The strength of European currencies plays a large part, but prices in Europe are also rising whereas those in Japan have been almost static”.

Of the ten most expensive cities surveyed, only Tokyo and Osaka hail from outside Europe. Western European cities make up the priciest places in the survey. Moscow (Russia?26th) is now more expensive than New York (US?28th), the most expensive destination outside Europe and Asia.

Latin America presents the best value for money overall, accounting for a quarter of the cheapest 30 cities. Guatemala City (Guatemala?63rd) has overtaken Mexico City (Mexico?68th) as the region’s most expensive.

source