Rising Cost of Living No Longer Worth it? – Living in Portugal in 2024

Rising Cost of Living No Longer Worth it? – Living in Portugal in 2024

the cost of living in Portugal has gotten to such a point that I don’t think that I can personally say that Portugal is the place to be anymore well it’s almost like that old Outcast song in the place to be but not to be at the same it’s a great place to be but unfortunately there are some major downsides now I’m Rafael D this is another episode of not your average Globe Trotter and roll that intro like many episodes of not your average Globe troter I’m going to be speaking about things in a very general sense and I’m going to be painting with a very wide brush if you’re looking for a video that’s talking about specific figures how much does this cost how much do specific things cost when it comes to the cost of living in Portugal in the words of the great Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi this is not the video you are looking for I’m just here to speak about my perspective as somebody who’s been living abroad for more than 16 years and to speak about things from a boots on the ground experience from what I’ve been looking at so let me just get straight into this why am I making video recently I was contacted about a speaking engagement in another part of Europe for a private event and okay if I’m going I may as well go for potentially like a couple days Tak in the sights it’s not a secret where I’m going if I end up going there I’ll make a video about it and when traveling though a lot of people look at museums and they look at attractions statues Cathedrals and this and that and the other me I’m a little different I look at food I mean of course not your average Globe TR this is what we do here and on top I also look at the cost of living and what the realities are of living in a place where do locals go what do locals do what are those things again like the sign says not your average Globe trod there’s a reason for this I don’t travel in the normal ways that people normally travel and of course recently I’ve been talking about how the cost of living has been going up here and really I was actually a bit more surprised about how much it had gone up more when I looked at some of the the cost of rent and certain things and yes in many ways when you’re looking at certain parts of Northern Europe that the cost of living will be more there but when we’re talking about rentals for apartments like I mean we’re talking about northern European prices in southern Europe but this is a really really really big problem because in Portugal the minimum salary the minimum monthly income that a person would get would be less than half of what a person in many northern European countries might get so I mean how does this kind of all even out and this of course brings me back to a point that I’ve made so many times about Portugal southern Europe Italy just generally speaking is that if you are earning an income from abroad that it’s a really interesting or at least it’s been a really interesting place to consider to make your home because if you are able to live in a place and lower your expenses then you’ll have the opportunity to put more money on the side at the end of the day but if the cost of living is approaching what it is going to be in a much more expensive a much more costly part of the continent then do you still have that same reason there and especially taking into account how nhr is no longer available to at least the vast majority of new immigrants of course this comes with an asterisk for maybe a tiny minority of individuals being possibly eligible to be able to still get in on it and then even if you might potentially be eligible if you actually get accepted it’s a different thing but I’m not going to go into that in this episode and then on top golden visas being canceled not canceled maybe canceled kind of canceled sort of canceled possibly canceled but totally canceled but maybe maybe not it leaves a lot of people wondering if it’s going to be a solid choice to make because you may be interested in it now but how are things going to look like in a few days in a few weeks few months or even a few years years from now and then even for the people who were able to get in on the nhr we’re talking about a tax incentive that is only good for up to 10 years and then after that you go on to the normal regime so there are going to be a lot of people who just in general won’t find themselves invested for the long term in the country so personally I’m very curious what things will look like as time rolls on and more and more people kind of I guess you could say age out of nhr or kind of have spent enough time here Will will they continue to stay here or will it get to such a level that it will no longer be sustainable for them so if you’re talking about Portugal a country where many people have come specifically for the financial incentives for the tax incentives is it really the place that has the same value as it did before and this is one of the reasons why I was saying at the beginning maybe it’s not the place to be anymore but it’s still the place to be because Portugal is overall a wonderful place to live in many ways if you have an income but talking about income I’ll get into that in just a second here but if you are in a fixed income but your cost of living and your taxation because yes your Social Security could be taxed here in Portugal and in the vast majority of cases of individuals who I know who are living here on Social Security that’s the case for them just before we get into the next section I do want to say a quick thank you to those of you who helped to make this project possible on a monthly basis the rafhael de.com patreon or the thanks button here on YouTube and rafhael de.com support as well as a huge thank you to those of you who share these videos who like these videos and who have subscribed to the channel they all very much help this project to be able to continue going on so really it does mean a lot and let’s get back into the rest of the episode so if you’re not specifically coming to the country because of the country and just because of what’s offered there then is it still worthwhile staying there or even considering to move there I mean this is why a lot of people are now looking at places like Spain and uh even actually a place that I specifically a few years ago would have said maybe not to look at things are changing and there are incentives that are starting to become very interesting for people who are thinking about a life abroad Greece is another country that I know has become interesting to a number of people and even in places like Albania and Romania and in places like those last two specifically the cost of living there is going to probably be much much much less than what you might find most of Western Europe to begin with but of course like I’ve said in so many episodes it’s really important to go to a place where it’s the right fit for you to go towards a place to not leave from a place but also to look at the reasoning why you want to be there do you want to be there specifically because it is that place or are you leaving your country and just looking for the cheapest place to be this definitely affects your experience this definitely affects what you will see and what you will go through at the end of the day when it comes to your life abroad and for many people they’re just looking for a jump off point to be able to travel that’s one way of moving abroad personally I don’t think it’s necessarily the most ideal way but nothing wrong with it it might not be the best in some ways for me but for other people it actually very well could be the best way for them and like I was talking about before if you’re going to be living in Portugal earning a Portuguese salary but having northern European expenditures is that so realistic I mean when you are looking at a country to move abroad to you of course have to look at why people are staying or why people are leaving and in a country like Portugal also Italy as well Spain I guess also falls within this as well that you are looking at countries where a lot of young professionals are leaving but why are they leaving what opportunities are they seeking and what are the opportunities that they are thinking that they’re not finding or know they’re not finding in their country of origin this also the flip side to this whole argument that when you are going to a place that has a higher minimum salary that the cost of living is generally going to be more expensive so this kind of maybe nowadays in 2024 doesn’t follow some of the same rules that it did in the past especially here in Portugal just because to me I’m not saying that it is but Portugal looks currently like a little bit of a bubble in some ways and I can only wonder what is going to happen over the next years again talking about how inflation has hit the country like the rest of the world as well as what has happened in the country with so many individuals wanting to invest in the country and the price is rising people locals who are owning Apartments raising the rents and putting rents at a higher price uh expecting for a foreigner to come in and pay that price rather than a local to come in and pay that price so maybe if you’re in a point in your life where you are on a fixed income or you are working as a digital Nomad and you know roughly what your income is going to be where is the place that presents the best value to you where is the place that presents the best lifestyle to you and if you can find both of those in Portugal then that’s amazing but when we’re talking about even a city like where I live Baga and comparing it to European cities that would be part of say like northern Europe and when we’re seeing that what your monthly expenditure could be versus what you’re going to be earning you really have to think about that and so I can say that I am not surprised that nowadays there are maybe so many people who are really looking at leaving the country both foreigners and locals alike the big question though comes down to if you are at a point in your life where you are needing to further your career and you’re having to even maintain a career then what are your options going to be in another part of the European Union if we’re talking about a place like maybe the Netherlands or Belgium or some parts of Belgium or some parts of Germany yes maybe you will find bubbles where people might be working in a company that speaks predominantly English or even in Finland maybe even Sweden for example uh there’s actually a Finnish camera store uh that sells used analog cameras and is from what I’ve heard from their social media it seems as though most of their meetings and a lot of their internal communication ends up being in English just because now so many people are from abroad that seem to maybe even outnumber the number of locals who are working there and also on top finish is not one of the easiest languages to learn so when you are thinking about where to go generally speaking if you really want to be solid in a career you’re going to have to gain some level of fluency in a language this is why I’ve been preaching since the very early episodes of not your average Globe Trotter about learn the language I’m not saying that in every single case you have to be perfectly fluent however the better that your language skills are the further that you have the potential to go in some ways because having the ability to express yourself and the ability to communicate and connect with others can help an individual to allow the person sitting across the table from them the value that you bring to their business to their company to whatever it is that you’re doing or do you want to make your own company do you want to form your own company what are the restrictions there what are the the the incentives to do so what would maybe say it’s better to work as a freelancer like everywhere else these are the factors you have to take into consideration and so and again looking at the cost of living in Portugal presents both a problem but I would say also an opportunity for those who are thinking about where do they want to make their life and where do they want to settle in some ways and in some careers in some Fields there are going to be opportunities for an individual in Portugal will there be more opportunities elsewhere quite possibly is that guaranteed no nothing in this life is guaranteed moving forward in the future that’s never been the case the future is always this this blankness in front of us where the only thing that we ever truly know that we have is the moment that we’re living in now and every minute that came before it so is there the chance that the cost of living could come down here possibly but I mean if we look at General trends for cost of living and cost of goods and services and all of these things they don’t tend to really tank all that much they tend to just keep on going up as time goes on of course it can happen nothing is impossible of course when it comes down to cost of living it’s not just your apartment that you’re living in but it’s also your groceries and various other things and yes some of these things will cost more in northern Europe but we are also seeing that there are some things that may actually end up costing the same even I was comparing cost of restaurants here in Baga versus a few different cities across northern Europe just because when I started I started going down this whole Rabbit Hole of looking at one city and then another city and another city the cities don’t really matter I’m just talking again in a very general sense about southern Europe northern Europe what I’m seeing here versus what I’m seeing up there and even one of my favorite cost indexes to look at across the globe is what I like to call the burger index not the McDonald’s index the Big Mac index but the general costs of a burger what is the normal cost of the people’s food you got to know these things or what is like a normal Al cheapap meal and I would say actually funny enough in Braga there’s not a ton of options for just kind of cheap places to just go of course you have places where you can go get snacks and so on but I’m not necessarily talking about like sandwiches or things that maybe I would call a meal but lowcost meal some of those things are starting to go kind of the way of the dinosaur in some ways do they exist of course they exist but I feel as though based on my personal experience having spent time also in northern Europe that there are more options even just kind of what of the normal foods that people eat in general and more places that you can go for a quick simple snack just to grab and go but a lot of the dining experiences specifically here in Baga are more sit down sorts of things yeah there are places where you can go for a quick bite but it’s kind of like literally just a fried snack of some sort and not a cheap meal or at least not what I would personally call a cheap meal but then even looking at certain things like Transportation public transportation yeah yes the price is lower here but when you’re looking at your overall expenditure things start to get very close at the end of the month at least with the things that I’ve been looking for even Furniture there’s not a lot of uh a used market for furniture here at least from what I’ve seen people even I know a lot of xats are like hey where are the used furniture stores and this and that it’s not like they don’t exist but even the prices of the places that I have seen are not cheap whatsoever granted you can find really solid Furniture that’s used but then you start looking at Ikea and Ikea starts looking interesting I mean unfortunately it’s one of those places that’s becoming hard to avoid and the secondhand Market in this country I would say is not quite as vibrant as some other parts of the world and when you start looking at Northern Europe where reusing and Recycling and uh secondhand markets are much more within the kind of cultural norm as you might find in say like the US for example you start seeing that when you’re looking for certain things the the final cost is not going to be as crazy expensive as what you might find elsewhere again more specifically here in Portugal but of course I’m Rafaela this has been another episode of not your average Globe tro thank you all so much for joining me for this episode especially thanks to those of you who helped this project to keep going on on a monthly basis Raphael de.com patreon patreon.com raphaelas Raphael de.com support the thanks button here on YouTube also especially thank you to those of you who like these episodes and share them with your friends those very much help this channel as well as to those of you who subscribe everything in all of those different ways helps of course I’m Rafael D stay safe and healthy out there and I’ll see you all next time for another episode of not your average glob troter later [Music]

Portugal, once a haven for affordable living, is now starting to face Northern European-level rents while maintaining much lower minimum salaries, making it a challenge for both locals and expats alike. The phasing out of the Non-Habitual Residency tax benefits and the uncertain future of golden visas add to the financial unpredictability, diminishing the country’s previous allure for those with foreign income. Although public transport and some services remain cheaper, overall costs, including groceries and dining out, are climbing. As a result, many are now considering other European destinations like Spain, Greece, and Romania, which offer lower living costs and new incentives. Despite these challenges, living in Portugal continues to attract those who appreciate its unique lifestyle, but thorough research is crucial for expats to determine if moving to Portugal still fits their financial and personal needs. In this living abroad expat podcast episode of Not Your Average Globetrotter, hosted by dual citizen expat Rafael Di Furia, we’ll go over the current cost of living in Portugal, the impact of policy changes, and alternative European destinations for expats.

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