is it possible to live.

As you would have to anywhere else you need to factor in your rent (maybe €350-500 a month) plus electricity (can be expensive, particularly in summer with a/c) and water, possibly gas, food is cheaper and better but still needs paying for, you might have community fees if you are on an urbanization (over €100 every 3 months), you have taxes to take into consideration plus the fees you might have to pay to a solicitor to sort out & pay your taxes. And for residencia, as far as I understand it you need to show you can support yourself (we haven't done it yet). Yes it might be possible with the figures you have given, but equally it might be a disaster. Sorry but no-one can do those calculations for you. If you are worrying about things down to the last centimo then it possibly isn't the right move.

Rob
Los Gallardos and Palomares

Think Rob has pretty much covered it. Go back 15years and would have given a cautious yes. You could potter along but then there is the unexpected. Acquaintances slightly inland pay a rent of 250€/ month but run a van in which they make deliveries.

Don't think I'd sleep at night.

Bob and Sandra

MANY THANKS ROB, I GUESS I WANTED TO STEP OUT IN FAITH AND LIVE BY FAITH, VERY POSITIVE THANK YOU.

ALL THE BEST FROM ROB.

BOB AND SANDRA MANY THANKS. ROB.

Hi there.Rob has covered most things including some pitfalls.An alternative to renting apartments is renting static/mobile home in camping los gallardos.Various designed static at long term (6 months +) for €375 plus elect and gas.Price includes all amenities e.g.community pool.shop. Coffee bar. Restaurant.crown bowls.Very relaxing.entertainment on Thursday too Sunday.Take a look.Hope this helps.Good luck

Evening all,

This post caught my eye because I am thinking of moving to inland Almería and like the original poster am wondering if I would be able to support myself until the pension kicks in (12 years). I am currently in my mid fifties and once my property is sold I will have enough to buy a smallish house outright and will then be left with around 600 EUR per month. Not planning on running a car or have a pool. I have an electric bike for trotting around on and should the occasional need arise I can hire a car. Essentially it will be me plus my pets (2 small dogs and 8 cats). Am I being unrealistic to expect to support myself on this amount? Thanks for any advice. Lesley :-)

Hi Lesley, If you have no rent or mortgage to pay and no pool upkeep ( water, electricity, cleaner) costs.. plus no car ( petrol, maintenance, ITV etc) then I think you could support yourself. But take into consideration the following possible bills to be paid.... electricity ( which as we all know can be expensive especially if running aircon- our bills just as an example are €89 all in a month - but we do have a pool and my husband works from home using computer and printer all day) we don't have any gas, Water which is not so bad price wise, I think ours is about €33 a month ( but we top up the pool nearly everyday ), IBI ( council tax effectively) this I have to laugh at because one month in the UK is actually more than a whole year here ! , internet provider charges( we use Rednet), TV provider ( we use IPTV through Androidman), mobile/telephone, house/ contents insurance (as a guide we pay something like €240 a year but I think that's too high, in my ignorance I took the quote but i compared it to our UK insurance !) life insurance if you take it out, food ( we think it's cheaper here but we buy for two - or three it seems sometimes ! so our bills won't compare- but also it's down to your choice of food - do try the Spanish brands it can be hit and miss initially but once you have found what you like it's so much cheaper than british imported food .. however there are shops about specifically catering for British foods ) 

As you have pets there will be pet food bills and Vet bills - we don't have pets yet so I don't know what Vet bills are like. 

that's all I can readily think of. However, do consider out of your lump sum living expenses amount you have to factor in getting your Padron certificate from your town hall, your NIE, and ultimately your residensia- in our case as we didn't speak Spanish , the Padron we did by ourselves with a lot of gesticulation and Google translate, but the NIE and Residensia we had professional help for which incurred their fees too... overall it's not a fortune but something to factor in none the less.. to give you a guide would be misleading as we were doing it for two so I'm not sure what it would be for one as splitting it in two wouldn't be correct.( but for two of us I think from memory all three things totalled something like €600 but I can't remember clearly now)

I possibly have left something out but that's all I can think of... make sure wherever you buy it has no communal fees or you will need to add that to the list also.

I don't know where you are thinking of buying but just in case it does help

we used CAM Concepts in Huercal Overa for the house purchase and NIE .. lovely English couple run the business they have been here 16 years or so

and for the Residensia we used Juan Rubio in Huercal Overa- he is a lovely guy, good english too.

All the best

Hi, just a few add ons, 

Residencia, partner and I got thru camconcepts in Huercal Overa, you only need to get after being here around 6 months.

Medical, you'll need private medical if youre under pension age, you can get most if not all meds or the Spanish equivalent.

You can register with a local doctor or doctor at any local hospital.

Driving licence you'll have to exchange 6 mths after you get residencia.

You can have youre driving licence and passport shrunk and laminated at various places.

Food as has been mentioned is better and fresher and cheaper, you can buy up to 8 litre bottles of water for around €1 in most supermarkets, gas cylinders now its spring coming into summer cost around €15.50 up to €17.85, Repsol are the cheapest.

Electricity is roughly the same as UK tho partner has a pool, one responder said they top up their pool every day, unless it's the height of summer where you can and will lose up to one tile a day thru evaporation, I'd suggest they have a leak somewheres, we had one on the skimmers.

There's lots to look into but if you can live frugally for the 1st six months you'll know how you can live longer term.

The health benefits of being in the Sun help enormously, 

various restaurants in Mojacar for instance have a half price pizza menu, some others have 12 starters mains and desserts, on average you can get very well fed for €15.

You'll probably get more info as the days go by.

Petrol and diesel are cheaper, dont know if you'll want to run a car. You'll eventually need the Spanish mot called ITV, cars under 10 years old the ITV is valid for two years, older than 10 years its only valid for 1. Brand new I think it's 3 years.

Left hand drive cars arent mandatory, we've been running partners rhd Honda since we brought it down from Essex last March 2017 without any problems.

Diesel, the cheapest we've seen is on the poligono on the way to Albox, €1.04 per litre yesterday.

Petrol, €1.11 per litre.

Here in Urcal near Huercal Overa we have Consum, Mercadona and Lidl. Theres an English shop that also accepts parcels, theres a big Carrefour in Lorca about 25 minutes away. The coast from here is roughly 40 minutes, we love it here for its peace and tranquillity.