Now I'm settled (1.0) in Portugal, in my nice little cabin, with my house in the UK successfully tenanted, I've finally managed to calculate my total cost of transitioning, and it looks like this:
Total cost = £4390
- Travel = the cost of driving from the UK
- Accommodation = hotels and AirBnBs
- House rental = getting the house sorted for rental
- Setting up = getting sorted in my cabin
- Beers = Beers!
There were some unexpected expenditures along the way, so the cost has been slightly higher than I'd anticipated, but the move hasn't broken the bank either!
Category breakdowns
- Travel costs were quite a lot more than I anticipated - mainly because of my flat tyre en route, which I drove on for way too long to the extent that I mullered two tyres, and did some other damage too, costing me 200 EU to get it fixed. I also scraped my car, and that'll probably be another 200 EU (estimate) to sort, AND I've got a few silly toll fines to pay - I had no idea I had to pre-register to drive on motorways in Portugal, it's such a shitty system!
- Accommodation costs were just my temporary dwellings en route and when first arriving in Portugal - a couple of hotel stays, I didn't find sleeping in my car in Aires comfortable at all, and I had an extra 5 nights in an apartment in Covilha because I left the UK a week earlier than expected, then my nice yurt near Orca which was planned.
- House rental - I've already talked about that - more than I thought because of some gas safety work I needed to get sorted and I've included the first month's fees - which is most of the first month's rent!
- Setting up the cabin is mainly a new heater and gas bottles, but also I've included the deposit, which I'll get back, so maybe OTT.
- And beers, that's just beers!!!!
There might be additional expenditures
There's a possibility I might have to pay another £1000 or so to sort my car out for Portugal, and maybe some further costs related to stuff I need to buy that I haven't anticipated.
When will this pay for itself?
This all depends on what my average monthly cost of living is in Portugal compared to in the UK.
I estimate my average monthly expenditure is going to be around £1100 a month for the foreseeable future, compared to an average of £1700 back in the UK, so that's a £600 saving per month, so I should be break even after 9 months at a conservative estimate, which is pretty good going if you ask me, as I'm not intending on going back to the UK!
However, the plan is to buy land, so that 9 month figure is possibly hypothetical, and when I do make the land purchase, which I'll call transition 2.0, my costs will skyrocket, but it will reduce my monthly outgoings even further, so I'll have to recalculate!