Mineral water is available free in fountains all over Portugal, thus Portuguese people don't need to buy it. Buy a soda stream if you want the gas. It is also better for the environment.

Don't come to Ireland because its the most expensive country in all Europe and the wettest also loved your video thank you.

Can you a video on getting laborers to redign on houses.

Excellent videos! I enjoy them very much.

Portuguese people rarely drink sparkling water, only if they feel bloated after a meal. Still water is healthier. Generally we are also penny pinchers. We home cook or bulk cook and limit the number of times we eat out (we choose affordable restaurants with home -made food) or order take out food (mostly pizza). When shopping we pay attention to promotions and sales in every shop and supermarket. The average Portuguese makes ends meet and still manages to save a bit.

Use BRITA.😘😘

I am getting much value and learning from your cost perspective. I currently live in America and am researching Portugal as a retirement consideration. I am retired but my wife wants to continue to work for about another 18 months. The prospect of moving to Portugal offers unlimited adventure but I know there will be trade offs and that is why I am to doing my research now so our expectations are in line with "reality". Many make the move without concern for costs and others – like me – don't like surprises. Thank you for sharing.

Dont worry, as a portuguese, we are all mad at the gas and electricity price as well

Your video to much clear
And useful

Thank you for video

Where are you originally from?

Portugal is not cheap place to live. Even from American standard. It’s the weather and culture. I have traveled many places , east Europe is the best value except the snowy winter and hot humid summer. I don’t know how local portugese pay with wages they earn.

There are machines to add gas to plain water, at least in the us. But, bubbly water is bad for your teeth 😁, just saying ….

Thank you so much for sharing this info with us!

Have you tried using a filter (like Brita) with the regular tap water? I am hoping to be able to drink the tap water in Portugal when I hopefully retire there one day…

All really useful, as always. Im wondering how short term car rental is coming on in large towns in Portugal. If you were in an urban area and wanted to avoid having a car, but like you say are doing lots of running around to set up your new life, would it be easy to rent by the hour I wonder? I have a car here in a Japanese city, but its getting easier and easier to just do short term rental in the local area, and so avoid all the expenses of running a car. I know it wouldn't work for you guys in the Algarve, but as cars are so expensive in Portugal, I wonder if that would be possible for someone in a city?
It's really interesting getting your perspective coming from one of the places with a lower cost of living in the EU, so thanks again.

Gasoline/petrol is so expensive that some people in the Algarve drive across to Spain to fill up their car. We are thinking of doing it and bringing back some Manchego cheese, sherry vinegar and a few cases of Rioja. Maybe you should do the same but stock up on mineral water at Mercadona while you're there.

Don,t drink water with gas because can kill your kidney.
Drink wine is better and cheaper.

Love your videos and welcome to my land of birth, we are building new home in the Aveiro region and coming to Portugal end of september
we also love mineral water and there is some machines available called sodastream. Worten shows they have them but i cant find the Co2 cartages. Well there is a better way (amazon.es) they have machine and cartages available you can make your own (Agua Gazificada) good luck.

Thanks, another good one.

Hi, just a correction on the first item "pedras" it's 2.89€ for 4 unit, in ligh grey 0.72€ per liter, and the electricity… maybe you are paying to the resort, I pay a little bit over 20€ for a flat I don't use, for the one I use it changes a lot from summer to winter being a lot more expensive in winter due to heating, on summer 2 ppl less then 50€ for electricity and gas, on winter around 100€, internet… well according to your country vodafone page.. the most I found was 500mb/s 186 channels but maybe I didn't find the 1gb/s package because I don't speak your language, on our vodafone page we do have less channels, 140 and to be frank I would prefer to have 20 decent ones then the crap we have, 500mb/s is easily available and 1gb/s it's also available with net+voice only package, yours is a lot cheaper though, that is nice, and btw for 44,9€ you can have mobile package with no data limit and 1Gbps
Remember though that you are in resort, in a tourist area, things will be a bit different, enjoy your stay

No SodaStream machine in Portugal?! I love sparkling water! This will make me sad when I move to Portugal.

Save the root end of your onions and green onions. Put them in a little soil in the window and they will regrow. Water regularly, keep the soil slightly damp, not wet.

Yes, a nice video. You can find good 4G mobile subscriptions that give good internet access, Vodafone Red Unlimited for example for unlimited data use. In general there are very many advantages of living in Portugal and of course a few cost surprises, as you mention, but its still worth it for sure.

I get what you are saying, there are many things that change and it’s always a tradeoff. Some things you will like, some you won’t, that’s just the way it is. The easiest way is to try to adjust to how the locals do things since you plan to stay for a long time. You then see if you can adjust or not. Fortunately for you the variety of the food and drinks is quite diverse here and we have real food, not the junk that is found in some countries. It might not seem that important, but I’ve seen you’ve gotten the picture. It doesn’t kill you not to have what you are used to, but it does make a dent in your experience. If you really miss some of your products ordering some over the post could be a solution. A lot of Portuguese migrants get by like that, it’s a good way to deal with being home sick.

You are never prepared enough, whatever country you chose and it doesn’t matter how much you prepare ahead, surprises will happen. Certain details you only learn about when you immerse yourself in the culture of the place you arrive to.
I understand what you are saying also about the prices, you at least came to a place where the quality is good overall. Don’t even try the UK, the prices in the supermarket are crazy expensive when compared to Portugal, and let’s just say that in terms of flavor it doesn’t even come close. Most of the products are imported and if you talk about fruits and vegetables they are not ripe when they get picked so they can withstand the trip and have longer shelf life. Guess how that will turn out. Their best supermarket is Waitrose, the quality isn’t even up to Pingo Doce standards and the prices are through the roof. That should give you an idea.

Energy: In the winter in the UK you either have your boiler going all the time or you are going to freeze and get sick. What you pay then for gas and electric triples compared to the summertime. Those and other factors made me come to the conclusion that living in the UK isn’t for everybody. You either adjust or you will never be happy and basically you end up wasting a big part of your life. So being honest to yourself about how you feel is always the best policy. In the end it’s your life and it should be about how much you are enjoying it. Sacrifices might be made, but beware of your pain threshold or you might get severely depressed and that’s never a good thing. You might need to look into what is happening with your electricity contract and what type of service you are getting. If you provide the meter readings consistently you should be paying what you spend. Otherwise they will charge you for an average value and get it squared at the end of the year, in which case you could end up paying what you owe or get a credit that will be rebated in your future bills. 40 euro just for keeping the contract seems very steep.There might be some details to perceive there.

Regarding internet packages, my experience tells me that it doesn’t pay to be changing all the time because of a better deal of a few euros, and here’s why: having your won business from home and depending on service, once you get a stable one stick with it. The losses of not having service at some point could mean you not getting or even losing a customer, the amount of stress generated can be insane when you call customer support. So better not need it, my experience is they are all equally bad in that respect. You might get lucky and get a quick response, or be in a world of stress.

Mineral water… here we go: What you buy in bottles is always mineral water (cultural differences), meaning it comes from some natural spring. Us Portuguese drink carbonated or sparkling water (whatever you want to call it) mainly to help with our digestion, Pedras is a favorite for that. It might explain why it’s more expensive, sales aren’t as large as for still water. Ingesting carbonated drinks is considered to be bad for us, as it degrades bone density and you get bloated. I don’t know if it’s a myth, there might be some truth there. Overall in the Algarve tap water isn’t that good. It wont kill you but it usually doesn’t taste good. So people tend to buy it from the supermarket. Supply and demand might play a role there.

Choosing is always letting go of something, we can never find everything we are accustomed to outside of our own country no matter how similar they might be. Children adapt quite easily, everything is an adventure to them. Adults might take a lot longer or never adjust fully. As an adult you are so used to your culture and ways of doing things that it doesn’t feel natural when you have to do things differently. Some people like that experience and see it as a challenge, others might hate it. Having someone with you so you can keep each other motivated is a big help.

The language barrier is another big obstacle. Your English skills aren’t bad, pronunciation can be improved, but it’s understandable and you have a very decent vocabulary, so if people are willing to make an effort you shouldn’t have too many problems. In fact, it’s probably a good thing that you don’t sound English, they haven’t earned the best reputation in the Algarve, so there’s an upside for you. Overall, things shouldn’t be too hard for you guys, we are known for going out of our way to help foreigners. Try the same in the UK and you will find that overall people don’t want to be bothered and there are three ways you can start a conversation with the locals over there. Either they are your co-workers, go to the pub or attend church. That’s it. They will great a stranger on the street and sound very polite, always apologizing over everything, but they are usually not open to bonding with anyone unless they are in holy ground, like the pub. If you are holding a pint, it almost feels like you are friends. Outside the pub, not so much.

Want to save up on food? Get a big freezer. When you get discounts in the supermarket you will have a place to preserve it, so you can buy bulk. This will not only help to save on fuel, I tend to shop every two weeks, so I use the car for that twice in the month, but I can always manage quite well if something prevents me from leaving the house like being ill or this pandemic we are having. A basic but efficient freezer will pay for itself in perhaps two years and after that you can even profit from it. Going vertical and tall is the best choice, trust me I’m speaking from experience.
Hope this can help you somehow, if it’s redundant its even better, it means you are adjusting quite well already. Best of luck and I advise you to get into learning to speak European Portuguese. What you had selected in google translate was Brazilian Portuguese, and while we can understand it, it will make your life more difficult when you need to understand us. The differences can be as from Portuguese to Spanish. Most of it is so similar you don’t even need to study it but some words can have totally different meanings. To an outsider it will be almost like learning two different languages. I can´t see anyone telling you off for not speaking our version of the language, this remark is mainly so that you have an easier time when you have a dialogue with some locals.

Right, this is already long enough, best of luck for you chaps. Hope you fit in and enjoy your experience in Portugal and may it be all you were hoping for when you decided to move in. Well, at least most of your expectations.

Thank you so much for all the info ,my husband and l are planing to move to Portugal , and all kind of information is so relpeful😊

Mrs

You are wrong about mineral water in Portugal

Portugal has mineral water
, with gas and without gas

Before commenting on mineral water, you should read on the bottle label

Technical specifications and chemical composition

Mineral Gas water is more suitable for aphrodisiac and alcoholic mixtures

The Portuguese, not drink mineral Gas water, the reason is more expensive
Portugal has over twenty different brands of mineral water

When the Romans were in Portugal for a thousand years, ago they already consumed Portuguese mineral water

Agua con gás/sparkling water from Continente. Water Custo: 1,5 litres = 0,39€
Cost per litre 0,26€/litre (from the best waters in Portugal, with a lot of spas in that region because the water is one the best to your health (Caldas da Rainha). Read the wikipedia in english Caldas da Rainha to read about their water.
https://www.continente.pt/stores/continente/pt-pt/public/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductId=5487535(eCsf_RetekProductCatalog_MegastoreContinenteOnline_Continente)

That's the one i drink.