I’ve been meaning to write a post about finances, but I haven’t been tracking them as much as I should be. I know how helpful finance posts were for us when we were thinking about moving here, so I’ll try to put a few numbers out there.

Our apartment is €700 per month. No bills are included in that price. We have a T3 (3 bedroom) with 2 bathrooms, a huge balcony, and an enclosed 1 car garage. I don’t know the energy rating but it must be an A or B. We don’t have to run the heater. Here are some pictures. We still haven’t finished unpacking, so excuse the mess. Also, we have two toddlers and a dog. And I’m just kind of a cluttery person. So there will always be a mess, no matter how much Kyle tries to clean, lol.

Our electric & gas bill is combined and has been around 100 euro per month. Like I said, we don’t run the heaters. We do run 4 dehumidifiers- a small one in each bedroom and a larger one in the living room. We haven’t gotten a full water bill yet. Our only water bill so far was for 6 euro but was only for 1 week of service back in January. I read somewhere that people pay the water bill for 2 months, so we really should be getting another one any day now.

Our health insurance is 150 euro per month for the 4 of us. Kyle and I are 39, and we have two toddlers. Our insurance is through Medis. Our cellphone/internet/cable is around 65 euro for two phone lines. It’s not unlimited data on the phones. I forget what it is, but we haven’t gone over our data yet.

Food is the one thing I don’t want to talk about, lol. We eat out waaaaaayyyy too much. Multiple times a week, but not every day anymore. We must spend a few hundred a week on food. When we get tired and burnt out, cooking is one of the first things to go. Luckily groceries are cheaper than we’re used to. So is eating out, though it still really adds up. We have been doing better lately, but eating out too much is something that we still struggle with.

We’re leaving for Lisbon in two days. We will only be there for 3 days, but I’m really excited to go back. We haven’t been to Lisbon since we first moved to Portugal. I may have gone a little travel crazy and planned a bunch of trips. In less than 3 weeks we are going to Aveiro for 5 days, and then in May we are going to Porto and Braga for a week. It’s so hard to be by all of these places I read about for years. I’m ready to go see them!