This month I am moving to Portugal (most likely for good). This will change my daily life entirely, and I am finally moving to a country I love to live in, and leaving one that I don’t like that much. Exciting times ahead… after all, I live where you vacation from now on!

I have posted on how crazy beautiful the country is, and why did I invest in Portugal in the past years, as a means to take advantage of geographic arbitrage. Today, I’d like to expand a little bit on how awesome it is to live in Portugal, and why so many people decide to take their vacation here.

Quality of life

As I have written before, Portugal is like a small paradise on earth. The quality of life is very good. In the following, I’ll cover the main points.

Food

One of my favorite points. Food is Portugal is crazy awesome, and dirt cheap. As I said before, you can find you restaurants serving you awesome meals just like this one for less than $5:

cheap meals portugal

What I love to do is to order take away. Portions are always generous and I end up making two meals out of one portion. One takeaway portion like this one usually costs about $5:

food portugal I live where you vacation

Groceries are cheap too. I take advantage of many coupons and discounts. However, I can afford to order food to takeaway, as in many cases I end up making two meals out of a single portion. If you want to have a look at the most typical Portuguese dishes and some parts of Lisbon along the away, check this video from Mark Wiens out:

I am sure Mark agrees that I live where you vacation…

Weather and people

The pictures above were taken in February. Can you notice the amount of natural light there is? I ain’t faking it….

People are also extremely open and helpful to you. I wish you could experience this personally, as words can’t convey this accurately. At this point in my life, it is such a great relief to move to a country where most people are nice.

Safety and drug usage

Portugal ranks 17th in the safest countries in the world. Security reports claim that safety breaches happen primarily at very touristic spots and these are pretty much reduced to the busy tourist season. Violent crime is very rare.

Portugal has also a unique approach to drug usage. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized the usage drugs, allowing every citizen to possess a small amount of drugs. Turns out that this has yielded fantastic results. The number of drug-induced drugs dropped from 80, in 2001, to 16, in 2016. Have a look at these stats: 16 drug-induced deaths in the entire country in one year. Currently, Portugal spends 90% of the available budget for drugs on treatment and 10% on punishment – the opposite of the US. Have a look at this documentary:

My lifestyle

I will be living in Castelo Branco, a small city near Spain, and I will be working in Aveiro.

map portugal

(taken from Google Maps)

As I took a part time position in the beautiful city of Aveiro, I will afford to drive there every week. The way we decided to structure my working time was to work 2 weeks in the month (every second week). In the other 2 weeks of the month, I will be resting at home, and working on my projects, including From Cents To Retirement. I will be driving from Castelo Branco to Aveiro every other week, arriving on Sunday and leaving on Friday (probably late in the day).

Monthly expenses

I will be staying at a nice hostel in Aveiro. I stroke a deal with them, and I will be paying them $280/mo while I am there. Therefore, I expect the following monthly expenses:

  • Rent = €260 (about $280), includes utilities;
  • Food =  €250 (about $270)
  • Health insurance = €40
  • Gas = €150 (about $160)
  • Clothing = €50
  • Entertainment = €25 (about $30)
  • Others = €100

This means that my monthly expenses will sum up to €875. I will earn €1500 from my part-time job. From my salary, I hope to save at the very least €600 (i.e. 40%) every single month. Ideally, I would spend only €500 a month, thus allowing me to continue to save 70% of my salary, but commuting so often and living in a new city will not allow me to do that. My passive income will be completely reinvested into growing my portfolio, so I can forget about using it as well. I will try to do as much as I can in terms of online income and consultation. This income will be used to 1) grow the blog and 2) continue renovating RP#3 and paying down my mortgage on RP#2. I am definitely refining my strategy, but “the vision needs to be re-iterated, I do that a lot“.

Routine

During this period, I will be following the diet and lifestyle that I have described before. I hope to go to the gym 3 times in the week and read as much as possible.

I plan to spend 25% of my time blogging, 50% working on my new job and 25% of my time working on my Real Estate and online businesses.

In 2017, I am also making some treats: 1) I will meditate for at least 5 minutes every single day, but I hope to meditate for 20 minutes on Sundays, 2) after May, I will explore the coast on my own. In particular, I will be taking one Saturday every month to do that. I will run along the sea and capture beautiful images. Is there any better definition of “I live where you vacation”?

How others see Portugal

Here’s this couple of brits talking about the prons and cons of living in Portugal:

I agree with 95% of what they say!