Our biggest worry about becoming digital nomads was financial. How expensive will life be in different parts of the world? Will we able to keep our standard of living while traveling full-time? We brought these woes when we left Hamburg for Thailand, Thailand for Madeira, and Madeira for the Cook Islands. So, I started a series of blogs.
This series, the Cost-of-Living Breakdown series, helps you figure out exactly how much life costs around the world.
It’s for the mid-range budgeters. Those of us who don’t overspend but are no longer in our backpacker era.
We lived in Madeira, Portugal, for 10 months. Here’s what we spent:
Monthly Cost of Living in Madeira Island, Portugal
| Expense | Euro | Dollar | Explanation |
| 🏠 Housing | 700 | 733 | 2 Bedroom House |
| 💻 Additional Costs | 0 | 0 | All costs are included in our rent. |
| ❤️ House Cleaner | 0 | 0 | We live too far away for a cleaner to come. |
| 🥗 Groceries | 800 | 837 | Weekly grocery shops and market runs |
| ☕️ Coffee | 0 | 0 | Brewed at home |
| 🍔 Restaurants | 100 | 105 | 1x weekly as a family |
| 🚴🏼 Transportation | 500 | 523 | Average rental prices + 2 tanks of gas |
| 📱 Cell Phone | 20 | 21 | 2 GB Data |
| 🏋️♀️ Fitness Studio | 40 | 42 | Dennis goes to the gym. I have physical therapy. |
| 💆♀️ Miscellaneous | 100 | 105 | Physical Therapy |
| 🥳 Fun & Activities | 0 | 0 | Our activity is hiking |
| 🧳 Insurances | 320 | 335 | Health Insurance, Accident Insurance |
| ✈️ Flights | 300 | 314 | Flights to visit family, averaged over 10 months |
| Total | 2880 | 3,015 |
While living in Madeira, we rented locally from Idealista. Our home was a small farmhouse in Boa Ventura. Our home was budget-friendly but remote. We needed a rental car!
Madeira is suffering through an affordable housing crisis. While our home is cheaper than our flat in Hamburg, it’s well above the acceptable budget for native Madeirans. To avoid contributing to the global housing crisis, we rent houses that aren’t suited for permanent residence.
Our neighbors taught us a lot about saving money on Madeira. They grew most of their own food, fed scraps to pigs and chickens raised for meat, and seldomly drove around the island. They spend their free time in the garden or helping friends and family repair their homes.
As always, I’ve excluded things from this budget that we still pay, like video streaming services and software services. Clothes, toys, and medical supplies are also not in this budget – we purchase those on an as-needed basis.
What do you think? Is this a reasonable cost of living? How does it compare to your COL at home?
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