As you may have read, we took a mini-retirement where both my husband and myself would be off from Jan 1 – Mar 20 and without pay until the end of April. We spent 7 weeks in Portugal, to see if the cost of living there would be as cheap as we had read based on our current lifestyle. This post looks at our expenses from Jan 1 – Apr 30, 2020 to outline what our mini-retirement actually cost.
Actual costs for Jan-Feb in Portugal and Mar-Apr in Ireland: 13,984€. This was over what we had budgeted by 2,684€ or 19%.
Portugal costs
The total cost of our time in Portugal came to 4,357€ for almost 7 weeks. This comes out to 622€/week or what would be an average of 2,488€/month.
This included:
- 1,874€ accommodation
- 877€ Groceries
- 355€ restaurants
- 838€ travel (flights, bus, train, airport snacks etc)
- 419€ misc (cash withdrawals we didn’t track, unexpected child related costs)
Overall we spent 750€ more than we budgeted even though we came back a week and a half earlier than planned.
Accommodation
Accommodation was 233€ less than what we had planned mostly because we came home 1.5 weeks earlier than planned so had less accommodation to pay for.
Food
Food was a lot more expensive than we had read, we think partly because we were in Portimao for 5 of the 7 weeks which is more touristy, and we thought that Lidl would be as cheap as Ireland. We also ate out at restaurants more than we would have at home so while we had budgeted 750€ for food for the 8 weeks, we actually spent 880€ on groceries and 355€ on restaurants which brought us to 483€ over budget.
Half of the restaurant cost was an unplanned day date when my sister was over and graciously minded baby MH for the afternoon. We went to a fancy french restaurant and had the tasting menu for 165€, an unusual splurge but oh so worth it.
In Mar and April once we were back in Ireland we spent an average of 152€ and 160€/week on food. If we look at the 880€ plus 190€ on dinners out excluding the pricey day date that comes to an average of 152€ on food per week as well. According to numbeo, we were expecting groceries to be 40% lower than Cork. Even if we exclude restaurants in Portugal (new average of 125€/week) and take-away in Ireland (new average of 146€/week), the difference still only comes to 14% less in Portugal.
Travel
Travel was over by 337€ as we had originally budgeted the flights we had booked at 250€ plus 250€ additional misc travel for bus trips, uber etc. We went over on this item as Mr. MH sadly had to come home for a funeral and to visit a sick family member, we also decided to come home early and booked additional flights, though this was offset by the savings we made by not needing to pay accommodation for the last 2 weeks in Portugal.
Misc
We had budgeted 250€ for misc items, things like outings and sightseeing or unexpected expenses. This came to 410€ (160€ over budget), the biggest portion of this was cash withdrawals that we didn’t track where it was spent.
Basic comparison
Overall we spent an average of 622€/week (or an average of 2,488€ for 4 weeks) for our time in Portugal. In Mar and Apr in Ireland we spent what would be an average of 2,474€ for 4 weeks (more or less the same).
This isn’t a fair comparison though as the Portugal costs include air travel and other costs we wouldn’t have in Ireland.
For a more fair comparison, if we look at accommodation and food costs alone (accounting for 35% of the typical Irish household budget) and compare to our costs in Ireland, in Portugal we spent 2,945€ for 7 weeks (or an average of 1,682€/4 weeks). In Ireland for Mar and Apr we spent 2,337€ (or an average of 1,168€/4 weeks). This shows that our current cost of living in Ireland is 514€ less per month for these 2 items. The Irish accommodation costs I included was mortgage, electricity, gas, internet and refuse bins which would have been covered by the accommodation we paid for in Portugal.
Ireland costs
So the Portugal portion was 750€ over budget leaving the remaining 1,934€ overage to the 2 additional weeks in Ireland in Feb which were unplanned and other unplanned costs in Mar and Apr.
For Jan and Feb, I originally only estimated mortgage, electricity, gas and internet as fixed costs we would have while in Portugal. As mentioned, Mr. MH came back for a week during our stay and we all came back mid-Feb when we had planned to come back at the end of Feb. This added most of the additional costs in terms of food and transport etc.
We also found that our mattress was making us itchy and decided to get a new one which was almost 600€ we hadn’t planned for. I also splashed out a bit and got a new mirror for our bedroom and some other decorations for the house.
March and April were pretty much what we had planned.
Take aways
If you’re planning a mini-retirement yourself and will only have a set amount of money to cover your expenses be sure to add in a 20% contingency. You will always have unexpected expenses which cannot be planned for. I should have known this from all my time working on projects! Life is no different. If you under spend, great! But if the unexpected happens at least you’ll be prepared and not be looking to sell off other assets (which also happened to take a 35% hit at the same time due to COVID-19) or go into debt to cover them.
Nitty Gritty
And for those who love tables. Here is our full expense listing for the last 4 months. A total of 13,984€ and a monthly average of 3,496€.
| Category | Total | Monthly Avg |
|---|---|---|
| Bank Charges | € 31 | € 8 |
| Blog | € 218 | € 54 |
| Cash Withdrawal | € 50 | € 13 |
| Entertainment | € 122 | € 30 |
| Food | € 1,657 | € 414 |
| Coffee/Snacks | € 62 | € 16 |
| Fast Food | € 122 | € 30 |
| Groceries | € 1,396 | € 349 |
| Lunches | € 14 | € 3 |
| Restaurants | € 64 | € 16 |
| Gifts/Charity | € 121 | € 30 |
| Home Accessories/Furniture | € 766 | € 192 |
| Kid Stuff | € 169 | € 42 |
| Clothing/Accessories | € 68 | € 17 |
| Medical | € 56 | € 14 |
| Toys/Books | € 45 | € 11 |
| Medical | € 135 | € 34 |
| Misc (Taxes due, Keys) | € 388 | € 97 |
| Monthly Bills | € 4,152 | € 1,038 |
| Electricity | € 179 | € 45 |
| Gas | € 317 | € 79 |
| Internet | € 140 | € 35 |
| Life Insurance | € 63 | € 15 |
| Mobile | € 201 | € 50 |
| Mortgage Interest | € 1,836 | € 459 |
| Mortgage Principal | € 1,385 | € 346 |
| Refuse Bins | € 48 | € 12 |
| Personal | € 104 | € 26 |
| Salon (pre-COVID) | € 44 | € 11 |
| Vape | € 60 | € 15 |
| Family Fund | € 140 | € 35 |
| Transportation | € 360 | € 90 |
| Petrol | € 202 | € 50 |
| Public Transport | € 29 | € 7 |
| Tolls | € 80 | € 20 |
| Uncategorized | € 20 | € 5 |
| Vacation | € 175 | € 44 |
| Cat Sitter | € 175 | € 44 |
| Wedding (Accomm, Food, Gift, Transport) | € 798 | € 200 |
| Work Expenses (Accountant) | € 185 | € 46 |
| Zero Waste Consumables | € 20 | € 5 |
| Mini-retirement Portugal | € 4,357 | € 1,089 |
| Accommodation | € 1,875 | € 469 |
| Groceries | € 878 | € 219 |
| Misc | € 411 | € 103 |
| Restaurant | € 355 | € 89 |
| Travel | € 839 | € 210 |
| Grand Total | € 13,984 | € 3,496 |
Nice, except you still pay for your main accommodation in Ireland while on mini-retirement (rent or mortgage). To offset that would be nice to AirBnB it away, hopefully this will be possible in the future.
Hi there, yes, we actually did look at renting out our place while we were away but ran into an issue with insurance. I detailed our considerations on that in this post https://mrsmoneyhacker.com/how-we-managed-a-mini-retirement/ and here https://mrsmoneyhacker.com/tips-for-planning-a-mini-retirement/#House_prep.
Great detail as always Megan…thanks for sharing
Thanks 🙂
Glad I could help you rack up your restaurant expenses 😉 wish I could more often.
Im Portuguese, living in Ireland, very interesting exercise!
Portimao is literally for tourism. Would be nice to do the same exercise in more “local” areas.
I’ll leave you here a few suggestions:
. Milfontes
. Odeceixe
. Porto Covo
. Lagos (also in Algarve)
. Porto
In the first three places you would get very cheap meals in very nice restaurants. Nice beaches and rent a house is way cheaper. More quiet, less crowded. Algarve is over priced in everything.
Porto is incredibly cheap when compared to Lisbon. It is an adorable city with incredible food.
Great insight 🙂 Next time we go to Portugal (and as long as travel/safety permits, there will be a next time), we will definitely check some of these places out. I still don’t think we would live between the two places longer term due to the isolation and other factors but will definitely like to make a habit of spending at least 3 weeks there in the winters!
Nice to see a comprehensive post like this – but it’s hardly a mini-retirement and more of an extended holiday (IMO). That might be why you didn’t make the size of savings you’d thought
We’ve been to Portugal a few times and I’ve always liked it – possible retirement location? I think it would be in the mix but the distance to the ski slopes puts the Lady off.
On Cork living – I got put off the prospect of working in Cork when back in 2004 I bought a bottle of wine for €8 that tasted like vinegar – at that point, I thought that the cost of living wouldn’t make starting a career there a wise choice.
Thanks, yes fair enough, may not be a fair comparison than if we’d stayed longer. Others have commented on the locations we stayed as well being of the pricier variety, but also the fact that our expenses are already quite low in Ireland makes it harder to compare. Lol about crappy expensive wine, I very rarely drink so did not throw me off. 🙂