There have been a lot of recent posts on living expenses in France done by several different people in very different situations. LouLou lives in the south of France and owns her home outright. Jennie lives in the Alps and rents. We live in Normandy and are paying off a mortgage on the house we built.
I don't believe in converting Euros into Dollars simply because it doesn't make sense, we're paid in Euros and spend in Euros so it twists things the wrong way to be converting all the time. Here are some figures to give you an idea - they are all monthly to make more sense.
Mortgage 570
Food 400 (I don't skimp on food!)
Internet 32
House insurance 27
Electricity 75 to 100
Car insurance for 2 cars 32+47
Cell phone for two phones 44+42
Mutuelle (additional health insurance) for each of us 20+20
Gym 40
Because we built a h.ouse we are exempt from taxe fonciere and taxe d'habitation for the next few years. We just did our income taxes for the year 2010 and will not be paying any (actually getting money back) because I could deduct all of the km I drove with my insane commute last year as well as the interest paid to the bank for the house (again temporary reduction for a couple of years). What kind of heating you have also makes a huge difference in your bills, the heating here is a pompe a chaleur with underfloor heating which really doesn't cost very much to heat the house, no gas or oil to pay for.
Gas depends on how much we drive, both cars are diesel. Mine gets about 5.3 l/100km meaning I can go about 1,000km on a tank of gas which these days costs about 60 or 70 euros. MG's car gets better mileage about 4.2 l/100km.
4 commentaires:
Wow, your mortagage is low!! Ours is about twice that, I guess the price of living in the Ile de France, even if we are way out in the boonies of the IdF... We are considering adding on to our house, and a pompe a chaleur is tempting because we heat with fuel and it is pricey!! We might replace our insert as well, when we are vigilent about keeping a fire going, we can avoid turning on our heat until say end of November and turn it off a little early as well...
You've got a pretty good deal there. On top of it, you've got a gym!
We don't have a mortgage, but as Ashley, our main expense is heating (fuel and wood) and electricity.
Take advantage of any tax credits you can get.
Our mortgage is also much steeper than that, but there's no way we even come close to spending that much in electricity or food. It always depresses me to calculate our true monthly expenses though as we've got close to 800€/month of brand new expenses in prescription formula, boat loads of hospital and doctor visits, and nanny fees. I was never a true adult in the states though so now way of knowing if we've got it better or worse.
I don't know why our electricity is so high right now. When we first moved in it was around 50 euros a month but we think our fridge is on its last legs and perhaps sucking power? Odd...
Anyway we're trying to live on a budget but not sacrifice either.... I'm a foodie and love trying new things and buying as much in season/local and organic as possible.
I think it's interesting to see people's budgets!
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