The (High) Cost Of Doing Life In America (And Spain)

Tomorrow morning, in my Substack newsletter, I list and discuss all of the costs associated with making our upcoming move to Spain. My wife and I leave Los Angeles on January 2nd.

You can access that post and everything else I publish at a 50% discount for one year if you subscribe at this link. Alternatively, I convert all $100 founding memberships to comped lifetime subscriptions. That's the better value, which just so happens to be the topic we discuss in this edition of my LinkedIn newsletter.

In the forthcoming Substack post, I wrote--

It might be less expensive to live in Spain, but it’s certainly not cheap to get there!

That said—I consider the opportunity to do this a privilege. I’d rather spend the money to move to Spain than stay in an American urban environment I’m less than satisfied with.

And this is really what it comes down to.

We spend money every single day. I think most of us like to do one of two things with our regular spending:

• Keep it as low as possible,
• at the same time as feeling like we're receiving value within the context of our needs, wants, preferences and priorities.

So, you might be willing to pay extra for something you like or that is of better utility if it doesn't break your day-to-day bank. For many people lucky enough to have disposable income, the cost differentials here amount to pocket change.

What really matters are those big-ticket line items, such as the cost of housing.

Interestingly (maybe), we will pay about the same to rent an apartment in Spain as we do in Los Angeles, because we're under rent control in LA. While we're central in LA city and expect to situate ourselves likewise in Spain, we prefer the more walkable, public space-focused environment in Europe. Even so, we're not going there to receive a discount on housing. At least not right away. The savings will come if/when we're able to buy an apartment, which is something we absolutely could never accomplish in California.

This said, we're not moving to Spain to save money.

Sure, we'll spend less on day-to-day items, such as groceries and meals away from home. However, when you see how much it takes to make the move, then consider other larger, one-off expenses, such as making trips back to the United States, it pretty much evens out. We're already about to book a trip back to America for my daughter's college graduation in May 2025. Then, we'll fly back to Spain with both of our daughters. A considerable expense.

Bottom line: What we might save on ingredients to cook at home or have a couple of drinks in a bar gets quickly offset/evened out in other parts of doing life.

Therefore, moving simply to save money probably isn't the best idea. You really need to ensure you're moving to an overall environment you prefer.

Plus, it's easy to miss on the math and forget about less frequent expenses not related to daily life.