I've been blessed to have spent a lot of the winter of 2019-2020 residing along the southern shore of Spain. Occupying a rented casa near the center of an old city for an extended time, which inevitably involved participating with locals, including commercially with shop keepers and so on, gave me a great opportunity to see how daily financial life is lived in a place far from my New Hampshire house.


To be clear, I really do have a life beyond economic monitoring, but for purposes of the piece that I 'll focus on a small anecdotal contrast between how folks conduct commercial trade at a corner of Spain and at NH. To further set up this, note that I deliberately lived with no car and had no data plan for 3 weeks, relying rather on public transportation and WiFi (or even wee-fee as they cutely state there).

These near-monastic practices aside, let me tell you a bit about my provisional Spanish hometown. Fuengirola, a little city of approximately 75K inhabitants, lies along the Mediterranean coast about 25 kilometers west of Malaga, the huge city in those areas. It is in the autonomous region of Andalusia (like a US country ), that's the largest of those self-governing regions in Spain. Given that it was controlled by the Islamic Moors for about seven centuries that the culture and architecture is a unique blend of Christian and Muslim influences never seen everywhere in Europe. I concur.

What is most evident commercially is the way old-fashioned things seem, at least to a man in his late twenties. In NH of course we get in our cars and drive to large supermarkets and big box stores to purchase our stuff, or as is increasingly the casewe purchase things online and have them shipped to our homes. But here, the small "Mom & Pop" stores are alive and seemingly well. The sidewalks each day, except Sunday, are teeming with people doing their everyday promotion of fruits, vegetables, medicines, clothing, breads/pastries, alcohol, and lottery tickets (really big here).

extra resources have to admit that despite a clear inefficiency with moving to one shop for your bread, to another to your veggies, and to another for meat I liked the quaintness and private touch of having to know the men and women who worked those establishments. continued of personal service always seemed high and I never felt rushed. Sure Amazon.es and big box stores like El Corte Ingles exist, but little brick & mortar retail is hanging here fairly well.

The cafe culture of Europe is legendary and it is in full swing in Fuengirola. People sit with family and friends for what seems like hours chatting over coffee and beer during workdays and weekends alike. Cafes and bars are everywhere spilling onto sidewalks. The jabber is lively and boisterous and leaves a Yank with the belief that life really needs to be fun and dwelt with gusto. " But it will. It's a highly functioning, prosperous, and safe feeling neighborhood. Police attendance is minimal.

The Euro is the currency. And right now its value is just about 10% higher than the US dollar. However, my sources for many commodities seem lower here. this post 'm frequently struck by just how much value I'm getting for so little money. Granted, gasoline is more than in NH and I don't have a fantastic sense of the prices of power and big-ticket things, but overall costs seem cheaper in Spain. Additionally, this a more cash-based society. sneak a peek at this web-site. is weighed down with those heavy coins (a First World problem, I understand ). Sure men and women use credit cards and telephone pay programs, but money is still quite prevalent.