Living Part-time in the South of France – Daily Living Expenses

Hi My Lovelies! Today’s video is all about some of the costs and expenses that I have when I am living in the South of France, Languedoc Roussillon region. I am not giving a comprehensive list but I am sharing some of what I have had to pay for things. I hope you enjoy the video!

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H hello my lovely welcome back to my channel and if you’re new here hi my name is jakara and today I’m going to be taking you through kind of my routine and I’ve done a day in the life before so this is not a day in a life but a a

Viewer asked me specifically if I would be willing to share what things cost here and what is the price of like living daytoday here so I will include all of the things that are kind of like day-to-day living expenses now you have to take this with

A grain assault because I only live here part-time so I’m not here full-time to really give you all of the costs of living here but I can give you a pretty good idea if you want to live part-time here in the south of France how much

Things cost and how much you need to save and uh just what it costs dayto day to get things done so as I do things I will share what I spent uh now I will exclude any of the renovation cost because that’s a whole separate thing

Uh that’s a whole of thing not everyone who moves here goes into a renov a property that needs to be renovated so I will not include that and that can go into the thousands so we’re not going to discuss that but if you have any questions about anything that I have

Shared on my channel regarding Renovations you are free to ask I’m pretty much an open book I’m not you know I’m not going to discuss all of my business but I will give you a good idea of what things cost so if you want to see how day-to-day living and the cost of

Day-to-day living here in the south of France in my region is specifically the uh uh lond region I will share that with you next so keep watching okay so there’s three types of grocery stores that I have encountered here and they’re very similar to the United States um the one I’m going to

Now is just get a couple items it’s the convenience store and uh it’s just a maybe two minute walk from my door so I’m headed there just to get something to drink for tonight for dinner tomorrow I will probably go to the intermar which is the

Larger type of like grocery store like a full-on grocery store and uh there’s another other type that I don’t particularly like and I don’t even shop at these type of stores in the US it’s uh a super it’s like a super store it’s got all the food and all of the things

For the home and stuff like that it’s almost like a Target it’s called The Click I don’t like it in there it’s too busy too many people it’s just I don’t like it I barely like grocery shopping as it is and at least with this little walk to this little Tac that’s what

They’re called um I will be able to just get what I need real quick and then go back to my apartment without you know too much hassle no it’s not that many people in there either so you’ll see I’ll show it to you right now it’s actually called

Vival by Casino they’re all over France so as you can see it’s like a a little convenience store grocery Store I’m going to pick up some orina cuz I love them and and they’re only I’ve only seen them in Europe so especially uh France I don’t I don’t know if I’ve seen them in they may have been in Portugal I just don’t remember uh so orina I need some

Water so I’m going to get I usually like Avan and then see they have a little some houseware stuff but not a whole lot like this is the bare minimum I don’t know what these shoes are these esper over here for 11 year old dog and cat

Food coffee and tea over here the canned goods over here the household cleaning stuff and shampoo and everything over here um more food and you know Pantry items here and then all the refrigerator food is here which I already have enough although I might get some some breakfast stuff so let’s get that

Um I don’t need any fruit veg right now I’ll go to the big store for that and like the frozen food food here all right candy so I got everything I needed they even have wine and everything over there but I don’t want any wine right

Now and then they have uh cheeses and meats so that was our little convenience store the I call it the tobac but it’s they sell tobacco there and stuff that’s why um but um that’s usually in every town or most towns they have a little store like that

Uh the bigger stor is in the town over about 4 miles away so I will probably go grocery shopping um within the next day or two at that store they they keep longer hours too and then uh I probably will not show you the LI cuz

It’s just too big it gives me a lot of anxiety to go there so I don’t go there anyway I’m going to eat dinner and then I’ll see you when I’m ready to go shopping again oh yeah I did forget they do have a Aldi I go there sometimes too

To get stuff cuz sometimes I can’t find what I need at the intermar so I go to the Aldi and plus it’s a little bit less expensive to go to ALDI just letting you know there is an Aldi here too I forgot to show you what

I got at the little convenience store I I didn’t I mean I kind of showed you but all I got was um two bottles of orina which are like soda pop like a orange soda pop um we call it pop in Chicago but I know some people call it

Soda to these I think these are a liter and a half so I got two of those and Evan that’s a 2 L bottle and yeah and some um breakfast meat so just like a package of meat um and I I spent 9 so the equivalent of like maybe

11 12 $ so that wasn’t bad I mean I think I would spent probably a little bit more in uh the US for that kind of food yeah I drink these quite often and they’re pretty cheap so um just to give you an idea of how things

Cost how much things cost so the first place I’m going is like the Home Depot of this area there’s another place that I go to that’s more like the Lowe’s if you know if you’re familiar with Lowe’s and Home Depot in the United States they’re are hardware stores but

They’re like big box Hardware Stores um it’s a place you can go to get like things to fix your house Plumbing electrical all that um this is the place where more like contractor people come like construction workers um versus lerra melon is more like the bougie hardware store so I’ll show you a

Few things in here I’m here for some renovation stuff so this may not apply if you moved here but um yeah I need to get some supplies looks like they’re having a sale today well they’re having a lot of sales I guess it’s like after Christmas sales

So it’s not really anything over here that I want to get except for maybe that heater how much is that 80 here is that 80 oh no it’s 29 Euro I think 1229 oh okay never mind I think that was the yeah the old price is 1229 and new price is

80 H I don’t need it that badly oh there’s a fireplace I am looking for like an electrical fireplace um how much is this looks like it’s €49 which is a decent price um hm I wasn’t really looking for this but this would be a good good thing to

Buy this is how I get caught up like oh it’s on sale let me get it this it’s exactly what I need cuz I’m trying to build a fireplace type thing in my living room that’s a pretty good price I just wish the face of it was black instead of

White I’ll think about it we’ll see let’s move on so here’s some kind of everyday item that you might need if you move here and you know if you need light bulbs or whatever at the hardware store uh this is a pack of 10 for $14.90 EO which is equivalent to about

$17 um I believe the euro it’s €1 to 80 cents or something like 85 cents not 100% it changes from day to day but uh your your dollar does not go that far here compared to other places so you know you have to account for that

And if you’re using a credit card from the United States or a bank card uh there will be a fee um so your bank will charge you a fee but yeah that’s an example of an everyday item that you might buy at the hardware store and how much it would cost and

That’s a 10 pack so you don’t have to get that one there’s the lighting section here I was looking for a floor lamp I saw one on sale back there but I didn’t really like the shade on it or the the bulb it’s like a

A globe lamp here it is like this is I don’t like that there wasn’t much more I could show you in that store that would have been like a regular like thing that you would buy other than maybe paint which is something I’m buying um the paint is comparable to the US I

Mean depending on the quality of the paint and um how much you get you know whether you get a custom color or not you know just depends on the price I spent about 52 on 2 lers of paint um yeah so anyway it’s comparable to

What I was spending in the US uh I got a more quality paint so it’s a little bit more expensive you could get uh a little cheaper quality paint for like €32 anyway that that’s all I could show you from this store uh I think next I need to go to

The grocery store but I’m not going right now but I’ll show you the grocery store next okay so I just uh filled out the tank well it was at a quarter of tank of gas so I did 3/4 of a tank of gas um I was doing this sp95 I guess it’s 95

Octane and it was 486 um Eur so approximately like $45 so that wasn’t too bad considering home I have to get premium unleaded and it usually to do 3/4 of a tank of gas it probably takes me about 5253 just to fill up to 3/4 of a tank if

I do a whole tank it’s $72 approximately so so you see it’s 81 which is about $2 approximately a gallon all right so I’m at the mall now um it’s just like a I guess a outdoor Type M Mall um some of the stores are very

Similar to kind of the stores that we have at home um just different names but similar stuff you know uh places with like iPhone cases and women’s clothing shoe stores all the stuff I’m going to the Laura which is like a art supply crafting home wears

Kind of place so I’m going there I’m not here for anything else really just to see what they have in the Laura and I’ll take you with Me so this place is like a Barnes of Nobles type Place Books and but they also have like art supplies and things in the back which is what I’m going to go to okay so I did one thing that you would normally do in the US which was I

Had to get internet service for my apartment um so that is something you would do if you move to a different country right so I had to get internet service cuz I was using my phone and it wasn’t really doing a great job up the internet in my apartment so I just spent

About an hour trying to get my internet service set up um so to compare prices um if you have internet in the US obviously um I paid 20 no I paid $ 199.99 a month for the internet and I think $10 for my French

Phone number so so so I can use yeah so I have a French phone number and a French phone um it’s basically like a SIM card but you know I can use it for my phone and uh for the internet and so that was alog together a month it’s going to be

Um like $29.99 a month so that’s not bad I think that’s pretty good I had to pay like $100 service fee uh €1 sorry service fee to have someone come out and set up my internet equipment so I didn’t want to take a chance and try to do that myself I don’t

Know anything about the internet or setting it up or anything like that so I I mean I obviously would want to pay a professional to come and do it so yeah so that was basically it and it you know luckily I Ed my translator to help uh kind of facilitate because obviously

I don’t speak French very well and and the person who’s helping me doesn’t speak English very well so we were kind of like going back and forth with our translators and I think it all worked out and hopefully I will have internet service when I come back here also because I

Will have internet service it won’t take me as long to upload videos which has been so frustrating since I’ve been here it’s been taking me forever so all right you guys I’m in the laundromat um this is another thing that I have to do when I come here cuz I

Don’t have a washer and dryer in my unit in my apartment so I am going to get one of each eventually but they’re expensive so I come to laundr plus it’s quicker it’s only like 4 miles away from my town so it’s just easier to come here and do

It and and um cheaper in a sense uh just to show you I washed three loaves of laundry and these are the machines that they have these bigger machines and those are for the really big machines so for for the smaller ones these smaller ones it’s like

€4 to wash your clothes so I did three lows so that was 12 e and then for the dryer it is also it was uh I think it was it was three or 2 year olds of cycle um I don’t know why it’s not starting but all right sorry about the noise you

Guys but finally I got the dryer to start uh I guess I didn’t push start or something I don’t know anyway um yeah it was €2 per cycle and I think I I bought three Cycles so six year because I’m doing two loads at a time drying two

Loads at a time so so all together I would say so that would be €6 plus 12 would be like you know €8 which is about $22 maybe I’m just guesstimating here uh which is I guess comparable to the US I I haven’t gone to the U uh laundr B in

The US in a long time so I’m not sure what the prices are I feel like this is reasonable considering it works really fast you know and it cleans my clothes fine and it’s convenient in a sense so yeah okay you guys I’m back at home now back in

Chicago and I just wanted to say that this was just a a quick little glimpse into some of the costs that it would you would have if you moved to France that particular part of France I should say because other parts are way more expensive such as Paris um and

Other big cities but yeah I think that’s pretty uh I should say indicative of what you would have to spend I mean I’ve course I didn’t cover cost like maintenance of a car cuz I don’t have a car there I will be buying one but um like maintenance and the tags

On the car or the registration things like that from what I heard it’s pretty um affordable and uh way more affordable than Chicago because there’s like so many charges that we have for our cars here and then um I didn’t talk about like property taxes or anything like

That so you know if you if you’re going to go there and you’re just going to live or rent you know I didn’t talk about rent because obviously I don’t rent um but if you have any questions about those things I can you know do some research and uh answer you

Regarding that and uh I also just kind of I didn’t have time to go and uh film in the inter maré I said I was going to show you but I thought I did I thought I was was filming in the store but apparently I did not cuz I looked back I

Didn’t have the footage so I apologize for that maybe next time I go back I’ll show you what the the bigger grocery store which is called the inter Marche what it looks like um the one I usually shop at but yeah I think I’ve I’ve kind

Of compared the prices of living here in Chicago versus living there and it’s definitely more affordable for me to live there the costs are lower uh even if you account for the uh conversion rate to dollars from Euros I think also too um I probably would if I did have a

Car there I would use less gas in general just because I wouldn’t need to run to the store all the time because we have one store in the town that I can walk to and you know I can walk to places here in Chicago but it’s just not the

Same um I I think that I I tried to give you a good Glimpse if you had any questions about anything else that would be part of like daily living there cost of daily Liv living let me know and I will let you know if I you know if I do

Know about it I’ll let you know but if if not I’ll try to look it up for you and I I just it’s really convincing me that this uh move to the lond region region of France was really a good uh Choice it was a good

Investment and I’m glad that I did it and maybe one day I will be shooting more material more videos there as a permanent resident cuz that is the plan for me to become a resident there but that’s going to take a few years so in the meantime I’ll keep sharing

With you all that I experience uh there and here in the US and I hope you enjoyed the video I hope you have a great day or night wherever you are if you don’t mind give me a thumbs up a like for this video and then I would

Love to have you as part of my community here so that I can share more with you if you can click the Subscribe button and the notification Bell so you know when I upload my next video that would be awesome I am trying to grow my

Channel actively so it would help me out tremendously if you did that anyway I hope you take care of yourself and I will see you in the next video until next time see you then talk to me now