Ecuador is known for its natural beauty friendly people great medical facilities
and reasonable cost of living.
Nestled in the Andes Mountains, Cuenca with its
charming colonial architecture and 70-degree year-round temperatures is
attracting people from all over the world to make their home here. An average
budget for a short term resident, staying less than three months, renting a private
room in the city center, and eating out most meals is less than $1,200 per month.
Expats living long-term in Cuenca report living an upper-middle class lifestyle
for around nine hundred and forty dollars a month per person.
Coming up, we'll hear from local residents about their cost of living in Cuenca Ecuador.
it's a lot less than it is in the States I'd say most people's budgets are
anywhere from 15 to maybe $2,000 a month per couple, but there are a lot of people
that live live on a lot less. You can find apartments for three, four hundred
dollars a month and you can pay as much as you know $1,200 a month.
Same thing with houses.
buying a home in Ecuador is a fairly simple process.
for as little as sixty-five thousand dollars you can find a two-bedroom condo near
shopping areas and a short cab ride from El Centro. One hundred and twenty
thousand dollars can buy a modern three-bedroom three-bath home with
high-end finishes. Our apartment is the central courtyard with a glass roof over
it which we're using as our living room and dining room, and then we have rooms
off the sides. We have a really big kitchen and a salon that is my husband's
study in our TV room. We have a bedroom that has walk-in closet and a bathroom,
and then another bedroom which is my craft room that also has a walk-in
closet and a bathroom. And we have a third, they call them social bathrooms
here, it's just like a half bath in the United States. And then off that is a
storage closet, a bodega for us. So that's our house and it's it's a pretty
cool house and and they did hand-painted finish work on the corbels. They reused
the original wood in the doors. They saved as much of the original structure
as they could. They handmade wrought iron inserts for the transoms above the doors.
And for this we pay $450 a month, rent. This is our third year here, and it may
go up another $50 or whatever, but when we first moved in it was $450, they said they
would raise it but they liked us so they just kept it the same rate. Our utilities
here I pay $33 a month for Internet. Water is about five to eight dollars.
Electricity is about twenty five dollars, and then our internet, we have to have a
phone line to connect and that's $3.
Our monthly budget here is about $1500 to $2,000 a month.
Does a trendy location overlooking the river appeal to you?
Well I have a studio and it's perfect for my needs I mean I don't really it's fully
furnished and I don't really need more than that so why, you know why would you
take something bigger than what you need. And I paid I'm paying
$410 a month. That's probably more than, you could get
cheaper places actually this is just a really nice, just a really nice spot and
I have a really great landlord so sort of it that's why I'm sticking with it.
And of course the location.
and what's the cost of living in a trendy location if you're not watching your budget?
It's under $1,500 and that's that's me not trying to
save money it's because I'm a tech guy and I don't want to waste my time
shopping for groceries. I just go to the supermarket instead of going to the
local market. So I know I'm overpaying. Like if I paid attention I could probably get
that down to $1,200 and that includes the $410 rent.
And like I said I'm not really I'm not splurging but I'm not I'm not counting
my pennies either. It's it's a lazy, it's a lazy budget let's put it that way.
for convenience I think a couple could probably stay for almost the same thing
really, because the only thing that increases be maybe your food a little
bit and maybe you'd go obviously a little slightly larger apartment so
maybe pay a hundred dollars more.
Maybe a single-family home with a yard and a garden in a suburban neighborhood
is more your style. Our house, is it's an older house but it's very Ecuadorian.
It has three bedrooms and an office, and most houses or two-story. And it's just it's
charming. The rent for our home is seven hundred. And we have a guard across the
street, Luis who is just absolutely precious. We pay him $50 a month to look
out for us. Our gas is propane and we buy our big tanks, you know
in the states you get the little ones like this. Well here they they get this
big and we go down to the mercado and they're a dollar and seventy four cents a tank.
And we go through maybe three three and a half tanks a month. Our electricity
is maybe $60. Water is $8. Our utilities are just nothing. Our budget here runs, I
would, I'm gonna throw out a guess here which is about I say about $2,000 a month,
for both of us. And that's car, you know that's the house,
you know utilities, insurance the whole, you know everything. You can find a
place for $200 a month if you want to and you can spend $2,000 a month on an
apartment. It depends on what you want to do.
more information about living in Cuenca is available in the full length video,
LIVING AND RETIRING IN CUENCA ECUADOR,
from LivingOverseas. TV
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