You will hardly find any place in the European Union with lower living cost. The statistical office of the European Union has found that food and beverage prices in Bulgaria were nearly half the average in the EU in 2006. We estimate the prices for daily consumer products to be 40% of those in Northern Europe, taking into account that much of the products from the small farms like fruit, vegetable, olive, potatoes and honey are sold on the street corners in villages and towns by the producers themselves. And it is not foreseen that the Euro will replace the Lev before in some years time.

The official minimum wages in Bulgaria are 61.34 Euro per month, 0.36 cent per hour, compared with 7.14 Euro per hour in the UK. The income level of Bulgarian employees is 60 % lower than the average for the 27 EU countries, the Bulgarian Statistical Office reports. An American university has calculated that Bulgaria needs 100 years to reach the living standard of Western Europe, if not more efforts are undertaken to reach this goal.

This means that a retired person from Northern Europe will be able to stretch his pension considerably by living permanently or part of the year in Bulgaria, at the same time boosting the local economy. Bulgaria and the Bulgarians are welcoming the permanent tourists.

Bulgaria is affordable

Not only are the prices for buying property extremely low, but so are the costs of maintaining a property, too. Local property taxes are 0.15% of the book value, so if you have bought at a low price, the taxes becomes correspondingly low.

Electricity costs approximately 0.08 Euro per kilowatt hour during the day and 0.05 in the night hours. Water is 0.50 Euro per m³; a taxi costs 0.25 Euro per kilometre; a mobile phone will cost 6-22 Euro per month and from 0.07 per minute spoken; while a permanent LAN internet line will set you off 25 Euro per month.

You can have someone cleaning in your house for 50 Euro per month.

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Related websites:

• Oanda.com: Currency Converter Euro/Lev