Rising costs in Spain

Watching the sunrise on my early morning walk

With the excesses of Christmas over everyone is looking to recover and get back into shape. New Year resolutions have been made - and in some instances already broken, only a week into the start of the New Year. Dr Javier Salvador, President of the Spanish Society of Endrocrinology & Nutrition has said that "Physical activity and a Mediterranean diet are the best way to recover the physical tone after the Christmas period".

Some decide to join a gym to get fit - but with the rising cost of everything it is becoming an unaffordable luxury for many. But why pay for gym membership when you could take a brisk walk instead? I have started taking an early morning walk after doing the school run and was astounded by the amount of people doing the same at 8.15 in the morning. Everyone is so polite, smiling and greeting you with an "Hola" or "Bueños Dia" as you pass each other on the promenade... so civilized! And the views are spectacular - why pay to see the back of someones sweaty backside on a treadmill or static bike when you can watch the sunrise for free?

Locals cleaning their catch early in the morning

As for food, Dr Salvador recommends the much touted "Meditteranean diet" - plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish as opposed to meat and olive oil. Altea is a fishing port and you can see the fishing trawlers leaving the harbour every morning at around 6am and returning in the evening with their haul. They unload and the freshly caught fish is then auctioned at the quayside - if you go at about 6pm you will see the restaurant vans lined up outside, ready to load their lots. Its fascinating to watch - the boxes pass on a conveyor and a price comes up on a screen. The price then starts to go DOWN and depending on how badly you want whats on offer determines if your nerves will hold out and no-one presses their remote to buy the lot before you. If its a valuable haul and a restaurant needs it then they often press straight away to guarantee that they will be able to offer their customers what is advertised on their menu. Alternatively you can do what the locals do - cast a fishing line into the sea and wait. I saw two old Spanish gentlemen early one morning doing just that and they had quite a big catch!

Fruit selection on one of the many stalls

The fresh fruit and vegetables are easy to do here in Spain. Almost every day you can find a market in one of the local towns offering what looks like a rainbow selection of colour. Monday is La Nucia; Tuesday is Altea; Wednesday is Benidorm; Thursday is Villa Joyosa; Friday is Alfaz del Pi and Sunday is Albir and Benidorm (I can´t think of one held on a Saturday locally!)

Most of the locals will go with a shopping trolley and buy their weekly needs - you can taste most of the fruit before you buy. In the summer its great as you can virtually have a fruit salad whilst walking around - strawberries, cherries, peaches, nectarines are all offered by the stall holders. The little old ladies will be picking a single courgette and pepper whilst mothers will be weighing out kilos worth to feed their families. Its a far nicer way of shopping rather than buying pre wrapped goods in copious amounts of polystyrene and cling film.

Ever increasing petrol prices....

Additional price increases have continued to batter the pockets of many households - here in Spain the arrival of 2013 has gone hand in hand with the introduction of further price increases. The end of tax exemption for biofuels has caused the price of fuel to go up by 2.4 cents on petrol and 2 cents on the price of a litre of diesel - meaning it costs about 3 euros more to fill the average tank of 50 litres and now breaks the 70 euro barrier. To punish drivers even more, on top of the fuel increase toll charges have gone up 3.3%. And for transport it doesn´t stop there - train operator Renfre have announced that ticket prices have increased by 3% too.

Electricity bills in Spain consist of 2 parts: The first is the number of units you have used and the second is the standing charge. This is calculated on the capacity made available to your home and there are three options. The higher the rating the higher your standing charge will be. Many households opt for the lowest therefore paying the cheapest standing charge, but with the number of household appliances the system overloads and the fuse often trips. The Government plans to implement increases in the penalty charge to users who go over their allowance in order to "encourage" consumers to opt for the correct consumption category.

Telefonica, the phone operator is also proposing to increase the monthly line rental charge, which has for the last 5 years remained unchanged at 13.94 euros. So whichever way you look at it... the cost of living is going to increase.