Notes

A View From Spain

click here! 've been fortunate to have spent a lot of the winter of 2019-2020 living across the southern shore of Spain. Occupying a leased casa near the center of an old town for a protracted time, which necessarily involved participating with locals, including commercially with shop keepers and the like, gave me a fantastic chance to observe how daily financial life is lived at a place far from my New Hampshire house.


To be clear, I truly do have a life outside of financial monitoring, but for purposes of the piece I'll concentrate on a tiny anecdotal contrast between how people conduct commercial trade in a corner of Spain and in NH. To further set this up, note that I deliberately lived without a car and had no information plan for 3 weeks, relying instead on public transportation and WiFi (or wee-fee since they cutely state there).


via -monastic practices aside, let me tell you a little about my provisional Spanish hometown. Fuengirola, a small town of about 75K inhabitants, lies across the Mediterranean coast about 25 miles west of Malaga, the huge city in these areas. It is in the autonomous region of Andalusia (such as a US state), which is the biggest of these self-governing areas in Spain. Given that it had been commanded by the Islamic Moors for about seven centuries that the architecture and culture is a unique mix of Christian and Muslim influences not seen elsewhere in Europe. I agree.


What is get more info is how conservative things seem, at least to a guy in his late twenties. In NH needless to say we get in our cars and drive to large supermarkets and large box stores to buy our stuff, as well as is increasingly the casewe purchase things online and have them shipped to our homes. But here, the little "Mom & Pop" shops are alive and apparently well. The sidewalks each day, except Sunday, are teeming with people doing their daily promotion of vegetables, fruits, medicines, clothes, breads/pastries, alcohol, and lottery tickets (really large here).


I must admit that despite an apparent inefficiency with moving to one store for the bread, to another for your veggies, and to another for meat I enjoyed the quaintness and private touch of having to know the men and women who worked those institutions. Levels of private service always appeared large and I never felt rushed. Sure Amazon.es and big box stores like El Corte Ingles exist, but small brick & mortar retail is hanging on here quite well.


The cafe culture of Europe is legendary and it is in full swing in Fuengirola. secret info sit with family and friends for what seems like hours chatting over coffee and beer throughout workdays and weekends alike. Cafes and bars are everywhere float onto sidewalks. The jabber is lively and unkind and leaves a Yank with the impression that life really should be fun and lived with gusto. I must acknowledge I've wondered more than once, "How can any work get done around here? " But it does. It's a highly functioning, prosperous, and safe feeling community. Police presence is minimal.


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i thought about this is the currency. And now its value is only about 10% greater than the US dollar. However, prices for many commodities appear lower here. I'm often struck by just how much value I'm getting for this little money. Granted, networking is more than in NH and I don't have a good sense of the prices of energy and big-ticket items, but total prices seem cheaper in Spain. Also, this a cash-based society. My pocket often is weighed down with those heavy coins (a First World problem, I understand ). Sure consultancy use credit cards and telephone pay programs, but money is still quite widespread.


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