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    Super Cheap

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  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
  • Conferences

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    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

    LEARN MORE
    DISCOUNT
    LEARN MORE
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    LEARN MORE
    PRE-REGISTER
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    Contact Our Events Team

    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
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    From Outside North America:
    1 (443) 599 1221
    Working Hours
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    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

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    Overseas Havens Reports

    • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

    Conference Kits

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    Lahardan Books

    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
    Global Property Advisor Global Investment Opportunities

    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

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Home Retirement/Living

Cost of Living In Paris Versus Panama City

Panama Versus Paris

by Kathleen Peddicord
Jul 09, 2023
in Retirement/Living
0 0
Paris, France

iStock/neirfy

Years ago, when we were preparing for our move from Paris, where we’d been based with our children for four years, to Panama City, where we intended to launch our Live And Invest Overseas business, Lief presented me with a budget showing that it would cost slightly more for our family to be in Panama City, Panama, than it had been costing us to live in Paris, France.

I suggested he double-check his math.

My husband, the accountant, assured me his figures were correct.

More to the point, Lief’s projections have played out.

Over the dozen years we were based full-time in Panama City, our day-to-day costs of living were higher than they had been in Paris.

And still, today, as we come and go between our two hubs of operation, we find Paris more affordable than Panama.

How Can That Be?

Paris is the most beautiful, most romantic city in the world. It’s also a place where your cost of living can be hugely variable and highly controllable.

That is to say, you don’t necessarily need a royal’s budget to be able to enjoy life in the greatest city on Earth.

In Paris, you can live happily car-free, walking nearly anywhere you’d want to go. The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the wine shop, a half-dozen busy cafés, and as many lovely parks and gardens are all less than a 15-minute walk from almost any point in central Paris… including our apartment.

When you want to venture beyond your quartier, the Métro will transport you from restaurant to nightclub, from museum to café for less than US$2 (when you buy in bulk on the Navigo card).

France boasts perhaps the world’s best infrastructure, and it’s a bargain. Cable TV, internet, and telephone, as well as the Métro, the bus, and the RER train system… all are likely less costly than comparable services where you’re living now.

Our phone plan in Paris costs less than 40 euros per month and allows unlimited calls anytime to anywhere in Europe and to anywhere in the United States… free.

That’s hard to beat.

My point is not that you should plan to move to Paris to reduce your cost of living. It is possible, in fact, to do that, but that’s not the typical agenda where Paris is concerned.

My point is that you shouldn’t deny or delay your dreams of la vie française because you’re worried you can’t afford them. We lived in Paris for four years, with two children, and I’m here to tell you that we were able to control our costs within a very reasonable budget.

But enough with all the theory. Let’s get down to brass tacks. How much would it really cost you to live in France right now?

Cost Of Living In France

Here are two sample starter budgets…

-The Marais District

This first one for a couple living in Paris’ Marais district, one of its most historic and appealing:

  • Rent: 1,675 euros… for an unfurnished two-bedroom apartment
  • Gas And Electricity: 100 euros per month total on average over 12 months… including heating but no air conditioning (few places are equipped with air conditioning)
  • Telephone/Cable/Internet: 40 euros… for the package that allows free unlimited phone calls anywhere in Europe and anywhere in the States
  • Groceries: 580 euros
  • Transportation: 160 euros… for two monthly Métro/bus passes
  • Entertainment: 400 euros… this could be much more or it could be less, of course… your entertainment cost living anywhere is 100% controllable

TOTAL: 2,955 euros

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– Carcassonne

And now a second budget for a couple embracing French country life in the medieval town of Carcassonne, where Walt Disney is said to have gotten his inspiration:

  • Rent: 400 euros… for a small house
  • Gas And Electricity: 100 euros on average
  • Telephone/Cable/Internet: 40 euros
  • Groceries: 480 euros… a little more affordable than in the big city
  • Transportation: 60 euros… for two monthly bus passes
  • Entertainment: 300 euros… again, a little more affordable than in Paris

TOTAL: 1,380 euros

A Few Takeaways From All This:

First, remember that no matter where in the world you live, housing will likely be your biggest monthly expense. In France, the cost of housing is far greater in Paris than anywhere else in the country.

Buy your own apartment in Paris, and your Paris housing expense is reduced to a monthly syndic (HOA) fee and property taxes, both typically relatively very small amounts.

Second, my Carcassonne budget includes two monthly bus passes. You could live in this town comfortably using its bus system to get around, but, once here, you might decide you’d like to own a car… allowing for regular travel around the French countryside. That’d be a different budget.

Third, utilities are a relative bargain in France. Our monthly utility costs are much lower, overall and on average, when we’re at home in Paris than when we’re hanging out in Panama City.

This has a lot to do with the cost of air conditioning. When we’re in Panama City, we run ours mostly all the time. Our apartment in Paris doesn’t have it. This means that, a couple of months a year, we’re hot. We open the windows to catch the breezes and live with the summer heat until the season changes.

In winter, we have the expense of gas heating, but keeping our little Paris place warm the few months it’s cold outside is a fraction the cost of keeping our Panama City place cool year-round.

Fourth, again, entertainment expense can be a big part of your budget or zero. This is the case anywhere in the world… and, in fact, Paris is one of the best places in the world to live if the entertainment allowance in your budget is on the skinny side. This city is choc-a-block with fun free things to do.

Finally, your cost of living in a place like Paris will be higher at first and decrease over time.

Lief and I continue to find new and more affordable options for everything from a scoop of ice cream to roast chicken, dry cleaning, and a glass of champagne (all items we purchase all the time).

Nothing makes Lief happier than finding a new, cheaper source for something I’m in the regular market to buy.

Until next time,

Kathleen Peddicord signature
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter

Tags: 'cost of living''France''panama city'Cost of Living In Panama CityCost Of Living In Parislive in Panamalive in parisPanamaParis
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has reported on opportunities for Americans to live, retire, and do business overseas for 40 years. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 24, established businesses in 7, renovated and built properties in 6, and educated her children in 5.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets from the east coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland, then to Paris, France, and finally to Panama City, Panama, where she has based her Live And Invest Overseas business. Peddicord and her husband, Lief Simon, now divide their time between Panama and Paris.

Peddicord was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. She opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Waterford, Ireland; Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France. Peddicord launched Live And Invest Overseas group in 2008 and has built it into a successful multimillion-dollar business. Today, she shares her firsthand experience of expat life with more than 500,000 readers of her publications, including Overseas Opportunity Letter and Overseas Living Letter.

Kathleen has been featured often in The New York Times, MSNBC, AARP, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, and more and writes monthly about expat matters, international real estate, and offshore diversification for Forbes and U.S. News.

Kathleen has written several books including the memoirs “At Home In Ireland” and “At Home At Los Islotes” and her latest title “At Home Abroad,” all published by Lahardan Books. Her best-selling "How To Retire Overseas: Everything You Need To Know To Live Well (For Less) Abroad” was published by Penguin Random House in 2018 and her “Buying Real Estate Overseas For Cash Flow (And A Better Life)” was published by Wiley in August 2020.

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To Live Overseas?

Super Cheap

  • Chitré, Panama
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  • Phuket, Thailand
  • Dumaguete, The Philippines

Cheap

  • Medellin, Colombia
  • Boquete, Panama
  • Kyrenia, Cyprus
  • Hua Hin, Thailand
  • The Algarve, Portugal

Affordable

  • Valencia, Spain
  • Cascais, Portugal
  • Las Terrenas, The DR
  • Pisa, Italy
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Luxury

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