How to Live Cheaply in Brazil
What you can expect if you’re living month to month in the birthplace of Samba
Maybe you’re a bit like me, and you’re constantly thinking about becoming an expat, living in some other country for a few years. Maybe you have a remote job and you want to see what it would be like to live somewhere else for a change. Maybe you’re looking for a great place to retire.
Living in the mountains of Brazil is one of the best decisions I made, not only is it great to live in a small town and get to know a ton of people — the cost of living is a lot lower and there are a ton of beautiful places to go hiking close by.
It’s a great place to spend time and work with birds chirping in the background. You can live comfortably here with a relatively low budget.
Rent
I live in a one bed one bath apartment with a service area, about 40m² in a small town called Lençois in Bahia’s Chapada Diamantina (give that a google if you wanna see some pretty sights.) We pay 700 BRL a month for rent — about 166 USD looking at today’s conversion rate. It’s a nice house with everything we need that’s walking distance to all the shops in town.
There are definitely cheaper places that are still quite nice, and bigger places won’t be too expensive either. My grandmother rents a three bed one bath apartment in the busiest part of town that came completely furnished for 1200 BRL a month.
We’ve been offered a house that was quite a bit further from town, but with a yard and all the basic amenities for about 200 BRL a month. It’s up to you to find your sweet spot.
You can expect to be in charge of some of the furniture and appliances — my apartment came with a stove, a plastic table, four chairs, and not much else. I had to get my own fridge and washing machine.
Utilities
I pay usually between 70–85 BRL for electricity and around 50–55 for water and sewage. If you’re cooking at home you will also have to replace the tank of gas every once in a while, my wife and I cook basically every meal at home and we end up replacing the 70 BRL tank about once every two months.
I have a 10mps internet connection and I pay 100 BRL a month. I don’t have a phone plan, but I was previously on a plan that included 4 GB of data a month and unlimited Facebook Messenger, Waze, Whatsapp, and the music app Deezer and it cost 40 BRL a month.
All together, utilities will run me about 300 BRL every month — about 70 USD.
Groceries
I like to eat healthily. Prefer to pay a bit more and get high-quality foods.
Taking that into consideration — My monthly budget for food is 400 BRL — about 100 USD. And I’m not eating badly. I keep my fridge full and usually with things that are a bit more expensive and hard to find here in Brazil. We have coconut oil, miso paste, fresh seasoning, fresh tea, and there’s room in the budget for the occasional sweets. Don’t forget the cheese, there’s always some parmesan to be grated.
If you’re going to a town like mine, there’s likely to be a weekly farmer’s market where everyone gets their produce for the week. I wrote an article about how much I can get for 5 USD at a farmer’s market.
Meat is sold cheapest and freshest in butcher’s shops, prices per kilo of meat go from 20–40 BRL per kilo depending on the cut and quality.
This includes all the cleaning supplies and personal hygiene for the month.
Recreation
I live within walking distance to about five different rivers that are completely free and relatively safe, easy hikes. Whenever my wife and I feel like we need to take a break and go out for a while, that’s our usual go-to.
There are plenty of great restaurants in town, but you’ll be a bit hard-pressed to find something like Indian or Thai food here, there’s not much more than what’s common in Brazil right now. There are occasional popups. There are musicians playing live every night on the streets.
A night at a restaurant can usually cost you around 100 BRL for a couple. There are some places where two people can eat well for 40 BRL — a pizza might cost around that. A bottle of beer will go for around 5–10 BRL. You can find cheap wine pretty easily. You can spend 30 BRL on a night out drinking and have a good time.
There are also plenty of budget-friendly classes and activities here. Arts and crafts, martial arts, language classes are going on year-round. I personally love to garden, and supplies aren’t very expensive, and there is a very active gardening community to talk to and exchange plant cuttings with for me.
Transportation
Brazil is famous for extraordinarily high taxes and interest rates, especially on cars. A Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla here would be considered a luxury car and buying a new one will usually cost you the price of the car in taxes and interest.
Looking at used cars — it’s hard to say, and it really depends on what you’re comfortable with. If you have some Portuguese language skills, you should take a look at some listings. One of the most popular sites is OLX, and there are definitely many others. Be careful because there are a lot of guys that are a little too clever for their own good here.
Buying a car here isn’t my area of expertise — the gas around here costs around 5 BRL per liter. I don’t know much about how much insurance would cost but from the way everyone here speaks about it, it’s optional.
The main way I get around is by bus or cab. If you’re in a big city like the capital of my state Salvador, getting around by uber isn’t expensive at all. Going from one side of town to the other on an Uber in peak hours would be about 50 BRL — about 12 USD, which is like two blocks off-peak in Manhattan.
An inter-city bus ride from my city to the capital (about a 6-hour ride) costs between 80–120 BRL depending on the season. Public transportation within Salvador is roughly 4 BRL per ride with one transfer within the bus or train.
Where I live I get by walking anywhere I want to go.
Healthcare
Brazil has a universal healthcare system (SUS), and any services provided by it are free to everyone — including you even if you are just on a tourist visa.
How good the quality of that service is… that’s a big debate, I certainly think the system is underfunded, but I’ve always been well attended. My wife had a baby through SUS, and while there were some gripes afterward, everything went extremely well.
There is definitely a good case for buying private health insurance here, but it’s not completely necessary.
Misc
There are always a few extra costs that are hard to access and highly individual. If you’re moving into a house here, unless you’re lucky like my grandma, you’ll have to furnish it.
Assume when you go to a store here in Bahia, except for a grocery store and maybe a butcher’s shop, it’s perfectly acceptable to haggle. If you’re buying things in bulk especially, try to haggle as much as you can.
You may have to settle for lower quality things like aluminum pots and pans, and your filter probably won’t be a Brita, but you can always ask a relative to bring some of those things that you miss from your home country if they come to visit.
All in all — someone making 500 USD a month can live a cozy life and still save some money every month living in Brazil. My bills every month are just 350 USD.
Pair that next to the 500 USD it would likely cost me to rent a room back in NYC and for me, there’s a strong case for staying away for a while.
Brazil might not be the best cultural fit for everyone. There might be that one place that you’ve really been eyeing for a while. I think if you take a realistic look at how feasible moving somewhere is, more often than not you’ll find that your options are not so limited as you think.
Tim Ferriss spent a lot of time in Costa Rica and Germany. There are many programs like the JET programme in Japan. Living abroad is an experience that is within our reach, we just have to keep our eyes open and be honest with ourselves about what we need to get there.
