Cost of living in Slovenia - 2017

@priscilla, Infact this is highly educative and informative topic.  I have been wondering what could be that cost of basic essential of life while Lin Slovenia.  I am also planning to move there soon by next month. I would love seeing people contribution to this topic.

Well, that's quite the list. Let me see how many of these questions I can answer (Disclaimer: since I live near Ljubljana this will be the region my answers will apply to)

> How much does it cost to rent an apartment/house in Slovenia?  Depends on the region and how big a place are you looking for, etc.. However for Ljubljana you're looking at 350 eur/month and up, unless you're ok with sharing the appartement which is also quite common for students and young adults.

> How much do you pay for your public transport tickets (bus, subway, train, tram)?
There is no subway or tram, but Ljubljana has a pretty good bus network that extends beyond the city into nearby places (there are some info in english at http://www.lpp.si/en). The only trick is you NEED to have an URBANA card to ride, there is no other way. Just make sure to buy it at a main bus station or "Urbana machine" = Urbanomat. It costs 2 eur or sth. A bus drive in Ljubljana is 1.2 eur (zone 1, which is whole city. A month card is 37 eur for adulty and 20 eur for students and elderly) per 1.5 hour. So once you check your card on the bus you have 90 min span in which you can change busses, go for a lunch and no more money will be substracted from your card. You'll ussually wait for your bus for 5 - 25 min on weekday, depends on which line you chose. It is the easiest way to go to the city centre and similar areas where there in little parking space.
There is also a system for renting and returning bikes at specified locations, great for summer months (check it out at http://en.bicikelj.si/). You'll also need Urbana card for that.

Urbana card is basically a city card onto which you can upload money and use it for various services - you can register it to use Ljubljana city bike, Bicikelj, you can register it at a library and use it in any library in Ljubljana, you can pay for a bus ride or a parking space in the city (depends on the proximity of the centre - 0.4 (farthest) to 0.7 eur/hour).

> Staple food: what do people eat and how much do they pay for basic food like bread, rice or pasta? The usual food is pasta or potatoes with meat, also some vegetables for e.g. lunch if you're cooking by yourself. 1 kg of white breat is around 1 eur, but other varieties may be more expensive. Also depends on the store, most stores offer 50% off bread in the last hour before closing. Pasta - depends on the brand, 1-3 eur/500g. 400g of chicken meat - 2.5 eur, chosen pieces of beef significantly more. 1 Broccoli 4 eur (veggies are quite expensive).

>What is your monthly grocery budget? 100 eur, 1 person who likes to eat diverse foods, but cooks herself. It depends on the store you go to, sometimes one store has really cheap oranges, the other has a large variety of great bread at reasonable prices.. So chosing the right store or checking where they have a "cupon" day (you get cupons by mail a lot) can significantly lower your expenses.

> How much does it cost to see a physician/doctor/specialist in Slovenia? If you're not looking for a special treatement but you just have a cold, pneumonia, broken bone.. it's free if you're in the helthcare system which is 18 eur/monthly for me however you'll have to arange that with a local insurance company.   

> What is your children's schooling monthly budget? There are barely any private schools in Slovenia, so schooling itself is free but you have to pay for your child's lunch and snack, it is rather uncommon for children to bring it themselves. There are also yearly school trips and class retreats that require payment and usually all the kids go.

> How much does it cost to fill up your car's fuel tank?
currently: 1.297/l of benz and 1.189 for diesel.

> How much do you pay for your Internet/phone subscription? Depending from what you want you have everithing form TV-internet-mobile packages to low-price-mobile

> How much do you pay for your lunch pack on weekdays? If you have a caffeteria at your job site like I do it's 4-5 eur/meal, but if you have to eat out it's from 7 eur up. If you go for a pizza it'l be around 7eur (margerita) to 10eur (marine pizza with shrimps & CO).

> How much do you pay for an espresso coffee?
1.3 eur for cappucino, 2.00 for cocoa other common types of coffee ( expresso, latte macchiato and white coffee are somewhere in between, in price ascending order)

> How much do you pay for a cinema ticket?
Depends in which cinema you go to; main cinema in Ljubljana - 6 eur, but you can watch most of the movies in other cinemas for around 4 eur.

> Other stuff I find kind of impostrant:
Most people in Slovenia, expecially <50 yr speak English, but learning a few basics of Slovene to converse is strongly recommended (it's a tough language though, expecially if you don't have previous experiences with slav languages).
Finding a job can be hard expecially if you don't have a plan and don't know anybody so try to plan in advance and have in mind that the jobs that include interacting with people - waiters for example - require speaking Slovene
I've heard handling the paperwork for coming to live in Slovenia (or leaving Slovenia for that matter) are a buraucratic hell.  But I guess that's true for most of the countries

Hope this was helpful, best of luck

Katja

@katja, thanks for the write up. It's so detailed.