Broken pipe

One day I received a call that my apartment is flooding. I was asked to come home as soon as possible. Once I arrived I found out that a pipe under my kitchen sink had broken and water leaking on the floor for some hours. The leak was discovered because water was dropping to the street from my balcony. I was naturally concerned about the damage caused by the water and also about possible mold issue in the future. I was thinking that some company specialized on drying flats would be needed. To my surprise all Spanish were saying that the mold will not be an issue and just opening the windows and doors will dry the wetness. Apartments in Spain do not have isolation materials which might get wet like in Finland. In Finland it might be necessary to tear down some walls after such leak but apparently it is not needed in Spain.

Comparing prices of grocery baskets in Finland and Spain

Oats, bananas and minced beef from Spain

I saw a table of grocery price comparison between Finnish supermarkets. From there I got an idea to compare Finnish prices to Spanish prices on the selected products. In the below table you can see that the selected food basket is 2,25 EUR cheaper in Finland than in Spain. The result is surprising to me as I expected the prices to be lower in Spain than in Finland. Though comparison is not 100 % accurate because of the differences in product specifications and package sizes. For example In Spain fresh milk was not available.I guess that the selected coffee is also different in each country.

There is a big difference between the oat and Edam cheese price. Oat is considered as a special health product in Spain and not as an every day ordinary product like in Finland. Edam cheese is not similarly consumed in Spain as in Finland and therefore it is more expensive in Spain. On the other hand tomatoes and coffee are cheaper in Spain. As basket includes products typically consumed by Finnish people it is understandable that it is cheaper in Finland. My guess is that if the basket would include products typically consumed by the Spanish people the basket would be cheaper in Spain.

	Finland	Spain
Oats/kg	0,75	1,78
Flovoured yogurt/1 liter	0,85	1,19
Minced beef/kg	6,83	6,2
Coffee/500 grams	3,25	2,5
Bananas/kg	1,25	1,29
Fat free milk/1 liter	0,65	0,6
Margarin 60 %/kg	1,18	1,7
Edam cheese/kg	3,66	6,35
Tomatoes/kg	1,79	0,85
Total	20,21	22,46

• Prices of Finland are taken from Prisma Helsinki by Kuluttajaliitto on days 24. - 27.5.2016. Prices from Spain are taken from Mercadona in Barcelona on 10.6.2016.

On 2010 I wrote about my living costs in Alcalá de Henares