Cost of living in Morocco

You can live with 300 euros per month, and if you live alone in a wealthy place, add 500 euros

Thanks a lot....

My staying and meals will be covered by my Company?

Do you mean 300 Euros for other expenditures?

not less than 2000 euros

Prices are in Dhs, divide by 8 for USD

Bread 1.5
Bottled Water 1.5 liter: 6-7 Dh
Pizza for one: 20-30 Dh
Moroccan restaurant: 100 Dh pp
Expat restaurant: 150-400 Dh pp excl drinks
Wine per bottle in restaurants: 150-200 Dhs
Wine per botlle in shops: 40-200 Dhs
Bus fare: 4 Dh
Taxi ride: 6-35 Dh, generally 15

Hope this helps

"Moroccan restaurant 100 dirhams pp" gives a rather exaggerated idea of costs. It depends what you mean. You can eat a great meal of salad (piles of it) a quarter chicken and chips for 20 to 25 dirhams in a popular Moroccan snack restaurant.  You can get a huge plate of fried fish for 25 to 50 dirhams, plus dipping sauce, side dishes of olives and Baba Ghanouche in cheap and popular Moroccan fish snacks. In addition these choices are clean and safe, after all, they are not going to poison their own customers. Follow the golden rule - eat where loads of Moroccans are eating.

Expenses depend also on where you are and what you want to do. If you want to go out for a beer, there are any number of bars around where it's 14 dirhams a bottle. If you want to drink in a nightclub, then start at 50 dirhams per drink, much more if it's very posh.

It's just a few dollars for cinema. 10 dirhams for a coffee, more or less according to location and poshness.

Hi
Kavita
How are you.
That depense on which level of cost living you want to stay. And what company would you like to settle, I have all contact in my hand I can help you. If you really want to settle a company and a good bussiness in future.
Rgds
Lukman

Is that it up above?

nice

Please, what does "nice" mean? How does this help the OP?

I'll add to my previous post. "Not less than 2000 Euros" is utter nonsense, especially if your rental and food costs are already covered. I gave a rundown of what food might cost and others have made their suggestions also.

The rest really depends on what you want to do. If you want to lead a quiet life, just a few coffees and maybe a special meal a couple of times a week, you'd need 100 Euros a week at the very most - and this would include travel costs. If you want to go to a disco once a week, expect to spend 100 Euros on a place on the Corniche. The OP really shoould specify his expectations and needs.

I did say "at the most".

Casa is large, it's including travel too. That's the top that one would be paying for a quiet life - and I aimed for the top as the OP clearly has some sort of good job if it pays meals and rental. I assume the OP would need provisions too from the supermarket, however many meals were bought for him.

This really is the problem when people don't specify what they are looking for. If you want a quiet life, as mine is too, I can easily spend 100 Euros a week going to the bar a couple of times a week (a gin and tonic is 50 dirhams - 4 of them and you're already on 20 Euros), buying imported goods/treats (ham, salmon, salami, Cheddar cheese, etc.), cinema, cakes at a decent patisserie. It all adds up.

Yes, when I've been unemployed or on a minimum wage in the UK, I can get by on considerably less. Cheap stews, soups, buying food cheaply on its sell by date, just watch TV at home, no treats. But who wants to live like that? Especially in a foreign country while working at a good job.

You may be correct. If your aim is to live as simply as possible and save every penny, then 30 Euros (300 dirhams) a week is perhaps more than what one would need if food and rent are paid. As I said, it depends on what the OP wants to live like. But I still need 100 Euros a week, although I could live on much less!

It depends on what you want. El Jadida is cheap for some things and dearer for others. And all imported items are expensive, as is alcohol. But that goes for all of Morocco. It's still cheaper than the UK by far though!

you have to chose a small city its less expancive

Drugs/medicines cost the same as they do in the UK.

It doesn't matter what city, small or large, you are in, as long as there is a supermarket, the prices will be the same. Of course, you could live somewhere like Taroudant, which is a black hole and where there is nothing, but why should anyone want to live like that?

I would have been quoted more, certainly, for the table!

Yes, if you don't know the prices of everyday items, you are likely to get ripped off. Not for things like bottled water or tins of sardines from the grocer's, but for fruit and veg from independent barrows, for example. Or independent furniture shops/carpet shops as opposed to chains such as Kitea, where prices are displayed and fixed. My strategy is to listen to the price quoted to a Moroccan and then ask how much. If the price I get is higher, I walk away. This is actually complicated by the way many Moroccans calculate prices. If the peaches are 8 dirhams a kilo, the price quoted will be, in Darija, "mia oow steen", 160 a kilo. This is because everyday calculations are in rials and there are 20 rials to a dirham.

Even more horrifyingly, some items are priced in francs (100 francs to the dirham), especially property and large objects. So a 40,000 Euro flat will be quoted as costing 40,000,000. Land and 2nd hand cars are usually priced this way too.

Taxis are the other thing to watch out for. Foreigners will be ripped off unless the meter is switched on. In towns such as El Jadida, taxis don't have meters and you simply have to know the price - 7 dirhams within the main parts of the city for one person and 8 dirhams for 2 people. 8 dirhams to the outlying suburbs for 1 and 10 dirhams for 2 people. Then it goes up to 15 all the way out to Hay Senai for one person. At night the prices go up a dirham or two. And, eccentrically, if the destination at night is a bar, it's 10 dirhams for one person, 15 for 2 and 20 for 3 people. If you'd specified the block of flats next to the bar, it would have been 8, 10 and 12 respectively!

Even though I've lived here for 4 years, I still get the odd taxi driver who doesn't know me and who tries to rip me off. What I do is simply wait there with my hand out and if he won't give the correct change, I say, "I've got all day to sit in your cab, so just give me the change". When they see you are determined, they simply cough up. Did your wife not tell you the correct taxi fares?

I've never heard of an incident like yours in a bank. Nonetheless, I always count up the notes before handing them over to be changed.

Even though my Arabic is not too good, I'm glad I understand it. So often I have heard guys in shops say something like, "Great, we've got a foreigner". Then I just speak to them in Arabic and tell them to watch themselves.

She sounds like a real number. I'm still amazed you went through with it after seeing how she was. However, they can be  so convincing, I know.

I had a taxi a week or so ago who tried to charge me 10 for a 7 dirham journey. After he tried lying in that wide-eyed, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth way that so many people here have that the price was 10, "Honestly, I swear by god" was what he thought was the clincher. I just sat there and said I wanted 3 dirhams. I eventually got it and he said he would never ever take me again if he saw me waiting for a cab. I said, "You won't ever take me again because I paid the correct fare? You know what you can do!".

You din't mention about tips lol

Some very valid points, as a white Englishman who has been is Casa for some time I have experienced a lot of the price hike crooks. This occurs even in bars and cafe's, as said previously try to keep an eye on what the locals pay and stand your ground. I tend also to utilise my local friends when I need to buy anything substantial otherwise I am just seen as a cash cow. On the bright side we have found a great little group of bars/shops who love's our custom and appreciates us, the locals are friendly and we have a great time and are warmly welcomed, just a case of finding the right things to suit your lifestyle.

Mick H wrote:

Some very valid points, as a white Englishman who has been is Casa for some time I have experienced a lot of the price hike crooks. This occurs even in bars and cafe's, as said previously try to keep an eye on what the locals pay and stand your ground. I tend also to utilise my local friends when I need to buy anything substantial otherwise I am just seen as a cash cow. On the bright side we have found a great little group of bars/shops who love's our custom and appreciates us, the locals are friendly and we have a great time and are warmly welcomed, just a case of finding the right things to suit your lifestyle.

They are terrified of the cops, especially if a foreigner is involved. If you suspect you are being ripped off in a bar, get your mobile out and say that you are going to dial the emergency cops' number. You'll be amazed at how quickly you get quoted the correct price with apologies. Having said that, I don't know when I have ever been ripped off in a café. I mean, the price of a coffee is pretty constant outside of the centre or the beach so if you get quoted something outrageous in an ordinary place, you just wouldn't pay it.

You've also acquired the habit of getting friends to buy large items. That is an absolutely essential thing to do. If you don't do it, you'd be ripped off, as you say.

As for the comment about tips, it's an insignificant part of expenditure. If what is meant is getting someone to carry a bag or shopping, then that's not a tip, but paying someone for a service. Tipping the busboy or porter in an hotel is simply what one would do in the West, in any case.

I am a long term expat resident living in Marrakech where I have my own property. So I have monthly bills for RADEEMA and Maroc Telecom (landline and internet) and the usual annual taxes etc to pay. I find that a monthly budget of 5000 dirhams allows me to cover these expenses, eat what I want, drink what I want and yes, I am also a smoker, and go where I want too. Some of the estimates given above are wildly overinflated and seem to originate from people who have very little experience. On the other hand laduqesa is making better sense.

RWT wrote:

I am a long term expat resident living in Marrakech where I have my own property. So I have monthly bills for RADEEMA and Maroc Telecom (landline and internet) and the usual annual taxes etc to pay. I find that a monthly budget of 5000 dirhams allows me to cover these expenses, eat what I want, drink what I want and yes, I am also a smoker, and go where I want too. Some of the estimates given above are wildly overinflated and seem to originate from people who have very little experience. On the other hand laduqesa is making better sense.

Thank you!

I work, so I can afford more than the basics and would hate to be having to live on 200 dirhams a week (plus 350 a month for utilities and internet), as a couple of the expats here do (their rent is on top, both guys I know who spend very little pay 2000 for nice accommodation in unfurnished villas). It's perfectly possible to live very cheaply, but, unless you want to live in a very working class district (quartier populaire) you still need 325 Euros a month.

I do spend about 4000 a month on me, not including rental costs - I didn't include these for the OP as he said that these would be covered by his job. I forgot to mention the cats! I have 8 rescue cats who live with me, 3 in the front garden (one of whom has just had kittens and whom I shall be having sterilised) and about 15 whom I feed in the street.  Cat food is dear in Morocco, at least the sort of food my spoiled babies will eat, so I spend an extra 300 dirhams a week on the cats. That's a personal foible, so, again, I didn't include it.