What 1,500 a month actually covers in a European city, once you stop counting only rent

Agree with the conclusion, disagree about which line does the damage.

You have heating as the surprise. For me it was the exchange rate and the cost of holding money in one currency while earning in another. Over a year that quietly took more than a bad winter ever did, and unlike heating there is no month where it stops.

The second thing nobody budgets: the tax position. Depending on where you are actually resident, staying somewhere long enough to be comfortable is exactly what makes you liable there. So the advice "stay put, it is cheaper" is right on the spending side and can be expensive on a completely different line: the two pull against each other and no budget spreadsheet I have seen includes both.

Not saying do not do it. Saying the version of the plan where you sit still for eleven months has a bill attached that the moving version does not.

Tracked three cities the same way and the line that surprised me was none of the ones listed: it was the cost of arriving. First month always ran twenty to thirty percent over steady state, every single time.

Deposit, a bad short-term rate before you know the city, buying the things you did not carry, eating out because the kitchen is unfamiliar. Budget an arrival cost per move and the numbers stop looking mysterious.

Adding the line you flagged as lumpy, with the shape of it, because "paperwork" undersells it.

A residence application ran to: the application fee, an apostille on two documents from home, certified translations of both, a health certificate, passport photos to a specific standard, a bank statement showing a minimum balance, and eventually a few hours of a lawyer's time to fix something I had filled in wrong. Individually all small. Together it was more than a month of the rent I was so pleased about.

And it recurs. Renewals are not free, and they arrive on the anniversary you have stopped thinking about.

So I would put it as its own line in the budget at a monthly amortised figure rather than as an occasional surprise, because that is what it is. It is a subscription with an annoying interface.

The heating point cannot be overstated and I want to put a shape on it for anyone reading.

Old stone building, high ceilings, single glazing, electric heaters because there was no central system. My summer utility bill and my January utility bill were not in the same category of number. It was not a percentage increase, it was a different kind of expense that simply had not existed for the first five months.

What I would tell anyone: before signing anything for more than three months, ask what the building is heated with and ask the previous tenant - not the landlord: what the coldest month cost. Landlords answer that question optimistically and are not really lying, because they are usually quoting a mild year.

Also: a flat that is cheap because it is cold is not cheap. It is a bill deferred to January.

The last line is the whole post and I think it deserves to be stated even more strongly.

I spent a year at roughly one city per month and a year at roughly one city per four months, on the same work and the same income. The second year cost meaningfully less and I could not point at a single thing I gave up.

The reason is boring: in month three you know which supermarket, you have a barber, you cook, you have friends who suggest the cheap place instead of the nice place, and you have stopped paying the tax on not knowing anything. None of that exists in a four-week stay, ever, by construction.

So if the number is tight, the lever is not finding a cheaper city. It is staying long enough to stop being a tourist in the one you are already in.