Before you transfer your life to Barbados, some pre-budgeting is a must, as there are a number of costs for everyday living that may give you quite a surprise!

Firstly, it is worth noting that as Barbados is a remote Caribbean island, purchasing and arranging deliveries here is very expensive. Dependent on the item, the Government impose anything between 20% to 115% import tax and then you have the retailers discretionary markup.

There is very little produced or grown here so you are subject to paying a considerable amount for the most basic of items. This also includes items such as tropical fruits which you would assume would be plentiful on a tropical Caribbean island, but sadly it is mostly imported from nearby countries.

It is therefore, no surprise that retail giants such as Amazon have deemed it cost prohibitive to run their services here. With prices so high and the lack of sales and distribution channels, consumerism plays a very small part in your day to day experience of the island. We found this to be refreshing. You soon get used to improvising, recycling and reusing items, and a generally more simple way of living.

You are likely to save money in the long-term as you are unable to purchase items (that you don’t really need) at the quick touch of a button. This convenience shopping is ultimately contributing to the ever-growing plastic waste in the world, so without such luxuries you naturally adopt a more eco-centric way of life.

In this post we will endeavour to give you estimates for some essentials so you can start to number crunch – to see if Barbados island life is one that is affordable for you. We will look at the following necessities:

CAR HIRE

For long-term dwellers, the best and most convenient way to get around Barbados is by car as the public transport can be limited. However, the taxes to have cars imported are exorbitant, with a standard import tax, value added tax and environmental levy that hits the car hire companies and is passed onto the consumer. So you can expect to spend approximately $400USD per week for a basic small vehicle and there were very little savings for long-term leasing from the main car hire providers such as Drive-A-Matic and Stoutes on the island.

Having looked at different options to obtain a vehicle such as buying a second hand vehicle, leasing and hire purchase, we found the most affordable option was to negotiate with one of the smaller car hire companies on the island. Google and instagram are good places to initiate your search. We managed to get a great deal with Southern Car Rentals at approx $700USD per month for a small 4×4. This was partly down to becoming friendly with the team, the extended hire period and part cash negotiations. Note it is an additional $5USD every two months to renew you permit for each person insured. Although we were ecstatic for having negotiated a great deal, the costs are still considerably more than our leasing costs for a brand new Range Rover back in the UK, but it proved a necessity with having to do the school run, as all the private schools are based inland and it was useful for visiting the larger grocery stores and exploring the island.

If you would like to compare costs of car hire versus public transport, visit our Barbados destination page and checkout the Transport section.

GROCERIES

After your rental costs, food will be your biggest expense when living in Barbados. The agriculture on the island is somewhat limited, there is very little livestock and a short supply of locally grown fruit and vegetables – this may be down to the green monkeys devouring everything! Barbados are however, one of the top producers of sugar so you will see vast expanses of sugarcane fields dotted around the island, but this is now reducing as cotton becomes one of the islands biggest exports.

As a result the majority of foods you will purchase and consume from supermarkets are imported from neighbouring countries – so are subject to the government import taxes, this drives up the cost of a standard grocery shop considerably. On average, our pescatarian family consisting of two adults and one child spend around £1200 – £1500 on groceries each month, this equates to three times our spend compared to the UK. There is little variety and the brands do not go under the same stringent quality testing as in the UK – so you get many substandard food brands operating here, which you will still pay substantially for.

Massy is the largest supermarket chain and offer the greatest selection of international foods. The layout is more modern and similar to the UK and they offer a loyalty card scheme so you can earn back cash on your future shop which helps. Our closest supermarket is Jordans and we tend to buy a lot of our basics from here as it is marginally cheaper than other supermarkets, and with Massy selling Waitrose- branded foods, we get luxury items such as french cheeses, pizza, gluten free and Beyond meat products from here. Check our ‘Store Guide’ section below for a brief description of the local stores with a price rating.

We have visited local markets and vendors to buy fruit and vegetables when possible, but have found the prices can fluctuate hugely with no visible pricing. They operate on a basis of offering local residents a discounted price for produce and inflating this for tourists. Well, I certainly hope this is the case, as with the cost of living so high, it is difficult to understand how else the locals on a minimum wage are able to survive.

It would be advisable to get friendly with a particular market trader to get the best prices, but you are limited to local produce or varying quality. We have been known to go scrumping during the mango season, the monkeys will let you know when they are ripe. They were the most delicious mangoes we have ever feasted on!

MOBILES

If you are looking to stay on the island long-term, it may be better for you to invest in a local SIM card to keep connected without paying international roaming charges etc.

It was important to us that we kept our UK mobile numbers, so we briefly researched the tariffs available in the UK for oversea usage and it quickly became apparent that it would be extortionate for us to use a UK provider for calls and data in Barbados. As WhatsApp is used by most businesses and people to communicate on the island and free Wi-Fi at most restaurants and bars plus some of the larger more popular beaches and parts of central Bridgetown, you may be able to survive using just a Wi-Fi enabled mobile as we did.

We investigated the best UK SIM only deal for us that required the minimum top up for the 12 months duration that we would be staying in Barbados and transferred our existing mobile numbers across. We found Asda mobile to be most the cost efficient service only requiring a £5 initial top up and there were no stipulations for monthly top ups or usage. (Note, that it was not our intention to use this phone other than when using Wi-Fi so the oversea call charges on the plan were irrelevant to us). We used the Wi-Fi in our apartment and various free hotspots around the island to make free WhatsApp calls and send messages to stay connected with family and friends back in the UK and around the island. We also had the freedom to upgrade to a monthly tariff deal when back in the UK for local use.

For our second year however, we decided to purchase a local Barbados SIM card. There are only two providers to choose from Flow and Digicel, so the pricing was not competitive like in the UK and the cheapest data-only plan offered was from Digicel for $60bds per month. To include local calls you would need to pay a minimum of $100bds. It was a flexible rolling contract of 1 month which suited us. We decided to purchase one plan between us for keeping connected when we were not together and for sat nav purposes when adventuring around the island. When speaking to locals they were all very vocal that Flow was the preferred provider on the island due to coverage but we’ve found Digicel to be sufficient.

UTILITIES

WATER

Water rates are (at times) included within your property rental price, but in the scenario that you are required to manage the charges, here is an indication of what you can expect to pay. It is worth noting that the water rate is based on your usage rather than a standard set fee. The charge is fairly nominal as such a family of three can expect to pay around $110BDS per month.

ELECTRICITY

Expect daily sweltering temperatures of around 30 degrees celsius on the island, that really only varies by a few degrees at different times of the year. So if like us Brits you are not used to this heat, you will find that your air conditioning units and fans are on constantly and through the night, especially when you first arrive to the island. As you acclimatise to the temperatures you are likely to decrease the usage, which will in turn reduce your bills.

It is rare that there is a gas supply in apartments, so the cooker hob and water heater also run on electric. Most properties use solar panels that heat the water, which works really well in this climate; so the shower temperature can be cooler in the mornings and on the rare occasion that there has been little sunshine. You then have the option to use the electrics to heat the water.

In the UK you have to pay to heat your home and in the tropics these costs are just replaced by cooling your property, so there is a possible saving to be had in doing so. Our bill was more affordable than we had anticipated between $250bds – $400bds each month. It is worth knowing that you can save money by paying your bills early. Refer to your statement for more information.

INTERNET & LANDLINE

A Flow plan was pre-arranged for the internet and phone line by the management agency for our previous property and Digicel for our current residence. We did not find any differences between the services.

The phone line was included in the package and was quite useful for making local calls, such as dinner reservations, handymen services etc. It is worth noting that most businesses on the island operate using WhatsApp, so with Wi-Fi connection there isn’t really a need for a landline.

Barbados offer a 5G network coverage and you can expect internet speeds of 80mbps so it is incredibly fast. So there were no problems with all three of us being online, taking video calls simultaneously. We paid $155BDS per month for a premium service, which is more expensive than the UK. You can purchase packages to stream numerous channels.

CABLE TV

For those interested in cable TV, you can purchase this for $205bds per month. As we didn’t make use of this service we cancelled and continued to use our Netflix and Disney Plus accounts for entertainment.

CURRENCY ABROAD

CREDIT CARDS

For travellers safety we would always recommend that you do not carry around huge amounts of currency when abroad. As we travel extensively we have a credit card with Barclaycard that allows us to spend abroad without paying international transaction fees. Most retailers, restaurants and hotels around the world accept credit card now and Barbados is no exception. It is predominantly market vendors and public transport that still operate cash transactions and this is slowly changing.

We however, like to take out some local currency before we travel somewhere new, so we have flexibility to spend should cash and card machines not be working. There are a number of comparison websites such as Money Saving Expert for you to calculate the best available rates for currency exchange. We have found that Eurochange, Asda and Tesco all offer competitive rates that consistently perform well. You can also get the latest advice on the top travel credit cards available.

CASH WITHDRAWALS

When planning to live abroad long-term (such as 12 months’), you will need to find a solution for being able to conveniently withdraw money from a cash machine, without incurring excessive bank fees. We did not want the inconvenience of opening a new bank account in Barbados, where we would have been subject to fees for the exchange rates and transferring our money from a UK account into a local Barbados account. So we applied for a Nationwide Credit Card for our trip, as this allowed us to make cash machine withdrawals without a charge, but with such credit cards it is important that you manage your monthly payments as the APR can be excessive.

CURRENCY TRANSFERS

Another challenge was to research the best rates when making a transfer from a UK account to an overseas account for the accommodation rental and utilities. A deposit, plus first and last month’s rent are typically required upfront (a standard procedure in Barbados), alongside needing to set up the monthly payments.

Knowing what poor exchange rates the high street banks offer and the lack of transparency we had with our bank HSBC, we started to explore online specialist currency transfer firms. These firms allowed you to download their apps and calculate the costs so you knew how much you were transferring each month and we found Currencies Direct had competitive rates for our exchange. There was also a link from the Money Saving Expert site that gave new customers up to £200 in Amazon vouchers dependent on their transfer value, so it seemed the best deal by far for us.

When using Currencies Direct I should stress that in order to set up a direct debit to make a regular monthly payment, the funds would have needed to have been withdrawn from our bank account approximately ten days prior to the rent due date which wasn’t ideal. As we already had the Xe app dowloaded to compare currency rates from around the world, we opted to make our payments via this app each month.

We compared our Xe app with Currencies Direct each month and found that Xe was far more competitive. So we opted to manually make the payment each month via the Xe app – as future payments cannot be set up. The payment process each month was far simpler and required the click of a few buttons, as all the account details were set up from our initial payment. The transfer takes up to 24 hours to reach the beneficiaries account. So Xe comes highly recommended for both its competitive rates, convenience and usability.

We now use a Wise bank account as this allows us to have access to our money as GBP and USD which is convenient. Note, there is a minimal fee for transactions and transfers.

In regards to utility payments, if you have a management company responsible for the property there is usually an option for them to settle your utility bills and invoice you for this. This makes life a lot easier, as you can pay on credit card and not incur a charge for the oversea transaction. Otherwise you are required to use Surepay, they are typically situated near to supermarkets and quite often you will find yourself queuing in the heat to pay each bill per month – should you not have a local Barbados bank account to manage bills online.

To make your money go further, consider renting your property at home to help fund your new lifestyle in Barbados. Checkout our helpful guide: ‘Tips for Renting Your Home’.