In this week’s Inside Spain we look at why more than half of Spaniards end the month with less than €50 in all their bank accounts, and how the darkest January in thirty years in mainland Spain has put a damper on the Spanish lifestyle.
Do you remember a time in your city in Spain when bar and restaurant terraces were not packed with locals having fun (except for during the Covid-19 lockdown, of course)?
No matter how tight finances are, Spaniards always seem to have the money for eating and drinking out.
Some would say this carpe diem attitude is to be admired rather than sniffed at. After all, it goes hand in hand with the much-admired Spanish lifestyle – outdoors, in the company of others, enjoying the moment.
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But that doesn’t mean that Spaniards don’t worry about money.
In a recent post on Linkedin, Armando Baquero, CEO of consumer-focused financial management platform Fintonic, stated that “80 percent of Spaniards live below the financial anxiety threshold.”
Just as headline grabbing are Baquero’s claims that “60 percent of Spaniards with average or lower incomes make it to the end of the month with less than €50 in all their bank accounts.”
As the data table shows, usually the younger the person, the lower their salary and the higher their struggle to make ends meet.
In reality, Spanish salaries have never been anything to write home about and eating and drinking out has remained cheap enough overall (barring €15 cocktails in Madrid or Barcelona) to be included in the monthly budget.
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The savings rate of Spanish families (percentage of disposable income dedicated to savings) has been consistently below the eurozone average for more than twenty years, Eurodata stats show.
Other factors that play a part in Spaniards’ struggle to save up include the high unemployment rate, lower disposable income, higher levels of debt and the lack of financial literacy, which Spaniards have a lower level of than people in most developed nations (according to the OECD).
This has of course all been heightened by the spiralling cost of housing. Barcelona and Madrid are among the European Union cities where rent places the greatest burden on residents – 74 percent in both cities – only surpassed by Lisbon.
Life is getting more expensive and salaries aren’t making up for it.
So in a similar way to how many Gen Z-ers around the world have decided to indulge in ‘avocado on toast’ rather than worry themselves silly trying to save up for an impossibly high down payment on a home, Spaniards have long accepted that money – or the lack thereof – should not define their enjoyment.
In other matters, the endless string of storms battering the Iberian Peninsula has caused a meteorological milestone – Spain has just experienced the month of January with the fewest hours of sunshine since 1996.
According to data obtained through the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), it’s also been the second darkest January in the historical series that began in 1984.
The Iberian Peninsula has enjoyed 29 fewer hours of sunshine on average, which are usually 185 hours for January.
The only parts where this hasn’t been the case is Murcia, Almería, and the Balearic Islands, whereas Galicia in the northwest was the darkest region last month.
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For some foreigners who moved to Spain under the illusion that it’s mostly sunny for the whole year, this may prove to be a bit of a shock. After all, many left their home countries precisely to escape the bad weather.
The first months of 2025 were also very rainy, which contrasted with unusually warm winters and springs in Spain in the preceding years.
Crucially, psychologists agree that rather than rain it’s the constant cloud cover that can have an impact on people’s mood.
“We are beings who need light. We need melatonin and serotonin in our daily lives, which are affected by the lack of sunlight,” health psychologist and psychotherapist Sergio García Soriano told national broadcaster TVE.
Add to that the fact that Spaniards prefer to spend time outside of their homes, and that the typically sunny, warm weather allows for this to happen effortlessly, and the frustration at the rain and darkness can be even greater for them.
But Spanish people still go about their business, paraguas (umbrella) in hand, and they still maintain the friendly, warm nature that they’re known for.
Hold on in there! As the Spanish saying goes, al mal tiempo, buena cara (bad weather, good face).
