How can you spend less in Belgium? Save in every way that you can while being on Erasmus!

So now that crisis is all around us, energy costs, grants that have to stretch to be enough but don't and on top of that, how soon Erasmus comes around, where we are crazily looking for information about our cities, I am going to write a post about how to save money whilst being on Erasmus in Belgium, more specifically in Liège. And seeing as we have to start somewhere, it's best that we start at the beginning: How to get to Liège?

1. Saving on transport in Belgium

The cheapest way to get from Spain to Belgium is by plane. Chaleroi (an extremely dangerous city) is home to the Brussels Sud airport. Ryanair fly here from many many Spanish destinations, another option is to fly to Maastrich which, although it's in Holland, is closer to Liège than Chaleroi and Ryanair also operate the flight. In addition, you could fly to Brussels International airport, where Iberia, Brussels Airlines and Vueling fly too cheaply. From both these airports there is about an hour-long train to get to Liège. In my post “Primeros días en Liège” I mapped out the way to get to Liège from Chaleroi.

And talking about Ryanair, which is a low-cost airline, there are several things to take into consideration so that it can be so low-cost. The first is that, as a general you can't buy the tickets far in advance, in other words, the offers of 5, 7, 8 or 10 euros are only for flights within a month, a month and a half or 2 months maximum. Therefore the best thing is to not rush buying your flights. The second thing is that in order to save the 5€ handling charge you have to have a prepaid Mastercard. Later I will explain to you how that works. Last, but by no means least, you have to have a suitcase which fits in their "suitcase gauge" and that doesn't way more than 10kg, everything has to be inside: small bags, backpacks. This being said, you can wear as many clothes as you want to. I have seen before someone wearing 5 coats, a hat (chargers inside the hat), a scarf, a notebook in his had and a laptop hidden on his back. This isn't normal and I don't recommend it. The normal thing is that they don't weigh the suitcase, but they can do it and it mustn't be even 300g over (I'm telling you the truth! ).

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In Liège, if you have to go to study in Jemeppe or in Sart Tilman, you will need the monthly buss pass (200 euros, but with a student discount or less than 25 years old, it's 100 euros). You can save the 2, 70 route by the Train station bus from Chaleroi-Airport, you only have to show them your pass, the same as in Liège (but covering the word Liège), you will see that the drivers focus on the same as in Liège, nothing!

2. Saving with the Banks in Belgium

We are going to suppose that everyone who goes on Erasmus are spring chickens and as such the "young accounts" from the banks were made just for us. Me, I've just opened myself an account here (mostly people open one with ING Bank) and I have made the most of the advantages of the Spanish banks. On the one hand you have the young person's account from the Santander bank, it lets you make fast and easy transfers to the whole of Europe for free, this is how, for example, I pay my rent. Also, from this bank I have the prepaid Mastercard, it's one that's called e-cash, it's pretty much free (don't forget, if you don't use it for 2 years they will charge you 6 euros or something like that) and to have it, all you have to do it go to one of the offices and ask for it. In 2 weeks you will have it in your house and there you go, Ryanair flights at cost price!

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On the other hand there is the young person's account of CaixaNova, or now Novacaixagalicia. Their transfers are also free, I think you can have this account up until you are 30 and also with their card it's free to withdraw money from any ATM in the world. The process is the same, go to the bank, open an account, ask for the card and without any commission, within about a fortnight, it will be ready!

3. Saving in the supermarkets in Belgium

It's an important matter when it comes to living in any place. In Liège there are 3 main supermarkets: Carrefour, Delhaize and Champions. It's about knowing what to buy in each place. Generally speaking, Delhaize is the cheapest, however, for meat and vegetables it's better to buy them from the Sunday market "La Batte", which I have already spoken about in previous posts.

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