Everything costs more these days. The supermarket shop is more expensive, filling the car costs more and even the things we buy or use every day are taking a bigger chunk out of our income. For people already trying to make their money cover the basics, those increases leave less and less room for anything else.

 And while steep price rises have become normal across Spain, one small village bar is taking a very different approach, deliberately keeping its prices down to make life a little easier for the people who come through its doors.

Everyday essentials are getting harder to afford

The squeeze is being felt in the places people cannot simply stop spending money. Food has to be bought, cars still need fuel and household bills have to be paid before there is any money left for going out. Spain’s annual inflation rate reached 3.6 per cent in July this year, up from 3.2 per cent in June, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).

For people whose incomes have not kept pace with the cost of living, those increases can mean having to cut back on things that once seemed relatively inexpensive. A coffee, a beer or an occasional meal out might not be essential, but when the price of necessities keeps rising, these are often among the first expenses to be reconsidered.

The cost of everyday life keeps climbing

The pressure is particularly difficult for people on lower incomes, who have less room to absorb increases in food, fuel, household bills and other regular expenses. INE figures show that workers in accommodation and food services had average annual earnings of €17,653.42 in 2024, the lowest among the main economic activities measured. Unskilled service workers had average annual earnings of €16,062.57.

It means that the same price increase can have very different consequences depending on how much someone earns each month. For a household already using most of its income to cover essentials, there may be little left to absorb another increase at the supermarket, another trip to the petrol station or a higher bill when eating or drinking out. And that is where one small business in Valladolid is trying to do things differently.

A coffee for €1.5

It sounds like something from the past but  Rincón de Rubo is a family-run bar in Villanueva de Duero, where owner Rubén Carpintero Rico has chosen to keep his prices deliberately low, a coffee costs €1.50, while a caña costs €1.60. Rubén, 31, says the prices are kept adjusted so that customers can continue to enjoy the bar without the cost becoming a luxury.

The business opened four years ago and has four employees. It serves coffee and tapas alongside hamburgers, paellas and other food. For a village of around 1,260 people, the bar also provides a local place to meet, eat and have a drink without having to travel elsewhere. The prices stand out at a time when customers across Spain are encountering higher costs in businesses of all kinds.

The bar has rising costs too

Rubén is not operating in a world where everything has stayed the same price. He has worked in hospitality since 2013 and has more than 13 years of experience in the sector. Running the bar means dealing with suppliers, employees, rent, utilities, taxes, accounts and the other costs involved in keeping the business operating.

He says the business can provide a living, but running a bar requires long hours and involvement in practically every part of the operation. That makes keeping prices down a conscious decision. Rather than automatically passing every increase in his own costs on to customers, Rubén is trying to maintain prices that people in the village can manage.

Keeping a simple pleasure affordable

For someone struggling to make their income cover the basics, being able to stop for a coffee without spending several euros can matter. The same applies to meeting friends for a drink. These may not be necessities, but they are part of everyday life and are often among the things people give up when money becomes tight. Rubén’s approach does not change the rising cost of food, fuel or household bills, and it does not remove the financial pressures facing the business itself.

What it does offer is a small pocket of affordability in a market where customers are increasingly being asked to pay more. At El Rincón de Rubo, the price remains €1.50 for a coffee and €1.60 for a caña. For customers already watching what they spend, that means one less everyday expense that has to keep climbing.

Being left to your own devices in a clothes shop might sound like a dream for many women, but for one customer in Malaga it became a very different kind of shopping experience when she discovered she was locked inside after closing time. The woman had been trying on swimsuits in a clothes shop in central Malaga on Thursday evening when the manager closed the premises and went home, apparently unaware that a customer was still inside.

It was shortly after 09:00pm when the woman came out of the changing room and realised something was wrong. The shop was dark, the shutters were down and there was no one else around. What had started as an ordinary shopping trip had suddenly left her stuck inside a locked shop with no way of getting out.

She was still in the shop when it closed

According to the shop manager, the woman had entered at around 8.30pm. The worker was talking to a friend when the usual closing time arrived. Assuming that all customers had left, she pulled down the shutters and left the premises without realising that the woman was still inside, The customer only discovered what had happened after finishing in the changing room.

With the shop locked and deserted, she called her partner for help. He went to the premises and contacted the police, who arrived to deal with the unusual situation. The incident quickly became less about a shopping trip and more about working out how to get the customer safely back outside.

Police track down the shop owner

Officers located the shop owner’s address and went to her home to explain what had happened. They asked her to return to the shop and unlock the premises so that the trapped customer could finally leave. The woman had been inside for around 45 minutes by the time she was freed.

Being unexpectedly locked inside a dark shop after closing is unlikely to have been part of her plans for the evening. The customer eventually walked out of the establishment, bringing an unusually memorable end to what had begun as an attempt to find a swimsuit.

For the woman, the most important part was undoubtedly getting back out, for the shop manager, the experience will probably make checking the changing rooms rather more memorable at closing time. And for anyone who has ever thought that having an entire clothes shop to themselves after hours would be the perfect shopping experience, this Malaga customer may have a very different view.

If you have built your life in Spain, having a Spanish child or family ties here might make you feel that you have some protection from being forced to leave. But for foreign residents convicted of serious crimes, those connections do not necessarily prevent Spain from ordering their expulsion. That is now the reality facing a British man in Granada, who is serving a prison sentence for attempted murder and will be deported from Spain after the region’s highest court rejected his appeal.

He argued that his daughter, who has a Spanish mother, was a reason he should be allowed to stay, the High Court of Justice of Andalucía (TSJA) accepted that he has a daughter in Spain but found that there was no evidence of an ongoing relationship with either the child or her mother, or that he contributed financially to his daughter’s support. His criminal record ultimately outweighed the family connection, leaving the expulsion order in place.

Four-year prison sentence for attempted murder

The British national was sentenced by the Provincial Court of Granada to four years in prison for attempted murder. The sentence also included an eight-year restraining order. He received a further nine-month prison sentence for unlawful possession of weapons. His latest conviction was considered alongside previous offences recorded in Spain. These included a one-year-and-six-month prison sentence for offences against public health and a six-month sentence for threats dating from 2012.

He had also been arrested in 2010 in connection with causing bodily harm, the TSJA considered this history when deciding whether his expulsion should go ahead. Rather than treating the attempted murder conviction as an isolated incident, the court assessed his wider criminal record when considering whether he continued to pose a threat to public safety and public order.

Spanish daughter did not prevent expulsion

The man’s appeal focused partly on his family circumstances. He has a daughter with a Spanish national and argued that this connection should be taken into account before he was expelled. Spanish courts can consider family and personal circumstances when examining an expulsion, meaning having relatives or children in the country can be relevant to an individual case.

However, the TSJA found that there was no evidence showing that the man maintained contact with his daughter or her mother. There was also no evidence that he contributed financially towards his daughter’s support. The court therefore concluded that the family connection did not outweigh the concerns arising from his criminal record. The judges considered his history and the nature of his most recent conviction when assessing whether he represented a continuing risk. They concluded that he posed a current danger to public safety and public order and upheld the expulsion decision.

What Spanish law means for foreign residents

Spain’s Immigration Act provides for the expulsion of foreign nationals who have been convicted of intentional offences carrying a potential prison sentence of more than one year, provided the relevant criminal record has not been cancelled. That does not mean every foreign resident who receives a prison sentence is automatically deported. The circumstances of each case can be examined, including family and personal circumstances and the seriousness of the offences involved.

For British nationals who have lived in Spain since Brexit, immigration status and criminal convictions can therefore become particularly important when authorities consider whether someone should remain in the country. In this case, however, the court found that the man’s criminal record and the risk he was considered to pose outweighed the family connection he put forward.

Deportation order remains in place

The TSJA’s ruling means the man’s challenge against his expulsion has failed and the deportation order remains in force.There is no indication in the available report that he has already been physically removed from Spain, and no date for his deportation has been given.

For the man, the unsuccessful appeal leaves the Spanish authorities free to proceed with his expulsion once the relevant process is carried out. The ruling also underlines that family connections alone are not necessarily enough to prevent a foreign national with serious convictions from being ordered to leave Spain. In this case, the court found that the absence of evidence of an active relationship with his daughter, combined with his criminal history, meant that remaining in the country could not be justified on family grounds.