here's a little review from me regarding food, internet, costs in general, for bulgaria, england, netherlands, uk and madeira: mostly about madeira, actually, but i compare also things where else i have lived as well.
except for the face melting 10 bosnian mark cash withdrawal fee at the banks for my EU (revolut) bank account and the ridiculous 400 marks (200 euro) withdrawal limit at the bank, everything was better in Bosnia than in the UK or NL. in fact, i have simply not even bothered to try and live in western europe at all since 2013 once i got a taste of Bulgaria.
best places to live for costs and internet these days is former yugoslavia. bulgaria is not bad but it gets worse every year. bosnia has the best beef supply. bulgaria the choice is pig, chicken or pink foam mixed with soy, and (pork) mince also soy mixed. at least most of the shops show this prominently on the meat cabinets.
madeira manages almost to be adequate except for the insane cost of transport, and at the moment, rent prices are pretty high, but keep in mind that in madeira, it is considered poverty if you don't have one bathroom per bedroom, and everything is made out of wood and the brickwork, tiling and concrete isn't too badly constructed, better than bulgarian cement anyway. bidets are pretty much standard equipment.
the beef here is terrible. really stringy. it is always labeled 'novilho' which means veal, and i hate veal, because it's stringy and the fat isn't as tasty nor is it as fatty. whenever you could find beef in Bulgaria it was always 'teleshki' which is also, of course, veal. the only places i've been in europe that sell adequate beef, that's actually more than 1 year old beasts is bosnia, and some can be found in serbia too, but usually is found as blended beef/pork/lamb mince for making cevapi.
internet price in madeira isn't terrible, if you manage to get a proper residence and navigate the tax registration, it's really good, actually, 100 euros for 10gbit. GIGABIT. otherwise, 35 euro for 200gb of 30Mbit 4G mobile (get a sim directly at the airport if you land during office hours at the vodafone shop there - no ID, no registration btw).
the food prices are not bad, for the most part. just mostly average for EU. really hard to find full fat milk, or anything other than what is basically 'skyr' or as the dutch call it 'quark' which is skim milk yoghurt. of course, part of the reason why is that butter is a big seller, so you can sorta reconstitute whole milk with butter and semi skim, 6 pack of milk, 250g of 80% fat butter.
two major brands of grass fed dairy stuff from the azores, Terra Nostra and Agros. all the rest are from the mainland portugal, and i can taste the corn feed in all of it, makes me sick.
all the novilho meat is grass fed from portugal, if you make a stew with it, when you first open the lid on it after it gets hot you'll smell the stink of corn.
not really sure what else to tell. transport is hellish in madeira. if you don't want to spend half your costs on it, get a bicycle. walking is ok but the slopes are incredible, be prepared to become incredibly fit.
