FIRE Number for Quebec City, Canada

A studio or older one-bedroom in Limoilou, Saint-Sauveur, or Charlesbourg — charming older buildings at some of the lowest rents of any major Canadian city. Most meals are cooked at home, with bistro and boulangerie outings a couple of times a week, and the walkable Old Town plus an RTC pass cover getting around. RAMQ handles doctors and hospitals, leaving a small extended-health-and-drug supplement, and cheap Hydro-Québec power keeps utilities low. French is essential for daily life and winters are long and snowy — but the free Old-Town-and-Plains-of-Abraham lifestyle makes a lean budget genuinely pleasant.

A heritage one-bedroom in Old Quebec, Montcalm, or a unit in Sillery with river glimpses, with regular fine dining at rooms like Laurie Raphaël and Chez Muffy. Season tickets to the orchestra and theatre, ski passes at Mont-Sainte-Anne and Le Massif, and a good AWD car for winter round out the leisure, and comprehensive private cover layers on top of RAMQ. Quebec City is affordable enough that this tier carries a large discretionary margin.

A prime heritage-luxury apartment in Old Quebec — a concierge building with parking, the top of a genuinely thin luxury-rental market — with near-daily fine dining and catered soirées, a luxury vehicle plus a car service for occasions, full domestic help, and concierge-grade private cover. Quebec City is small and its high-end services are limited, so this level of spending only makes full sense alongside extensive travel or a country property in Charlevoix; much of the budget funds experiences elsewhere while enjoying 400 years of French-Canadian culture in one of North America's safest cities.