Your best bet for researching prices in the area is probably the Internet. Check PAP, Century21, seloger and the other standard rental sites for apartment rentals. Health insurance prices are available from the AARO website: AARO (While you have to be an AARO member to take out their insurance, it is developed for US expats and it will give you a reasonable base price from which you can evaluate other offerings.)

For groceries and day to day expenditures, check the websites of any of the big hypermarkets (kind of like France's version of Walmart), Carrefour, Auchan, Cora, Intermarché, Leclerc, etc. For some of them you can drill down to the individual store level to see the weekly specials, etc.

One other website that should give you some valuable information is the official town website for Collioure PORTAIL OFFICIEL DE LA VILLE DE COLLIOURE

Now, all of this will require that you have enough French to navigate the various sites. So if you don't already have some French, you still have plenty of time to start working on it.
Cheers,
Bev

 

As Bev says, learn French! Depending on when you intent to live at Collioure, try visiting it winter. There are a lot less shops open then.

That said, it's a lovely town, although a little too full with tourists in summer for me. The local wine and anchovies are perfect for the evening apéro.

May I suggest (as always with requests like yours in this forum) that you spend a long holiday (2 months?) and start exploring the non tourist essentials for living. Bank, health, doctors etc. Certainly a bank account will be a great advantage before you start moving here.

The Spanish border is 90 minutes south of here today, but at some time it was far to the north. Hannibal and his elephants passed by Perpignan en route for Rome, so that's something else to look up. I went to school in the UK in the 50s and 60s, and we learnt about English / French history, but mainly relevant to the N of France. I was totally ignorant of the history here when we arrived - it's fun doing the research.

Good luck! You will find many threads here about French life and how to manage the Fr bureaucracy. Please ask questions as they arise.

DejW