Ive had such a good response from my last post (tons of emails thank you!) that I have decided to try to expand on this and describe more of our way of life. Forgive me if I ramble...
Food, shopping ect.
Costs.... day to day living costs for us nowadays are pretty small. It has taken us three years to get this far though. As our survival (monetary wise) is based on the rental of our little cottage to guests during summer we obviously have to be as frugal with that money as possible, as its a very irregular thing. And dries up almost completely during winter. As I said in the previous post, I grow the vast majority of our food, we eat meat maybe once a week if that, sometimes during summer we go weeks without any at all, it seems pretty silly to buy meat when we have such a wonderful abundance growing fresh and lovely in the garden, I menu plan during winter but during the most productive garden times I just walk down to the 'Horta' and see what is ready today and plan a meal around what we have most of...
While we have guests( money) in the cottage I tend to squirrel away food, spending an extra 10 euros here and there on bulk pasta and rice, an extra bag of dried beans or oats and flour so that I dont miss the money, but by winter have a large store cupboard full of staples we need to live ..
Also now and again, buy a extra pkt of stock cubes,a jar of coffee, a bag of dried fruit here and there, it all mounts up but when its only the odd euro each week, you dont miss it, just make sure you dont go mad all at once. I did this during our time in the UK too, so that one week in 6 I had a grocery free week and saved that money for Portugal...
So, by this time of year, we are broke... but have enough food to live simply and healthily till spring if we have to. The freezer is choc a block with food, and ALL i'm buying at the moment is milk, the occasional block of butter (as a treat for rik) and maybe a few eggs or a chunk of cheese sometimes. Obviously sooner or later we'll have to buy loo rolls when my stocks run out, the same with dog food, we buy 20 kilos of dried complete mix for 10.15€ which combined with all our veggie leavings and fruit(yep our dogs eat healthy too) lasts a couple of months.
Our cooking costs are nil, as we use a wood fired cooking stove, which is the best thing we ever invested in, as it really is the heart of our home, cooking, heating, drying our washing... fantastic. As long as you have a access to firewood, its the best thing in the world. I do all our own baking, bread making, everything, Rik loves this time of the year as the range is always alight, it means the oven is always hot, I cant stand wasting that heat so tend to pop something nice in to cook ... and he ends up with lots of treats...
I spend a nice quiet part of my day sat by the range, either reading, or sewing (darning his damn socks usually) I just love that cooking range, it makes the kitchen the best place to be during winter...
Well thats all for now...
More later.
Frugal living in the Portuguese countryside,Eco-tourism, Agri tourism, recipes,family life, self sufficency, eco living, vegetable growing, tips and self help ideas for country living.
