It is probably one of the most common reasons why people are not able to visualize and afford their own homes and enjoy life at the same time:
They believe you can only live somewhere when it's ALL DONE AND READY.
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Morning visit on our construction site |
The prince of sun and I knew that it would take years to save money to have a ready home. As our whole life is an adventure anyway we knew we would do it differently.
We decided that all we care about is:
-saving money long term: getting out of the vicious circle of wasting money through renting and using the savings for travelling and enjoying life
-independence, safety & freedom: having our own place where we feel safe, are totally free to do what and how we wish to do it, for example having our own dog without worrying about changing rent regulations
-an affordable hence small but cosy home base: to be able to travel now and then and not have high maintenance/utility bills while at home and when travelling/abroad
-cheap living costs in the town of our home base, here in Porto Seguro, Brazil
-no rush: being able to take it slow, design and build the house at our speed and wallet abilities
-have spare time and enjoy life: instead of having the life of workaholics and no-time for 6-10 years, and not taking advantage of our youth, we prefer to build slow but steady and be able to go out, travel, eat well and enjoy ourselves with friends, family or just the two of us.
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My house plan |
So that's what we did: First we obviously needed a piece of land. We chose a long, narrow one, flat space of 3m wide/streetfront and 20m long/between two other houses. This shows that it won't be an ordinary house, the way people normally believe houses 'should' be built - such as