our life project is happening on a big piece of land where we look to live with friends, family, and neighbors while fully enjoying and improving the surroundings for the present and future.
in this site you can find ideas around how we can live in shelters at the countryside (over 15ha, north of portugal, since march 2020), with trees and away from the cities or big buildings, mainly by following some steps of many giants (such as tamera).
we shall cultivate the land to have better water and nature than before we arrived. all along with some basic, cheap, and incredible conveniences, like a solar heated shower and the internet, while learning how to not rely only on them.
everyone is welcomed to visit.
then, to become a new member, it'll be like any long term relationship: first we meet, then we spend time together. eventually you'll know better than any of us if you should stay!
this is an idea to be discussed and thought through together.
we are accepting new members up to 10 people, to comfortably and lovingly live in our land. we want to grow slowly, always getting to know and helping each other.
and we need people who are ready to shift their world and live with us for at least 1 year. read everything here. talk to us. act by yourself. in other words, if you need to ask many questions every day, it's probably better you start visiting some well established communities first (such as tamera, in south of portugal, about 5 to 8 hours away by car).
this is a project being made from scratch. in 2020 it entered phase 1 of execution. this includes cooperating to flourish an integrated living and following our core values. this means if you arrive today, you might find nothing in the land except trees and some wild life! as of october we have a very small shared space: a cheap car, our first tiny house and a tent. good enough to live anywhere!
at first, it's not self-sustainable. still, the individual daily cost we calculate as something that might start as low as 10 euros. all basic needs covered, such as water, food, electricity, and internet.
for instance (as this is only a thought, right?), with as little as 2k eur you can purchase and bring your mobile home to our land. you can then move it out to anywhere you want. it's your home!
when the project hits phase 2 and becomes completely self-sustainable, we could add an option for visitors at 20 eur for at least 1 week. the income could go to the community and even shared among members. (remember, nothing more than ideas, still!)
those daily costs could be further reduced, depending on how much value each person brings. everyone will be required to live and work in the community. kitchen. garden. composting. maintenance in general. an equivalent shift of up to 4h per day, average. 20h per week at most. but we don't really think in those terms, as you'll learn…
doing the math, you can easily retire within our lifestyle. in an analogy-estimate, with just 60k in your pocket, you can pay for at least 10 years of life. (but let's not get too far on the mind here)
as soon as we assemble the new members we probably should crowdfund (among us or elsewhere) to build the kitchen, more compost toilets, and a hot shower, for instance. these mustn't cost more than 5k all together if we build them ourselves. (hopefully)
we do have many restrictions as well!
no smokers. zero tolerance. it's essential for security against wood fire, in portugal.
only organic material is allowed to go in the land, from cosmetics to paint and anything that may quickly leak underground.
only vegan food. we don't have the infrastructure for composting meat. plus the smell itself can attract wild animals, which we also can't handle today.
recapitulating the main points:
adapted from a pioneer update.
from rough estimations, personal costs went from 10k to 6k per year, just by slowly removing housing over 1 year (from sep 2019 to 2020)! in february the trailer was fully paid off, becoming a home.
and the last 6 months showed how this cost could go further down:
all together, that's up to 5k per year reduction possible, by using a bike.
the drawbacks are plenty but, just like the benefits, there are 2 sides to them: