Unfortunately, most journeys have a boring bit. Getting stuck in traffic on the M25, queuing for security at the airport or in this case, saving money. We’ve decided on our extremely vague plan of buying a patch of land, in the beautiful and rugged Scottish Highlands, then building our own home on it. How are we going to do it? I have no idea. Ben has no idea. I know it’ll be expensive, but probably not as bad as getting a mortgage on a one bed flat in Brighton.
I’ve watched enough Grand Designs in my time to know that the budget will inevitably run over, that trying to have both a full-time job and project manage the build is impossible and if you don’t get the roof on by winter you’re f*cked. But even vaguely entertaining the idea of architects drawings, searching for a plot of land or one of us quitting our jobs feels like a very distant dream. We’d be lucky to have enough saved right now to have a 10% deposit for a very cheap piece of land, let alone the 30% required for self-build projects. Not to mention stamp duty, construction costs and the question of what we’ll do for work when we get up there, but we’ll figure that out later!
We have a plan. Kinda. Well, not really at all, but we do have drive and a real want to live a better life. Even if that means less ‘stuff’, the experience will be worth it. I’m not convinced I’ll be reflecting on my iPhone X on my death bed, but I will be thinking about the view from our AirBNB living room window in Andorra. Or the moment the Swiss mountains took my breath away driving from Frankfurt to Lake Como. Still, it is pretty cool that you can actually be the smiling poo emoji isn’t it?
View from our AirBNB in Sant Julia de Loria, Andorra
Nevertheless, by this time next year, we’ll be debt free and ready to get seriously saving. Might mean for a while we forgo our road trips abroad for camping trips in the U.K. but it’ll be worth it. I’ve been to Fiji but never visited Ireland, so no time like the present to start exploring what’s on our own doorstep. So welcome to the boring phase! We’ll try and make this as interesting as possible, keep you all posted on our research and inevitable frustrations and who knows, perhaps we’ll jack it all in, buy a van and travel Europe before we even vaguely get close to our goal. Whatever. It’ll be fun.