You are here: Home | 2010 | October 2010

Starting the Olive Harvest

Published by

I don’t know how many olives we will be able to harvest this year.  Time is not something we seem to have enough of at the moment and other things are just more important.  It’s a shame seeing olives going to waste but such a low price commodity often rots on the floor I guess. We will do some though not the 150+ trees that we should.  The main olive oil crop won’t even be our trees.  Instead we will pick the Mother-in-law’s who lives on flat ground with great trees that produce fine olive oil.  Most importantly they are […]

The Most Important Frugal Living Tip You’ll Ever Need

Published by

Or why window shopping is bad for you, oh and magazines, the internet and tv! The most simple and straightforward way to save money and live frugally is just to avoid shops.  Hardly a jaw-dropping surprise that one is it?  But it is true that window shopping whilst relaxing and an excuse for a coffee with friends, is also totally detrimental to a frugal life.  If you don’t see stuff you don’t think about all the things you are missing, or would like to have. I’m pretty lucky as I am not a big shopper.  In an ideal world my […]

Living off Grid but no Longer Under the Radar

Published by

Living off the grid and under the radar has been fun and easy.  Just the initial round of registering on arrival in Spain for personal numbers to allow us to buy the house and get residency cards, but not too much interaction with officialdom the rest of the time.  There wasn’t much point in announcing ourselves too much, we had nothing to give the tax man or the social security office so played Russian Roulette with hoping we never needed a doctor.  Exciting but I wouldn’t recommend it!  Luckily, so far antiseptic cream, aloe vera and tea tree oil has […]

Frugal Living & Self Sufficiency Keep You Fit

Published by

Last weekend I realised how much more fit we were when everything was about frugal living and self sufficiency.  You see, from part time olive farmers, part time vegetable growers, part time builders and full time “never really go anywhere as there is no money for fuel” type folks, we have moved “up” in the world, to become full time laptop typing folks making a living at home.  Yep we still do work on the land and we still do some building (the house will never be finished), but never for so long every day as we once did. It […]