Ecotopia for £22K - That's the Plan! (Land Planning 1.0)

The main reason I've moved to Portugal is to buy some cheap land and create my own personal ecotopia.

This effectively involves doing the following, with costings:

1. Buying some appropriate land, ideally with a ruin that will make it easy for me to build on it. I think I'm looking at 2 acres, which I should be able to get for around 12K Euros.
2. Building a really simply structure in which to live, like a Yurt - I think I can do this for around 3K EU
3. Sorting out the water supply - this could mean a bore-hole, and digging some ponds, allow 3K EU
4. Building the sundry buildings - outdoor kitchen, compost toilet, outdoor shade area and decking, shower unit, storage shed, maybe a small workshop - around 2K EU
5. Trees and shrubs - around 500 EU should do this, to get a few nice mature ones to kick start
6. £500 for initial basic solar set up (I've already got 100 Watt panels, I think I need a bit more - another 200 Watt should do for starters)
7. Allow another 1000 EU for unexpected expenditures!

Opting for the proper cheap option

I know a couple guys about 10 minutes drive from where I'm currently staying that had around 2.5 HA up for sale on a mountain side with a ruin, for 26K EU, I was going to go see it, but it sold recently.

TBH I think that's done me a favour - I could have afforded that land, but it would have cleared me out of a good whack of my easily liquifiable wealth (I'm not including crypto in this, that's not for sale), and I'd have to probably borrow to build.

That land was beautiful mind you (It's on my running route, so I know the general area) BUT it really was twice as much as I actually need!

HOWEVER, having visited @eco-alex recently I've seen that you can get 3 acres with a ruin, for <10K EU, and I know of someone else who recently got 1 acre for 5K EU with water (something of an issue around here!), so I figure if I budget for around the 10K mark for 2 acres I should be OK, and then a little extra on top for tax and legal fees.

If I have to stretch to 15K, no big deal.

Land plans....

I have been deliberately resisting drawing up an abstract plan for my hypothetical land, yer supposed to see it first before you start planning (according to Permie law anyways) but I finally caved in today - mainly because I watched a video on getting planning permission for building and the guy in it said you're more likely to be given permission to live on yer land if you have a plan for it, so I thought I'd better get ahead.

It hasn't actually been that much of a challenge - I basically want some big trees, some small trees, fruit bushes, a veg patch (large), a Yurt, outdoor kitchen, compost toilet, compost area, storage area, and ponds for water.

I drew an abstract plan as below:

Land plan 1.0

2 acres is 8000 square meters - 80 times 100 in the abstract plan above - OK the actual land probably won't be in that proportion, but as long as it's broadly similar I can adapt - I mean if it were 40 by 200 or triangular and odder I could shifty things about easily enough.

Anyway, I've basically allowed for:

• A massive 10 metre strimmed border around the outside, being aware of fire regulations.
• T = fuck of big tree, like Cork Oaks, probably actually cork oaks. They may not be fuck off large until I'm dead if I plant saplings, but that's fine.
• F = fruit tree - I can get at least a couple of dozen in two acres, probably double or treble that, this is just rough now - NB this includes nuts, so olives, almonds, ALL THE FRUIT!!!
• Two ENORMOUS ponds - the water system may be more elaborate depending on slopes - I just wanted to allow A LOT of land for water storage. I may need to rethink this.
• Lots of classic beds for growing veg
• A nice 100-200 M Sq area in the middle for main house, kitchen, chill garden.
• Fruit bushes at the front, wild area and workshop at the back.

I'm lucky that this is all I've ever really wanted to do!

Thinking about this makes me wonder why I spent so long in teaching - well OK it was fun at first, but those last five years were hell - just looking at the above, it all seems VERY doable for SUPER cheap if I go by UK costings. I dunno why I didn't do it sooner.

When I say I'm lucky I mean I am on an early retirement drive, but I'm not just doing this to reduce my cost of living, I'm doing it because having had an allotment before I loved it and have wanted to upscale this for a long time - and now I can.

Of course this isn't just about food production - it's about low-impact building, waste removal, off-grid energy, land reclamation too.

AND, once the food production etc. are up to scale, this is going to mean I've got a very cheap cost of living.

This feels like a kind of hobby or game or a 'challenge' rather than being about survival

Because I've got a house in the UK I could go back to, or sell and spend half on a decent regular house in this part of Portugal and put the other half in diversified asset classes, I'm under no stress in trying to do this ecotopia experiment on the cheap!

It's such a win-win for me - I get to learn new skills, single handedly usher in the new ecotopian age of abundance, universal love, peace and happiness for all of humanity, and save myself some money into the bargain!

And who knows, it might just all work out in reality as well as in my head and on my little piece of A4 paper

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