Wouter & Inge(48)

Wouter was a construction project manager, I was an HR consultant. We had a comfortable life in Apeldoorn, but felt empty. The rat race, the traffic jams, the endless meetings. We dreamed of self-sufficient living — and the Alentejo made that dream affordable.

For €175,000 we bought a quinta (estate) of five hectares with a dilapidated farmhouse, 200 olive trees and a well. We do most of the renovation ourselves — Wouter is handy, and labor is affordable here. A Portuguese mason charges €60-€80 per day, not €300 like in the Netherlands.

The Alentejo is the most sparsely populated area of Portugal. Our nearest village has 400 inhabitants. The silence is overwhelming — no planes, no highways, just crickets and birds. Summers are hot (40°C+), but winters are mild and green.

We now produce our own olive oil — 500 liters per year from our trees. The goats provide milk for cheese. We have a vegetable garden of 200 square meters. We are not completely self-sufficient yet, but we buy less and less at the supermarket.

The bureaucracy for keeping animals and producing food is surprisingly smooth. We registered our goats at the Direcao Regional de Agricultura. We sell our olive oil legally at local markets with a simple Financas registration.

Our monthly budget is €1,200 for two people. No mortgage (we bought cash with the sale of our Apeldoorn house), low IMI of €180 per year, and minimal groceries thanks to our own production. We are richer than ever — not in money, but in time and freedom.