{"id":2351,"date":"2026-07-27T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2026-07-26T23:31:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T22:31:24","slug":"eighteen-months-after-selling-the-semi-d-in-portlaoise-they%ca%bcre-living-on-a-hillside-above-almeria-and-the-sums-still-surprise-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/eighteen-months-after-selling-the-semi-d-in-portlaoise-they%ca%bcre-living-on-a-hillside-above-almeria-and-the-sums-still-surprise-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighteen months after selling the semi-d in Portlaoise they\u02bcre living on a hillside above Almer\u00eda and the sums still surprise them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>They keep a battered notebook on the kitchen shelf, its pages crisp with <strong>sunlight<\/strong> and coffee rings. Eighteen months since the moving van rolled away from <strong>Portlaoise<\/strong>, the figures inside still make them blink. Each time they recalc the budget, another line item winks back: lower here, slimmer <strong>there<\/strong>, sometimes vanishing altogether.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>What pushed them out, and what pulled them in<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They had a good life, but the <strong>edges<\/strong> were fraying. A rising <strong>mortgage<\/strong>, two commutes, and that dull sense you\u2019re paying for a life you hardly <strong>see<\/strong>. Spain wasn\u2019t a fantasy so much as a spreadsheet with sky <strong>blue<\/strong> margins.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe kept doing the <strong>math<\/strong>, and it kept saying \u2018go,\u2019\u201d he <strong>says<\/strong>. The day they booked one-way tickets, the worry shrank to the size of a hand luggage <strong>bag<\/strong>. The pull was simple: more <strong>time<\/strong>, less noise, and hills that glow like warm <strong>bread<\/strong> at dusk.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>The price that changed everything<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They sold the semi-detached for about \u20ac285,000, clean and <strong>quick<\/strong>. Almer\u00eda offered a hillside home\u2014whitewashed, slightly scuffed, startlingly <strong>solid<\/strong>\u2014for \u20ac145,000. Renovation swelled another \u20ac35,000; fees and taxes, about <strong>\u20ac12,000<\/strong>. They bought a used car for \u20ac8,000 and kept a cushion in the <strong>bank<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe shock wasn\u2019t the <strong>house<\/strong>, it was the silence after the last Irish <strong>bill<\/strong>,\u201d she says. In Ireland, every month was the hum of direct <strong>debits<\/strong>. Here, the sums stepped down a <strong>staircase<\/strong> and sat still.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They didn\u2019t chase a ruin or a bargain that would own <strong>them<\/strong>. The place had water, legal deeds, a sane roof, and enough sun to cure a year of damp <strong>moods<\/strong>. The view did the rest, folding the valley into neat green <strong>lines<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>The monthly maths<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>What surprises them most isn\u2019t the dramatic win, but the thousand small <strong>surrenders<\/strong>. The line items that stopped needing <strong>attention<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li>Electricity: about <strong>\u20ac85<\/strong>  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Water: about <strong>\u20ac12<\/strong>  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Broadband: about <strong>\u20ac32<\/strong>  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Groceries for two: around <strong>\u20ac280<\/strong>  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Fuel: about <strong>\u20ac100<\/strong>  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Local property tax (averaged monthly): <strong>\u20ac22<\/strong>  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Private health cover for both: <strong>\u20ac140<\/strong>  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Eating out: usually <strong>\u20ac120<\/strong><\/li>\n<p>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The list flexes with heat and harvest, but the total still lands under their old Irish grocery <strong>bill<\/strong>. \u201cEvery month feels like we\u2019ve snuck out of a <strong>queue<\/strong>,\u201d he laughs. \u201cWe\u2019re not cheating; we\u2019re just not paying to stand <strong>still<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>The texture of their days<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Mornings begin with the church bell and a stray goat\u2019s faint <strong>argument<\/strong>. Coffee on the terrace, a slant of <strong>light<\/strong> across the lemon tree, a handwritten plan that may or may not get <strong>done<\/strong>. Work flows in bursts: she translates, he codes, both grateful for a broadband line as crisp as the <strong>horizon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They learned the town by its rhythms: the barber who opens at nine-ish, the baker who knows your bread by your <strong>face<\/strong>, and the olive mill that smells like green <strong>thunder<\/strong> in October. At first they counted euros; now they count favors, coffees, and borrowed <strong>tools<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommunity isn\u2019t loud here,\u201d she <strong>says<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s the nod at the market, the wave on a steep <strong>corner<\/strong>, the bag of figs left on the <strong>gate<\/strong>.\u201d Time loosens. Contentment arrives without fanfare, like a <strong>shadow<\/strong> keeping pace.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>Surprises in the small print<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They braced for bureaucracy and found it both slower and <strong>kinder<\/strong> than expected. Paperwork requires patience, a folder, and sometimes a neighbor who knows a second <strong>door<\/strong>. Water rights were a tangle they unpicked with three visits and one firm <strong>signature<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Work didn\u2019t vanish; it just shrank to fit a human <strong>day<\/strong>. Siestas taught them to time-shift and let the hot hours be <strong>quiet<\/strong>. Summer is a furnace that demands respect, shutters, and a long <strong>lunch<\/strong>. Winter is brief, a sweater and a deep blue <strong>sky<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Not everything is cheaper. Some tools cost <strong>more<\/strong>, some imports take ages, and sometimes you pay with <strong>time<\/strong> instead of cash. But the arithmetic holds, not like a trick, but like a chair that doesn\u2019t <strong>wobble<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>What money can\u2019t buy, but somehow did<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They didn\u2019t come for reinvention; they came for a smaller circle of <strong>need<\/strong>. The move didn\u2019t make them new, just oddly more <strong>themselves<\/strong>. Their friends visit and understand within <strong>minutes<\/strong>. The view does the heavy lifting; the silence closes the <strong>sale<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only unbearable thing,\u201d he says, smiling, \u201cis how bearable it <strong>is<\/strong>.\u201d When the wind slides down the ridge, their old life feels both close and far, like a familiar song you can\u2019t place the <strong>name<\/strong> of.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They still open the notebook once a month and do the <strong>numbers<\/strong>. The sums don\u2019t lie, and they don\u2019t shout. They just sit there, lined up like sunlit <strong>plates<\/strong>, saying this was possible all <strong>along<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s advice, it\u2019s plain. Don\u2019t chase the cheapest square <strong>meter<\/strong>. Chase the clearest <strong>math<\/strong>, the cleanest deeds, the kindest <strong>commute<\/strong> you can imagine: ten seconds from kettle to view. Learn enough Spanish to say \u201cma\u00f1ana\u201d and mean \u201cnot <strong>now<\/strong>.\u201d Leave room for the unexpected <strong>good<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>They left to spend less and found that less kept spilling into <strong>more<\/strong>. More time, more sky, more dinners that taste like a short <strong>walk<\/strong> home. The sums still surprise them, but the life they add up to no longer <strong>does<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2357,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions\/2357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}