114. My type of luxury is cheap.

I earn 500 euros and I live in the middle of nowhere, living the dream.

I get up in the morning and go downstairs to the kitchen to drink my morning decaf coffee. After this, I go out to the garden to check on my little allotment. These past few mornings everywhere’s been covered in frost because it’s started to get really cold at night. Some bugs have been eating my baby broccoli’s leaves so I’ve been sprinkling the ash from the fireplace over them to keep the pests away which seems to be working. It’s also not been raining much so I give them a good water with the hosepipe and then I run back inside to the warmth of the fire.

While I was standing in the garden today, the title of Maria Falbo’s latest essay came to mind “True luxury is cheap. Fake luxury is expensive” and I reflected on how much my life has changed in the last year and a half. I’ve gone from living in Portal de l’Àngel in Barcelona to living in the remote countryside. I’ve gone from paying 2.000 euros a month to 500 euros and nowadays I’m happier than ever.

Don’t get me wrong, living in Barcelona was an experience and if I hadn't lived there, I probably never would have moved to the countryside. If I hadn’t experienced what I didn’t like, I wouldn’t have found what I love. The ten months I spent there taught me a lot and I’m grateful for that time. My life in Barcelona consisted of working every day until ten o’clock at night some nights. I was earning “good money” and I was living in a cool apartment in the center of one of the biggest cities. I was living that city girl life everyone talks about. I was going to speciality coffee shops every day, trying different restaurants a few nights every week, going on hot girl walks, shopping every day, buying a ton of books… I was doing anything that included spending money. What else was there to do?

The question I hear the most nowadays while living in the countryside is “do you have enough money?” and I understand why people ask this question because I used to think the same about this type of life. People live in small villages and in the countryside because they can’t afford to live in big cities and it’s definitely true for me nowadays, I couldn’t afford to live as I did in Barcelona now. Strangely, when I was paying 2.000 euros a month, nobody asked me if I was earning enough money or even if I had enough money and to be honest, I have no idea how I lived that kind of life. I look at photos and I can’t recognise my lifestyle or myself.

At this moment, financially speaking, I’m what you’d consider poor. I have very little money in my bank and I’m earning less than when I was eighteen at my first job. But the crazy thing is that I’m happier than ever and everything is so much more simple because I don’t have loads of money. I work three to four hours a day, I don’t work on weekends, I’m paying a very inexpensive rent in a place that brings me deep joy and I no longer feel the need to spend money as I did in Barcelona. I don’t need new clothes every week, I don’t need to spend 120 euros on new trainers just because I can, I don’t need to pay five euros for a coffee in a fancy coffee shop, I just don’t need as much as I used to need.

My whole life was based on working and then filling the life I wasn’t living with things. I’d buy random stuff at Muji, I’d buy expensive clothes I didn’t need from Uniqlo, I’d buy brand new jeans in the Levi’s shop, I’d buy random supplements and wellness stuff from health stores, I’d buy vinyls I never played, I’d buy bags I never used, I’d buy random magazines (which were 20 euros each) when getting a coffee, I’d buy pretty much anything really. But I was rich and everyone thought I was doing well and that I was living a successful adult life looked like. Or was it?

When my partner and I lived in Barcelona, we’d go up to our rooftop before starting work after lunch to stand in a tiny corner to feel some sun on our faces. We lived surrounded by other apartment blocks so we didn’t get super direct sunlight indoors. On weekends we’d spend hours up there eating our breakfast, reading and talking. I don’t remember why or how this shift happened, but I remember an idea forming in my mind that I just couldn’t shake. It was almost as if this seed had been forcefully planted in my brain and I was having to deal with it sprouting and growing every single day. The idea just kept getting bigger and stronger and the way I saw my life in the city completely changed.

I said to my partner one day “do you realise that we haven’t seen the sun set or rise in the seven months we’ve been living here?” and that’s when it all clicked. We looked at each other and we understood we were on the same page.

We moved to Barcelona because my partner had a clothing brand and we’ve always been told that the city is where all the opportunities are so naturally we packed up our lives, drove twelve hours in a van and moved cities. We were ready for the opportunities, the community, the cool people, the energy, the vibes, the progress and nothing of that happened. We fell into a trap. I titled this trap as “la milonga” which in English would be something like “telling porkies” or “telling lies”, the Spanish word is much more fun to use: la milonga.

La milonga made me think that if I ran long and hard enough on the hamster wheel that I’d eventually make it. I’d be successful. I’d have a great life and really be someone. What they don’t tell you is that you burnout running all day on the hamster wheel and that everyone else is running on one too, so you’re all competing for the same things. It’s exhausting. In Barcelona we were surrounded by people rushing to and from work, the metro always crowded with people, flashing lights in every storefront window trying to get your attention, constant noise coming from the hundreds of people walking up and down our street below, posters trying to convince you that you needed to buy what they were promoting. You’d go for a walk and all you’d see were shops, after shops, after shops, and of course you’d end up going inside and spending money, there was literally nothing else to do there. But this is the life, you made it. Congratulations.

Another idea that made la milonga grow was that if I wanted to see the sunset in Barcelona, I needed more money to get an apartment on a higher floor, in a better area. I needed to work harder, earn more money and position myself above the rest of my neighbours to have a better view. Am I the only one that feels that this is sickening?

After many conversations on the rooftop terrace, we began to listen to our intuition and really ask ourselves what we wanted in life. I couldn’t stop thinking about not seeing a sunset and not hearing a single bird sing. It felt wrong. What was I doing with my life? My partner trusted me and agreed to give living in the countryside a go. We moved to Barcelona so that his clothing brand could grow and now we were moving away from the city because I couldn’t take it anymore, his clothing brand closed for good and it was the best decision we’ve made to this day.

Where and how our rooftop conversations took place + little Mobi

Again, we loaded up a van and drove eight hours to the house we’d be living in. It was in a village with very few inhabitants and we had no idea what to expect. We’d been there before but never as full time residents, more as people on vacation enjoying some peace. We had to relearn how to live. There were no coffee shops or shops at all, there were almost no people in the street, there was no noise, no distractions. But there were a lot of birds singing every day, a lot of green fields and some crazy sunsets. We learned how to grow our own food in the allotment, we had four hens laying eggs, we had to deal with minus temperatures and snow in winter with no central heating, we had to learn to fill that emptiness the city life had left in us but we had to fill it with ourselves.

I had to learn how to fill in those gaps without being able to escape from myself. I was the only one who could give myself what I needed to be whole again. It took a lot of work but a year later, I can say that I did it.

Now that I’m totally out of the hamster wheel and I’ve taken some distance, I see life so differently. I saw three baby cows be birthed this week in the field next to where I live on a random weekday. I saw those cows on their first ever day on this planet and it felt like a blessing. I saw the mothers with the placenta still hanging out of them, how they walked differently and slower. I looked at them and felt an intense admiration. I felt absolutely blessed to be able to witness the birth of those animals on a random Wednesday evening. Every time I go out on my bike I see deer running in the same fields I’m pedalling through and seeing them so close to me feels spiritual. I’m surrounded by life, by natural cycles, by an intense abundance and when I truly connect with it and the present, life feels like a miracle and all I can do is pray that I get one more day here.

When I see these animals living such simple lives I ask myself why us humans need so much. Why do we need a gym membership, Spotify premium, every single streaming platform, new clothes every month, the newest iPhone, a lifelong mortgage on a house, a brand new car, expensive holidays, a massive pay check. Why? Why are the rich people the ones that have so much and why are the poor people the ones that are able to live without all of that? I’m not going to say that life is as simple as a deer’s because we’re not deer and I’m not going to romanticize poverty. But Why am I seen as unsuccessful because I have no interest in working a 9-5 and earning more money? Why am I weird for wanting to live a slow paced life and prioritise having real free time to actually experience life rather than trying to climb the corporate ladder? Why is it wrong to not want more money and more status?

I can only speak for myself and the reason I needed so many things was to fill the emptiness I felt and to distract myself from my noisy anxious mind and to feel like I was doing something with my life. Nowadays, my life is pretty boring compared to what it used to be like in Barcelona. I spend a lot of time at home, doing little jobs on the house, pottering around the garden, examining broccoli plants close up, learning about mushrooms I find on my walks, seeing the different birds that visit my birdhouse, riding my bike down country lanes, reading about the stages of bovine parturition and watching tractors and harvesters work on their fields. I love to cut the grass, I enjoy tidying up the house, I go thrifting and can buy a whole new outfit for less than five euros. I even go to our local supermarket so often that I know every employee that works there and I have conversations with them whenever I see them and that’s my weekly in-person-socialising.

Nowadays, my life is extremely cheap but for me, it is such a luxury. There are things I could never put a price on, like the birds that sit on the windowsill as I wash the dishes, the butterflies flying in and out of the flowers in the garden, counting how many deer I see on a bike ride and waking up and being able to walk on frozen grass.

Life is all a matter of perspective and there’s no wrong way to live but I had to learn that the normal way of doing things doesn’t work for me. Some people may think that I live in scarcity and that I don’t have enough to live but the way I see it, I’m surrounded by abundance and the things that truly feed my soul don’t cost money, and what does cost money isn’t expensive because I’m not paying for the lifestyle etiquette, I’m paying for what it really costs without the add ons.

STUFF I WANT TO SHARE ↓

1. I want to recommend the newsletter

   Maria Falbo
   writes. It really resonates with me and if my writing resonates with you, I think you’ll enjoy her newsletter too. Thank you, Naomi for recommending it.

2. I really recommend checking out

   Carter’s Cooking
   - I gifted my partner the monthly subscription and let me tell you, he made the Date Pudding recipe and I died and went to heaven. SO delicious.

3. I’m a mittens fan vs gloves and I came across these ones on Instagram and thought that they were awesome.

4. My buddy

   Justin Gil
   writes some awesome poetry and is sharing it on his Instagram page, go give him some love!

5. Velas Adarves makes non toxic candles from beeswax and they’re a really reasonable price. It’s a small company based in Castilla La Mancha, Spain.

6. This song: Meu Amore by Sen Senra is my everything right now.

7. Carcoma by Layla Martínez is December’s POMELO Book Club read so if you’d like to join our virtual meetings and chat, send me a DM on Instagram!