A Typical Week of Frugality in Portugal. Renovating on a Budget & Garden Prep.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- We had a surprisingly busy week! I sometimes forget what we have accomplished and creating these videos is a great reminder of our progress. This week I tried a different format for our videos, let me know what you think!
Exciting News!!! We have an online store linked to our channel featuring Not Your Average Gringo Merchandise! I am finally putting my design skills to work (I have a degree in Fashion Design) so stay tuned for more designs to come.
Check out the shop tab on our channel!
From roof brackets to trellises, garden updates and money saving tips, spicing it up in the kitchen and looking at the pros and cons of going off grid - this video has it all! Special mention goes to @FarmsVilla and @PortugalfromScratch as we referred to their experiences of going off grid. Hats off to you guys and we love you! Please check them out, they have great channels and we enjoy following their journey.
You will notice we like to repurpose things and often "rescue" items from the trash. Some people just see junk, I see potential.
This is a typical week for us and I hope we were able to share it in a way that includes you in every aspect of our journey.
Intro Music by our Talented Friend
Music by BenSound.com
I like the new format you chose for this week's video !! I also see potential on things that people throw away and sometimes I pick it up and transform it into something useful !! Creative minds I guess 😄
Thank you! I was trying to find a good balance between explanations of what we're doing and the more action based videos.
The society here in Portugal is far less wasteful than in Canada, but we still find the odd thing to repurpose. In Canada I'm pretty sure you could furnish an entire house with items left by the trash bins or at the curb for people to take away for free.
Frugality is the way to go. Going off grid if you have renewable power in your area/community does not make sense. In my town we have our own utility. The town has partnered with 2 other towns who also have their own utilities. So they each own 1/3 of a wind farm, we each have a solar farm, we also have a Hydro power generating station and municipal buildings have their own solar supplementation. So our power rates are much cheaper and the rates are stable unlike N.S. Power. We haven't a had power failure in years. If Portugal is reaching 90% renewable, that's awesome. Have the resevoirs refilled? I can't wait for warmer temps to get the garden up and running. I have enough scrap treated to make one 4x3x3 raised planter. And I am going to build a topless table for my tomatoes to support them and it also makes it easier to drop a tarp over it if frost should happen. I still have to find some cheap old windows. I am sure having lots of brain thinkens today, eh.🙂👍👍👍🇨🇦
Especially with the high inflation and uncertainty in the future, why spend more money than necessary? If we lived somewhere like Sint Maarten which is almost always sunny and has ridiculously high electricity costs and the electricity is generated by diesel fuel we would 100% go off grid solar. Here it just doesn't make sense.
I'm glad you have a responsible local provider where you are too. It's so nice to have relatively affordable and renewable energy available.
We used to drive by the scrap yards on a Sunday when they are closed and pick stuff up as people drop them off... maybe you can find some free windows that way? Good luck with your garden, it's so rewarding eating food from your own garden. ❤
The reservoirs are at about 90% in our area so all this rain is good for something. We don't have eavestroughs yet and still have to set up rainwater collection so that's something we can work on getting in place before next winter.
Take care and happy gardening!!! 😊
It looks like you guys are also sick of winter and are itching for spring just like us. 👍🏻
Yes we’re beyond sick of winter. Unfortunately we have had frost Thursday night and again last night so not liking all this cold weather. At least we have the cold frame and the temperature was 10° in there through the frost so our seedlings are protected. Now we just need to build a sun room so we can pretend it’s nice out and relax on the patio. 😆 My arthritis is acting up and I feel old in this weather. 😳
@@notyouraveragegringos I hear you. I feel old and its nothing to do with the weather. 🤣
@@FarmsVilla it must be the knee-monia! 🤣
@@notyouraveragegringos that’s just one of the many reasons. 🙄
Thanks for the shoutout! 👍🏻😁 The only reason we went off grid was to protect ourselves from high energy prices. Lol. Mistake. Our daily average current draw during winter is between 15 & 20kwh per day. 😳 during summer it runs around 40kwh. 🫣 If it is sunny there are no issues but Nov, Dec & Jan there was virtually no sun. it’s crazy that your electricity prices are so cheap. It’s going to 84cents per kWh in April here. Glad to see I’m not the only one that comes home from the dump with more stuff than I took. 🤣
We found it interesting to hear your perspective on going off grid and thought it would be useful information for those considering it!
The electricity is cheap here compared to Canada and our bills are probably lower than most because we don't use much. Our potencia lower so the cost is lower (it went up Fromm 22 cents to 25 cents in January). We don't have air conditioning, if I didn't use it in the Caribbean we certainly don't need it here!
Yes I'm notorious for rescuing stuff from the trash. If I had a bigger vehicle in Canada I think I would have driven Grant bananas. I was restricted to what fit in a Mazda 3. You'd be surprised what you can fit in one! 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for the mention! I agree with everything you said about solar, especially the part about Portugal using mostly renewable energy. One thing to consider is that being on the grid isn't always possible. I don't have any existing setup near me and running new power lines would have cost thousands. So, while I want my own autonomy and that's my main reason for being off grid, the lack of availability for my place was a definite deciding factor. 🙂
Agreed! If you have to spend money getting power to your property you might as well invest in an off-grid system you eliminate monthly bills.
We were able to reconnect our house to the grid and it was an easier and cheaper option for us. I like to mention other channels who do things differently than us because I’m sure many of our viewers are interested in going off-grid. They can certainly gain insight and inspiration from you! ❤️
Good work
Thank you 😊
This is awesome. How does someone get some of your appearal?
You should be able to see some of our shop items below our videos and if you go to our channel on TH-cam there's a shop tab towards the right of the screen. Hope that helps!
Thank you.
@Jason George Photography No, thank you for asking! I'm not an expert here, still trying to figure out why there's 3 of every item coming up on my shop in TH-cam 😂
Kitty
Betty almost knocked our camera over! Little monkey!
the solar system you watched from the portuguese channel is also way underpowered for high loads, it could be perfect for less usage but more solar panels + battery storage is needed if you want to run larger stuff more frequently (like laundry machine, dishwasher etc.) so if you watched something like MAKE DO GROW (formerly Eco & Beyond) they have a more reasonable sized system and also plan to put more solar panels if I recall right.
That's a good point for those who want to go solar. We follow Make Do Grow and they have a great system. Project Kamp also has an excellent solar system able to support the needs of a small group of people. One thing I have noticed is that almost everyone with a solar system has a gas/diesel generator for backup.
Our electricity bills are under 40€/month so from a cost perspective, we feel it's not worth it for us. We have looked at solar systems in the past for other locations, and they would cost 20,000 to 50,000.
@@notyouraveragegringos it can be done for way less than 20k, I am looking for a smaller one that I can later upgrade, it will cost me about 1000 euros so not too shabby... it will be with a smaller inverter (375W) so it can't power a whole lot at the same time or huge items but it can do the minimal 220V needs I have to begin with and all the 12V needs... I can then later upgrade it with more panels and an extra battery (which is the most expensive part) but it can also give me power in more remote places (the places I am looking into getting eventually, most likely wont have powerlines nearby and I would prefer to be independant on power)
@Jesper Andersen It makes sense to go off grid if there isn't any power connection available. We were looking at property in Belize, and the cost of putting poles in and running power to the property would have been close to what you would pay for a system to be off grid. Just make sure you start with a system that will be able to handle your needs when it's not charging at max capacity because there is less sunlight.
We didn't want the hassle of "budgeting" our energy usage. So if we were to go off grid it would have to be with a system that could handle running power tools all day while doing a load of laundry and still have enough power to charge laptops, phones and all the other mundane things you take for granted.
I would also want a dual system, so solar + hydro, or solar + wind energy, because I don't want to rely on one system. For example, in winter you have less sun and more rain, so if your property has a river you can do solar + hydo energy and when one input is scarce the other should be plentiful. Hope that makes sense?
@@notyouraveragegringos yeah that is also why I am designing my own system and not just buying a solar bank... that also has the benefit that if one part dies, then the rest is still useable... if one of those solar bank dies, they are pretty much junk since they are not using common parts. I also use very little power... atm most of my power is because of the computer, which I will use a LOT less when I have stuff to do on my own land vs. sitting in a tiny apartment with no outside area ;-) so I can make do on very little power.
@Jesper Andersen Designing your own system sounds complicated, rewarding, and beyond my capabilities.
To get a property with land in the area we wanted meant buying a house that needs a LOT of work as I'm sure you can tell from our videos. 😆 If you don't need to run a cement mixer or saws for hours on end, it's feasible to make do with less power production.
Sounds like you are quite knowledgeable in solar power systems. 🤩 For someone like me I would have to rely on a system designed and installed by someone else, which is going to be more expensive up front and for maintenance. 🤷♀️
portugal all the way... :-)
Portugal is amazing and doing a fantastic job switching to renewable energy! ❤
You spelt Italy wrong! 🤣🤣👍🏻
@Farm Villa 🤣🤣 It took me a minute to get this 🤣 I need coffee 😆
@@notyouraveragegringos 🤣🤣🤣 Morning
@@FarmsVilla Good morning! I have my coffee now 🎉 ☕️ 🤪