Our new town

A month and a half ago we moved to Nambroca, a little town about 8 miles (12 kilometers) from Toledo capital. We moved because we found a real house to rent and because I love small villages. So far, Nambroca has been amazing! It has almost everything I could want. We live in a neighborhood full of houses, which is bad, but half of them are empty, so that helps. Right in front of our house is an olive grove, which still hasn't been constructed on. And surrounding us, in every direction, are fields full of olive trees or just rabbits. And the dog, Tila, loves rabbits! The actual village has a small supermarket, which we haven't used yet, two bread shops, a vet and a shop to buy newspapers and magazines. Plus some banks and a primary school and some other stuff.

I'll be posting some pictures of Nambroca, so everyone can get to know our new village. Almost all of them, if not all, will have been taken on our walks with the dog. Tila goes out in the morning and the afternoon and on Sundays we hunt the sheep. Here's one for today. A tractor. The city hall also has a couple of tractors (which I find very funny), but this is a private tractor.

A little lifestyle inflation

Generally speaking, lifestyle inflation is a bad thing. It happens when you begin to spend more money because you begin to earn more money. Instead of living on what you need, you begin accumulating stuff, trying to improve your "lifestyle".

Ever since moving to Europe in 2004 my lifestyle and financial attitude has been forced to change. Even though I welcomed the change, I regarded it passively until about a year ago. (By passively I mean that I actively didn't buy lots of stuff, but it wasn't because of a decision to be more financially aware and proactive, but because I just didn't have the space and couldn't move it.) What happened a year ago to spur on a great mental change was my marriage to my amazing husband. Jose is much more detail oriented and fascinated by being financially secure. Just by living with him for two years I have been influenced by his methodology and consistency (although it's true, it does drive me insane from time to time). So, little by little, I've been trying to catch up with him. We joined our assets, we created an emergency fund and a retirement fund, and we actively organize and reorganize our money to fit our needs perfectly. I've been reading some of his books and we're about to start investing (slowly).

But, as great as all this is, we feel like we need a little more out of life. A little lifestyle inflation. For 2 years we've been living very frugally, although we do travel a good deal. This summer we decided to make some changes to open up our lives a little. No, we're not planning to go out to dinner more. We're moving! Next week we'll trade our fantastic one bedroom apartment in Toledo capital for a fantastic three bedroom house in a village about 8 miles away from Toledo. This house has a yard, for our hammock and our yet-to-be-acquired dog. We've decided to stop waiting to "start" our life until we buy a house, because who knows when that will happen. But we'll be enjoying renting a whole lot more!

Sure, we'll be saving a little less now because taking the house means we had to buy another car, but the added expense isn't that terrible because the house rent is almost 100 euros less than our apartment rent now (crazy, huh). This week we start the move, I can't wait to see how it goes!