From warmer weather to a less wasteful lifestyle, moving to Spain provides plenty of ways to boost the contents of your bank account, while simultaneously doing your bit to preserve the planet. But there’s no reason to wait until you’re there – in fact, the sooner you develop some good habits, the easier it will be to afford your home in Spain. Following on from last issue’s feature on money saving, we’ve looked for more ways to help you set aside your deposit, with each tip providing an ethical benefi t so that you can look forward to a guiltfree property purchase in Spain.
Enjoy the warmth
Your fuel bill in Spain will be much cheaper due to the warmer climate in most areas. You can save on fuel bills in the UK as well, however. Karl Brookes at Energywatch says: “Ask yourself whether your heating is on too high. The most important thing is to keep warm in winter, but turning your thermostat down by 1°C could cut your heating bills by up to 10 per cent.”
Karl also advises considering changing to another energy supplier to lower your bills. “Since 2003 electricity prices have risen by around 50 per cent and gas prices by a huge 90 per cent,” he says. “That means the average household electricity bill has risen by £141 to £383 and the average household gas bill by £300 to £630!
“Someone who has never switched their energy supplier could save up to £270 by moving to a new company. But in some cases, you don’t even have to change company to save money. If you are paying by cheque every quarter you could save on average £150 a year by switching to direct debit, and possibly more if you choose an online account.” Richard Browning, from website This is Money, agrees: “As the global demand for power threatens to outstrip supply, prices are rising. But that doesn’t mean you need to be ripped off.
“The domestic market for fuel is a competitive one and you can change supplier with a few clicks of the mouse. Your new supplier will take care of the formalities – you just pay less every month.” Once you own a home in Spain, you may well decide to spend winters in the Mediterranean country’s more forgiving climate. If so, leave your UK thermostat on a very low setting to limit your bills, yet avoid the costs of a plumber to deal with burst pipes due to freezing.
Adequate insulation is another way to limit escalating heating bills, and Karl recommends preventing heat escaping by fi lling gaps under skirting boards with newspaper, beading or mastic sealant.
“Double-glazing cuts heat loss through windows by 50 per cent and could cut your heating bill by up to £100 a year. Just closing your curtains at dusk will stop heat escaping through windows,” he says.
“You can eliminate even more draughts and wasted heat by using an easy-to-fi x brush or PVC seal on your exterior doors. An insulating jacket for hot water tanks only costs a few pounds and pays for itself within months.
“Fit one that’s at least 75 millimetres thick and you could save around £20 a year. If every UK household fitted a jacket on their tank tomorrow, we’d save over £150 million of energy every year!”
Embrace modern technology
It sounds obvious, but most of us tend to overestimate the amount of water we need to make a cup of tea, so use your mug to measure how much to add to the kettle before switching it on.
“You’ll get your drink quicker and save energy,” says Karl. “However, for washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwashers always aim for a full load if you can’t use a half-load or economy programme. Use the low temperature setting, bearing in mind modern washing powders will be as effective at lower temperatures. Wringing out or spin-drying really wet
clothes before putting them into a tumble dryer will save you money, and they dry faster.”
While some modern appliances such as Sky+ TV boxes are fitted with power-saving devices, you can save masses of money by ensuring you fully switch off TVs, computers, and other electric devices rather than leaving them on standby.
“The average household wastes £37 each year by leaving appliances on standby such as televisions, videos, stereos, computers, and cordless phones. To cut down on wasted energy, avoid leaving appliances on standby,” says Karl. “Also turn off the lights when you leave a room and adjust your curtains or blinds to let in as much light as possible during the day.” In Spain, an abundance of sunlight and a climate that allows you to spend more time outdoors will cut down on your need for electric lighting, but even in the UK you can save on your lighting bills by investing in energy saving lightbulbs.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, depending on how long your lights are in use every day, just one energy saving lightbulb could save you up to £7 and 26 kilograms of CO2 a year. Fit all the lights in your house with energy saving bulbs and you could save around £600 over the lifetime of the bulbs. Before you ask, these savings take into account the higher
cost of energy saving lightbulbs. They use a fifth to a quarter of the electricity of ordinary bulbs to generate the same amount of light. So where you’d normally use a 60W bulb, you’ll only need a 13-18W energy saving recommended equivalent.”
Karl Brookes agrees: “If every UK household installed just one bulb we’d save over £80 million per year and enough energy to supply all the street lighting in the UK.
Develop green fingers
Learning to grow your own fruit and vegetables will save you masses of money at the supermarket, especially if you prefer fresh organic produce. Even if you don’t have your own allotment, you can grow fresh herbs in window boxes to add flavour to your meals. This will also be good practice for when you are tending your own plot in Spain.
When Dick Handscombe, co-author of Your Garden In Spain, bought his property in the Valencian Valley, he needed to be self-sufficient.
“Eight herds of sheep and goats grazed the mountainsides and kept paths open, local cheeses and wines were made, villagers processed their own olive oil, and the fruit and vegetables in the local shops were largely produced by the villagers,” he says There are major shopping centres and hypermarkets in nearby towns, but Dick and his wife, Clodagh, rarely use them.
“For seven years we’ve been self-suffi cient, growing our own organic vegetables – 50 varieties a year - harvested 365 days a year. Following a trek across Cuba to study their organic food revolution, we started to keep chickens and rabbits to process garden and kitchen waste for composting, and for the organic eggs and meat. With the rice grown in
an old bath, we’re able to prepare totally homegrown paellas! We were lucky that grandparents and parents introduced us to gardening as an enjoyable activity when we were very young.” They also find their horticultural activities have helped them to make friends in the valley.
“Our growing of vegetables gives us high visibility in the village so the locals often stop to chat,” says Dick. “We grow a l30-metre long line of sweet peas each year. Passers-by and shopkeepers look forward to their bunches and some now have some of our seeds to grow their own.”
If you’re moving to a property with some land, ask your Spanish neighbours what will grow well there. Particularly in rural areas, the locals will have generations-worth of information to share, along with cuttings and plants to get you started. In the process as well as saving money you may find yourself making new friends.
When Sarah Russell, her sister Jane, and their partners, bought Las Nuevas, setting up the garden provided a chance for them to get to know the locals.
Jane’s a keen gardener and started to create a terraced vegetable plot, as soon as they arrived in Spring 2004, on the south side of the house. Although they had some successes, the soil was poor. Their neighbour, Miguel, suggested they moved it. Miguel’s two mules came to stay for a week and ate all the weeds and vegetation on the western side of the house before it was ploughed. Jane then planted tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, beans, courgettes, cucumbers, and pumpkin, as well as herbs and several varieties of melons.
“Our neighbours have been a great help showing us what to do and have generously provided us with many plants and seeds,” says Jane.
Wholesome eating
Get in the habit of shopping at your local food market. In Spain it is more common for locals do their entire weekly foodshop at the local market than to go to a supermarket. Because local farmers grow the majority of the wares, this reduces food miles and benefi ts the local economy, as well as saving money for the buyers.
“One way to eat healthily for less is to use your local market stall,” says Richard Browning, of This is Money. “Lower overheads should mean lower prices. At the time of writing, cherries were on sale in our local supermarket for £2.99 for 400g, the equivalent at the local market was just over £1. You could end up saving £100 per annum.”
Part of the saving will be due to the fact you’ll be buying produce that’s in season. If you want to make a pavlova in the middle of winter when raspberries are out of season, why not create a mandarin or apple pavlova, or used tinned fruit? “Alternatively, bulk-buy raspberries in the summer and freeze them by laying them out on a baking tray until they’re hard, and then pack them in sandwich bags for use whenever you need them.”
Up until recently, it was almost impossible to buy a ready meal in Spain, which meant the locals missed out on all the excess fat, salt and sugar hidden away in those handy rectangles of food. Get in the habit of eating the Spanish way and cook your meals using the fresh, healthy ingredients, bought at your local market. If long working hours and a general lack of time makes this seem like an insurmountable task, just cook up a healthy meal every other night, producing double the amount of food you need and freezing the rest in meal-size containers, ready for a night when you have less energy. Not only is this healthier, but it is far cheaper.
You can also save money by going vegetarian from time to time, as meat is usually the most expensive part of a meal. While vegetarians are a rare breed in Spain, the Spanish don’t tend to eat masses of meat, often using it to add fl avour rather than form the main part of the meal.
Re-use, renovate, recycle
One way that the Brits save more money than the Spanish is through our DIY culture, although we could save a lot more by learning a few simple skills. “For around £100 you can take a course at your local adult education college to improve the skills needed to tackle most household repairs,” says Richard Browning, from This is Money.
“If the college runs plumbing courses you could soon be on track to wiping out costly call-out charges and extra insurance policies once and for all.”
While it is inevitable that you’ll need help with some household emergencies, you can cut these outgoings by learning the basics. Whether you rent or own your home, find out where your stopcock is, so that you can at least turn off the water and wait until a weekday morning to ring a plumber.”
According to a recent survey by Yahoo! Answers, Brits could save up to £26 billion a year by not hiring help for simple household tasks. The survey results showed that more than half hired in help for simple chores like ironing a shirt, unblocking a sink or changing a car tyre because they didn’t know how to do these sorts of tasks for themselves.
The skills you learn could also lead to you being able to save money on a Spanish property, as it will give you the option of picking a property with great potential, that’s in need of extensive renovation. Sarah Russell, and her family, decided to set up a self-catering business and found a property called Las Neuvas in Álora, a small town in northwest Málaga.
It cost them £150,000.
“This bought us the main house with a footprint of about 595 square metres and several outbuildings sitting on 77,000 square metres of land,” says Sarah. “There was no water, hardly any roof, electrics in only one part of the house, and no plumbing at all. The previous owners only visited the house when they came to farm the land, so the only real habitants
were the bats, swallows, geckos, mice, spiders and the occasional snake. My brother-in-law Mark’s knowledge of building and project planning was invaluable and my partner, Mike, had learnt a lot from his dad who was an electrician,” Sarah says.
“My sister Jane and I became expert labourers. We knocked down and rebuilt walls, ripped out, painted and replaced roof beams, and painted all roofing, fl oorboards, windows and doors.
“Now we are continuing to develop the landscaping, and are learning more skills. It’s been hard work getting here, but very rewarding.”