A few months ago we purchased a piece of land in Botrivier (Bot River). A small up-and-coming little town in the Western Cape’s Overberg region, it was close enough to the city yet still affordable for us to consider putting down roots.

The only problem is, we’d never bought a vacant plot before and had no idea what potential pitfalls to look out for. Which is why we only found out after the fact that it had, among other things, a dubious sounding water clause dating back to 1922.

Given that we’d just blown close on half of our savings on this piece of land, we were a little disconcerted by the news. How did this happen? Well, in simple terms it’s called Rose Tinted Glasses syndrome.

We saw the property and immediately fell in love. Next thing we knew, we’d imagined a whole life for ourselves on it, including a tiny house with sample-sized deck, raised vegetable beds, a shed for DIY projects, and a carport for the lovely Brennie.

Check out the video for the backstory.

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We Bought the Property Voetstoots

Voetstoots has its roots in Roman-Dutch law. It’s a Dutch phrase that basically means it’s your responsibility to kick the tyres and check under the hood. We knew this but we had no idea how to actually do it. I mean it’s a vacant piece of land, not a car.

Also, I think the estate agent saw us coming. He arrived at the first viewing with the OTP (offer to purchase) printed and ready to sign. To our credit, we didn’t sign there and then. We took it home with us and Sporty read through it thoroughly.

But then we put our rose tinted specs back on and went ahead and signed that OTP without doing any background checks at all. We have since enlisted the help of someone who works for the municipality and it looks like at least some of those questionable clauses are no longer cause for concern.

Breathes a massive sigh of relief.

What a Little Due Diligence Would Have Caught

Had we requested the title deed up front — something we did not know you could even do — we’d have learned about the clauses upfront. And more importantly, we’d have known which of them still were still active and which ones were null and void.

There’s actually a glut of information available online walking you through the ins and outs of buying land. Specifically, what to do before signing on the dotted line. We just didn’t think to look for it beforehand.

If you’re in South Africa like us, these links are worth checking out.

For those of you who live stateside, this link is pretty comprehensive.

What Should You Check Before You Sign?

As I said, there’s a fair amount of information out there on this, and none of it was on our radar until it was too late to be useful. So in the spirit of learning from us rather than with us, here’s the shortlist.

Read what the title deed actually says — not what the agent says it says. This is the one that got us. Request the deed before you sign, not after. It is apparently a completely normal thing to ask for. We just didn’t know that.

Go looking for the boring stuff nobody mentions. Old servitudes, shared pipes, water rights that predate your grandparents, mineral rights, outstanding rates. None of it shows up when you’re standing on the land building your dream life in your mind. All of it becomes entirely yours the moment you sign.

Get someone in your corner who isn’t also in the seller’s corner. The estate agent had the OTP printed before we’d finished admiring the view. That’s not dodgy, that’s just his job. But it doesn’t mean you have to sign it. Instead, now’s when you request a copy of the title deed and go digging. Or get someone to go digging for you.

Walk the actual boundaries. Not “drive past and admire from the car” boundaries — the actual pegs, if there are any. And confirm there’s a proper, legal right of way onto the property. We got lucky here. Not everyone does.

Check what the ground is actually doing. Drainage, slope, what happens when it rains properly. A plot that looks idyllic in the dry season can have entirely different opinions about itself in winter. We haven’t fully tested this one yet. Ask us again after our first proper Overberg downpour.

Find out what “off the grid-ish” actually costs. Power, water, connectivity — none of it is included just because you now have a piece of paper stating you own the property. How far is the nearest line? Is there a borehole option, and is it actually yours to use? Take it from us, a water clause conversation is not something you want to have.

What Now?

As for what’s next. Now we follow up with our person at the municipality to find out exactly where we stand. There’s no point getting ourselves in a knot about this. Whether the news is good or bad, there’s no changing it now.

With that in mind, we’re taking optimistic approach and assuming it’ll all work out just fine. Or, in the words of John Lennon:

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

Besides, we’re here and it’s gorgeous. ❤️

We thought this would be an easy update to write. Three decisions, some numbers, solid draft by lunchtime(ish). Then we sat down to talk through how we decided on the car, the land, and the build, and quickly realised there’s more to it than the numbers.

When you’re doing big stuff as a couple, there’ll always be more to it than just the numbers. How do you keep your eye on the prize when you disagree with your person, and there’s no safety net for getting things wrong?

For us, fortunately, there are never fireworks (we’re waaayyy past that stage). It’s really just a lot of sitting with things, mulling things over, and one or both of us eventually coming around to a new or different way of thinking.

So…this one’s a bit different. We’ll still include the figures, but there’ll also be a bit more about us, and how we actually get from “we don’t agree” to “okay, let’s do this.”

Buckle up. Or don’t, we’re not going anywhere fast anyway. Because Honda Brio.

Check out the video for the backstory.

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The Land: R250,000 → R375,000

We started at R250,000 and to be honest, that felt like a lot at the time.

Then we started looking at what a quarter million ZAR would actually buy us in Kleinmond, Bot River, and even Hawston. It wasn’t a case of one bad viewing putting us off. It was every single one. There’s no point going into detail, but suffice to say we drove away from more than one plot without even getting out the car.

So we had a CTJ conversation. Not an argument, just both of us getting to grips with the situation. Do we hold the line at R250,000 and take our chances somewhere neither of us feels good about? Or do we increase the budget?

Neither of us wanted to increase it, obviously. Watching a budget grow in real time isn’t anyone’s idea of a fun time. But we did the maths on what “cheap and wrong” would actually cost us later in terms of resale value, safety, and day-to-day peace of mind and it just didn’t make sense.

We ended up spending R375,000 — a whopping R125,000 more than we’d planned.

For anyone reading from outside South Africa: R125,000 on top of an already-tight budget is roughly the same as finding out your mortgage deposit needs to be $7,000 more than you’d saved for. It’s not catastrophic exactly, but it does make you want to sit quietly on the couch for a while.

But here’s the funny thing. Landing on the higher number was the first moment in this entire process that actually felt safe. Not exciting. Not a milestone. Just kinda right.

The Build: Container vs. Modular vs. Nutec

This one was less “disagreement” and more “waiting to see what the numbers actually did.” It also turned into a small lesson in how differently companies quote things — more on that below.

Container

The container came in at around R500,000 for 15 square metres, no deck — VAT rounded in, as best we can remember. Just to put that in perspective — that’s smaller than our current apartment, for more than double what we’ll end up paying.

From a purely budgetary perspective, that one didn’t need much discussion. It was our fave though, and still on the bucket list in case we win the lottery.

Modular

The modular route was super tempting. R90,000 for a small bachelor unit, or R310,000 for a proper 36 square metre place — both ex-VAT. Add 15% and you’re actually looking at closer to R103,500 or R356,500. They said either one could be assembled in a matter of days.

The catch: the parts take three months just to land in the country, before anyone even starts turning them into the structure that can be up in 48 hours. Three months of waiting, followed by more waiting. We weren’t keen.

Nutec

Nutec turned out to be the Goldilocks option. They came in at R220,000 for phase one — 16 square metres, a deck, a gas stove, and a gas geyser — VAT included. No asterisks, no complicated maths required on our end. That alone made us like them before we’d even met them.

Once you strip out the VAT games, the comparison gets even clearer: Container was still by far the most expensive for the least space. The real cost of a modular build edged closer to Nutec once VAT was added but it still came with a three-month wait we couldn’t justify. Whereas Nutec landed on budget with no fine print lurking.

Honestly, the decision made itself the moment the Nutec quote arrived. There wasn’t really a “who wanted what” here — just two people quietly waiting to see if the numbers would work, and breathing a little easier when they did.

The Car: R120,000 and a Slow Coming-Around

This was supposed to be the easy one. It wasn’t.

I wanted to spend more on something newer and a bit nicer. I spotted a Fiat Panda for R150,000 and pitched it hard. Sporty said no. She wasn’t being a tightwad. It’s just with everything already going toward the land and the build, there wasn’t room for a nicer car too.

I knew that, but knowing it and feeling okay about it turned out to be two different things. There wasn’t an argument about it — that’s not how we work — but there was a stretch of a few days where I continued to petition Sporty on the idea in the hope of winning her over (or wearing her down haha). She held her ground anyway.

In the end, we bought Brennie, our 2015 Honda Brio outright. R125,000 cash (including licence and delivery), so no repayments hanging over us. And Sporty was right of course — the numbers made far more sense this way. It just took me a little longer to actually feel that, rather than just know it in my head.

Sporty maintains this proves she’s always right. All it actually proves is that I need a few days to catch up. Both things are true. ‘Nuff said.

How We Actually Decide Things

Looking back at all three of these — the land, the build, the car — there’s not really a system. We teeter between making snappy decisions and talking things to death. There’s no happy medium with us. But what we almost always are is patient with each other.

Nobody wins an argument outright in this house. Someone goes quiet for a bit. Someone else holds their ground without making a big thing of it. And then, eventually, either the numbers settle it for us, or one of us just comes around.

We don’t think that’s a bad way to do it. Slow and quiet isn’t the same as stuck. It just means neither of us is deciding anything big on our own, even when it would probably be faster that way.

The Numbers, Side by Side

We might have gone a cool R125,000 over what we planned to spend on the land, but the car came in an impressive R25,000 under what I wanted. One decision stretched the budget, the other one saved it. It would have been great if we could have broken even, but sadly free vehicles are in short supply right now. That said, we did enter a competition to win a Suzuki Jimny, so maybe we’ll rescue our budget yet.

One More Thing

When we started all this, we genuinely thought we were dealing with three decisions. Car. Land. Build. Done. We were wrong. As in woefully wrong.

Fencing’s next. Then solar. Then working out where on earth the grey water is even supposed to go, which is a sentence we never thought we’d type. So really, this wasn’t three decisions — it was three decisions so far, with a fairly long queue building up behind them.

We’ll keep you posted, all while kind of disagreeing and slowly coming around, one decision at a time.

We’re curious how this plays out in other relationships. Does one of you usually hold the line while the other comes around, or does it swap depending on the decision? Let us know in the comments.

The Vegan Goods Market only happens once a month, so this past Sunday was earmarked for visiting Clarence — The Bread Baker Extraordinaire — and procuring a couple of his vegan croissants and other baked goodies.

We normally rush in and out of there telling ourselves that we don’t have time to stroll around and browse all the delicious plant-based offerings. This time we decided to actually spend time at the market instead of our usual race-in-race-out approach.

In the end we didn’t spend as much time as we’d planned. Turns out we’re just not browse-y kinda gals. What we did do however, was share some exciting news on the drive there. News we later expanded on once we got home from foraging for pastries.

Check out the video for the backstory.

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We’re Moving at the End of the Month

So…our big exciting news. We’ve found a cottage to rent in Bot River from the end of the month. Our lease was up anyway, so it seemed like the perfect next step.

It’s a lovely bachelor-style unit, with a separate kitchen and bathroom, and amazing view overlooking one of the many wine farms in the area. It’s also fully furnished, so the move itself will be a breeze.

The best part is that it’s a two-minute walk from our land. It’s literally around the corner. Talk about serendipity. We honestly feel like we’ve landed with our bums in the vegan butter.

How We Found It Is a Real Small Town Story

We tried looking for rentals the city way, but the handful that came up had already been taken. A month later the same ads were still languishing on Property24. Grrrr.

So then Ang decided we should mention on the Bot River WhatsApp group that we were looking for a cottage to rent for the three of us. Five minutes later Tammy DM’d us. We arranged a viewing for that same weekend and that was it. Done deal.

We agreed to a six-month lease almost immediately after meeting her. When the dots line up that perfectly you just go with the flow, even if it feels a tad fast for the likes of us “due diligence” city slickers. Although, truth be told, we’re loving it.

Mr Handsome vs. Three Cats

There are already three resident cats on the property. Tammy said at one point they had eight, so having Mr Handsome round out the feline gang to four would not be a problem at all.

Her kitties seem chilled enough and we all know how friendly Mister can be, so we definitely do not foresee any problems. We’ll obviously let our guy settle in first before introducing him, but given how nosey he is it probably won’t be long before he’s itching to go outside.

The Biggest Problem This Solves

The current round trip to our land is three hours, which is far from ideal when it comes to actively overseeing our build. With our cottage a mere hop, skip and jump away, we’ll be able to keep a beady eye on proceedings without having to spend a small fortune on petrol.

The cottage also allows us to live in the area for a few months and get a real feel for the town and its residents. Which feels like a much better approach than just managing the construction of our future home from somewhere else and then arriving cold.

Internet Access — Where It Actually Stands

We were perhaps a little more cavalier about internet connectivity than we should have been. The truth is, every other day the local WhatsApp group lights up with people complaining that fibre is down. Again.

That being said, our current service provider already operates in the area. We’ve been with them for almost two years without incident, so in theory we should be okay. But we need to be there in person to confirm if this holds up in practice.

We’re not leaving anything to chance though, as our ability to earn a living depends on us being connected. The plan is to buy an LTE router as a backup. Our landlady's gone this route and swears it works perfectly. Granted, she’s not in the business of moving large digital assets around like Sporty, so we’ll need to test it for ourselves.

What’s Left Before the Move

Now that we’ve rented a furnished cottage, a big declutter slash selling stuff sesh is definitely on the cards. Unfortunately Brennie (our new car) is so small that even though we’re taking almost nothing with us we still need to move in two loads.

We’ll be getting the garden service in just before we move so the new tenants don’t have to worry about cleaning beds or cutting lawn right after they move in. Speaking of cutting, the two of us will be going for bonny chops as well. (Looking for a new hairdresser under pressure isn’t worth the stress.)

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Forever ago we bought The Success Principles by Jack Canfield. You may know Jack from the movie The Secret. A self-esteem expert and co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, it makes sense that he’d craft a personal development manual for anyone looking to improve their life.

It was a doorstopper of a tome and neither of us finished it. A few key principles stuck with us, though. This post is about one of them. My hope is that you find it as useful as we have.

Note: USD numbers are based on the exchange rate at time of publishing.

Check out the video for the backstory.

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Why It’s Worth Outsourcing Menial Tasks

The principle I’m sharing today is the value of farming out menial tasks such as housecleaning, garden work, tax, and whatnot so that you’re free to work on the aspects of your life or business that matter most.

He explained it like this: if you ordinarily charge $200 per hour for your time, it doesn’t make sense to be spending your valuable hours doing something you could pay someone else $20 an hour to do for you. Smart thinking.

Enter: The Garden Bet

It was from this perspective that Sporty (rightly) wanted to pay a garden service R1,000 ($60) to come and cut the grass, clean the beds, trim the shrubs, and generally make the place oordentlik again. We have upstairs neighbours after all.

While I’m not adverse to calling in the experts to tame the lawn, on this occasion I felt the money could be better spent elsewhere. Like, say, a haircut or baked goods, for example. Sporty disagreed (politely), but said I was welcome to have a go if I felt I could do the job.

She was particularly concerned about the grass, which was overdue for a trim. Given that we don’t have a lawnmower or weed eater she had a point. But I wasn’t about to let that small detail stand between me and the 47 vegan croissants I was dreaming about. Besides, I do love me a good challenge.

Game on.

As you’ll see in the video I did a magnificent job. It took some effort, but I loved every minute of being out there doing something physical as opposed to staring at my laptop screen. I could have done without the wind, but hey…

So, Did I Save Us the Money?

The results were impressive, but before I take a bow I need to be up front about the numbers. We’ll start with my time. My last freelance job paid me R360 ($21) per hour, so two hours in the garden amounts to R720 ($42).

I also bought a pair of grass clippers for R400 ($24). They’re useful for more than just cutting the lawn, plus we’ll use them once we’re on the land, so definitely not a sunk cost there.

Add the two numbers together and you’ll notice that our YouTube math is…erm…slightly off. In the video we claimed that I was a mere R80 ($5) over, I was actually R120 ($7) over. A forgivable error for sure, but this is Substack so worth ‘fessing up.

Either way, I did not save us money. In fact, I ended up costing us.

But here’s the thing…

Those hours spent in the garden were some of the happiest of the entire week. Something about being outside, digging around in the soil, connecting with nature and most importantly, being away from my laptop, allowed me to completely decompress.

As someone who struggles with depression and anxiety, you can’t put a price on that. Even though I just did. 😂

Tasks We Absolutely Outsource

Sporty, as you’ll have guessed by now, is more than happy to get someone else to do the things that eat into her precious time. I can be a bit of scrooge, so it’s taken me a little longer to come around to this way of thinking. But come around I have.

Cleaning the House

Back in the day I was Ms OCD, scrubbing floor tiles with a toothbrush, polishing the shower to a high gleam, on my hands and knees dusting behind, in, over, and under furniture. You get the sad “I don’t have a life” picture.

Over the years I’ve relaxed quite a bit. No more using dental equipment as housework arsenal, no more colour-coding my socks and underwear. Heck, these days I even leave the cutlery to air dry (gasp). It’s true, I’m so super chill nowadays I don’t even recognise myself.

Happily, this means I’m fine to pay someone else to clean our house for us. Christina is fast and does a fantastic job. We’re always amazed by how shiny bright our little apartment is after four hours under her expert care. Sadly, we’ll have to bid her farewell when we decamp to Bot River. (Please excuse me while I go and sob into my yerba matte.)

Getting Our Taxes Done

Sporty can totally do this, but it would take her a lot longer that it takes our uber tax guru. Plus, it leaves her feeling harried, ‘cos tax. It’s a no brainer that we farm this task out to the person who does it for a living. And apparently enjoys it as well.

We employ her services twice a year and she almost always gets us a refund from SARS (South African IRS). She charges us R3,700 ($221) for the year and honestly, we’d happily pay double for the pleasure of not having Sporty squander precious hours that would be better spent drinking coffee or strategising on our soon-to-be main hustle.

The Real Question We Ask Now

The garden bet was a fun challenge that yielded a happy ROI. When we broke it down we came to the conclusion that “DIY to save money” vs “pay to save time” isn’t set in stone. It’s not one or the other. It can’t be and nor should it.

The actual question we ask when faced with a task that doesn’t help our hustle:

What does this give me back — time, sanity, or nothing?

Approached like that, it’s an easy decision. Pay for the tasks that give nothing back and keep the ones that do. The garden work gave me my happiness levels a welcome boost. Whereas paying to have the house cleaned and our tax documents submitted gave us time (and peace of mind) to focus on doing work that matters.

What about you? Is there something in your life that could be outsourced to buy you back some much needed (and no doubt very welcome) time? Or are you already way ahead of us and outsourcing like a pro?

In case you’re wondering, the other favourite principle from Jack’s book is something called cleaning up your messes and incompletes. Check out the video we made about it to learn more.

The family’s massive dental quote caught us totally off guard. Dentistry’s never a cheap exercise, but that final figure still read like a cold shower. The thought that arrived right next? We’ll call that a Wim Hof special.

If our teeth need this much maintenance, what else haven’t we budgeted for?

We’ve built an entire plan around a piece of land, a small house, a garden we haven’t planted yet. What we hadn’t built a plan around — not really, not with numbers attached — was the two of us.

The actual bodies that are going to dig the beds, carry the water, do every bit of the heavy lifting we’ve decided we want to do ourselves, for years. That gap sat there for a while before either of us said it out loud.

Note: USD numbers are based on the exchange rate at time of publishing.

Check out the video for the backstory.

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The Three Shudder-Inducing Bills

We’ve had three dental situations happen in quick succession. Ang’s, Sporty’s, and Mr Handsome’s.

Ang’s was a hygienist visit, a checkup, and x-rays — R2,384, with R1,600 back from medical aid thanks to the cheaper plan we switched to last year.

Net cost: R784 ($48)

Sporty’s was the same, plus a chipped tooth — R3,800, same R1,600 refund.

Net cost: R2,200 ($134)

Mr Handsome’s was a bit of a surprise. Apparently teeth and gum issues are common in cats — something we didn’t know until the vet told us. He had several teeth removed, including his left front canine, poor guy.

The vet’s confident his mouth is in good shape now, but we’re keeping an eye on it with regular checkups. So yes, even the cat has an ongoing health line item now. Guess it’s time to look into pet medical aid.

Bill: R6,000 ($364).

Then there’s the number that actually started this whole piece: the dentist proposed a full treatment plan for Ang — fillings where her gums have receded, a crown replacement, and implants for two molars she’s been missing for decades.

Total: R65,447 ($3,967)

Unless an aunt we don’t know about dies and leaves us millions, she’s probably not doing the implants. Those two teeth have been missing for decades without causing her any problems, and the cost difference is enormous. The rest of the plan, she’ll do.

The Conversation That Actually Mattered

The real issue isn’t here just our teeth. It’s more complicated than that and would require more airtime than the video had room for. Here’s the gist of it.

If we’re this stretched by a few dental bills, are we actually in a position to do this? Not the land, not the build — the us part. The part where two women in their late fifties and early sixties commit, on purpose, to doing all their own physical labour indefinitely, on a budget that already has very little give in it.

Neither of us wanted to state the obvious, but it needed stating: we’d priced the land, the build, the garden, the compost toilet, solar, everything — we even have a homestead spreadsheet for goodness sake — but never once had we priced us.

It’s as if we were the one fixed, reliable input in an otherwise uncertain plan. As if bodies in their sixties don’t need budget lines the way roofs and foundations do.

So we made one.

Why Blood Work, Why This Practitioner, Why Now

We didn’t just decide to “get checked” in some vague way. We weren’t looking for someone to hand us a clean bill of health and send us home the moment nothing was technically wrong. Been there, done that.

That’s the thing about standard checkups — “fine” is the bar. Cholesterol fine, blood pressure fine, off you go. We didn’t want fine. We wanted to know where our hormones actually sat, whether our B12 and vitamin D were genuinely optimal, and if our iron was where it should be for two people about to embark on years of physical labour.

An ex-colleague of Sporty’s referred us to our functional medicine practitioner and we’re still sending her thank you messages. Initially, we were both so disillusioned with the “everything’s within range, see you next year” version of healthcare we’d been receiving that we didn’t want to get our hopes up.

What convinced us wasn’t a sales pitch — it was the fact that the consultation lasted close to an hour, which is a good 40 minutes longer than the 15-minute conveyor belt appointments we’d both been subjected to over the last year.

During that time he listened closely, made interesting observations, and suggested a course of action for each of us that was thoughtful and considered. With someone like this in our health corner, what we’re actually trying to do with our bodies for the next twenty-plus years started to feel a lot more doable again.

The blood work and doctor’s visits don’t come cheap (more on that further down), particularly on one income, but it’s the one place in our budget we’re not willing to get creative with. We’ll quit coffee before we skip a blood work panel.

The Thing That Never Occurred to Us Before

Here’s what surprised us most out of all of this: it had genuinely never crossed our minds to get a second opinion on dental work. Not once, in however many decades of going to dentists. You get the quote, your bank account protests, and you either do it or you don’t — but shop around? That felt like a strange thing to even consider.

We’re going back to our old dentist for a second opinion on the R65,447 ($3,967) plan, purely to make sure we’re not paying more than we need to. It’s such an obvious thing to do, in hindsight, and we have no idea why it took a five-figure number to make us think of it. If nothing else, that’s the actual lesson in here worth sharing — question dentistry the way you’d question every other big spend.

On “Diminishing Capabilities”

Someone left a comment on an earlier video:

I’ve become very aware in the last year that my own diminishing physical capabilities as I age are altering my dreams for the future.

Some might call us overly optimistic. Maybe. But we’re not seeing that kind of decline in ourselves — not yet, and not on the horizon either. We may have health issues we’re dealing with, but they’re far from insurmountable. In our minds, our future plans are a way to make us stronger and healthier in the years to come.

We’ll be out of the city and away from the pollution it dishes up on a daily basis. We’ll be growing our own pesticide-free food. We’ll be a part of a small and supportive community where we’re able to make a difference.

That’s how we’re approaching our later years, but it’s different for everyone. What we know for sure is this: we’d rather spend money finding out exactly where we stand than spend none and find out the hard way, later, when there’s less we can do about it. The blood work isn’t a guarantee. It’s the closest thing to one we can actually buy.

What We’re Not Doing

For balance — this isn’t a spending-without-limits story. Ang isn’t having the implants, at least not now. We’re also getting a second opinion before committing to the rest of the plan.

There won’t be any additional supplements or extra practitioners beyond the one. The budget line is specific and bounded, not a blank cheque we’ve given ourselves because the topic feels important.

Where the Numbers Land

In case you’re the type who likes to see the numbers listed neatly in one place (Sporty already loves you; Ang is stifling a yawn), here you go.

• Ang’s dental visit: R2,384 ($145)

  • R1,600 ($97) back from medical aid — net R784 ($48)

• Sporty’s dental visit: R3,800 ($230)

  • Same refund — net R2,200 ($134)

• Mr Handsome’s teeth: R6,000 ($364)

• Ang’s proposed treatment plan (the big one): R65,447 ($3,991) — still getting a second opinion, probably skipping the implants

• Blood work, both of us, every 3-6 months: R7,000 ($425)

• Functional medicine, both of us, every 3 months: R1,400 ($85)

That R65,447 ($3,991) isn’t what we expect to actually spend — it’s the ceiling we’re now negotiating down from, starting with the second opinion and, most likely, skipping the implants entirely.

We hadn’t put a number on any of this until this week. Now we have, and strangely, having the number is a relief rather than a burden — it’s an item in our budget now, not a vague uncomfortable feeling sitting at the back of our minds.

Onwards to health.

We’ve had four house options on the table since we started this build. This week we’re down to one — because we’re happy to say we’ve made a decision.

But it didn’t go the way we expected. We didn’t pick the biggest house. We didn’t pick the cheapest one either. We picked the one that told us the truth.

Here’s how we got to our Goldilocks house.

Note: USD numbers are based on the exchange rate at time of publishing.

Check out the video for the backstory.

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Option 1: The One We Really Loved

If money were no object, we’d already be living in our container home. The company we spoke to does phenomenal work — the finish and attention to detail was something else.

The not-so-small problem? Even their smallest option blew our budget. And that was before adding a deck or a slanted roof — the things that would’ve given us shade and better rainwater catchment.

Aptly named The Tiny, even we couldn’t make the single 12m² container work as a permanent home. We’re well versed in the art of living small, but even for us this is too cramped.

This posed an even bigger and more concerning longer term problem. While we could have scraped it together to afford the single container, it meant committing our future income. To make it liveable we’d have to add a second container as well as the deck and slanted roof.

If we win the lottery, we’re revisiting this option for sure.

Option 2: The one that looked perfect on paper

The fold-up house was the opposite problem. At 36m² (about 400 sq ft), it was nearly three times the size of the container option, came with a deck, looked sturdy, and — on paper — gave us far more for our money.

The number we got from the same sales rep was verbal, not a written quote, and landed somewhere in the mid-R300,000s once VAT was factored in. Not a bad price, all things considered. And yet — we vetoed it. Not over money. Over feeling.

Walking through the show house, it felt oddly cramped in a way neither of us could quite explain. Sporty summed it up perfectly when she said, “You’d have had to become a smaller version of yourself to live in it comfortably.”

We’re about to put all our savings into this build. We have to actually want to be in the space, not just be able to afford it. So that one went too.

Option 3: The “Fast” Option that Wasn’t

This is where it gets interesting.

Modular seemed like the obvious answer after that: join two of their bachelor units together, add a roof and deck, and Bob’s your aunt. We’d seen videos of the company building these units super fast and assumed that speed was baked into the option.

It isn’t.

What we weren’t told upfront is that the two-day build only happens after the materials arrive in the country and get manufactured — and that first part alone can take two to three months. The speed we were banking on turned out to be the smallest part of the timeline.

To be fair to them — nobody was dishonest here. It was simply something that should have come up earlier but didn’t. It was only when we showed real interest that this came up.

Doing the maths on the real timeline, we quickly realised that “fast” wasn’t an option. And if we’re totally honest, that was the main reason for considering them. Another option vetoed.

Option 4: The One That Told Us the Real Number

Which brings us to Nutec — the build we’re actually going with.

From our very first email exchange, this company stood out for one specific reason: they were the only builder out of everyone we spoke to who quoted us including VAT from the start.

That sounds like a small thing. It isn’t. VAT is 15% in South Africa, and it’s legally supposed to be included in any quote — but plenty of builders leave it off, and you only find out about the extra 15% once you’re already emotionally invested. Super annoying.

Their pricing is tiered by square metre:

• R7,000 ($430) per m² at the lower end

• Up to R9,500 ($580) per m² depending on specification

For a 25m² (269 sq ft) house, that puts us at R175,000–R238,000 ($10,710-$14,563) — and critically, that figure includes both the foundation and VAT. No asterisks, no “plus 15% later.”

That pricing structure leaves real room in the budget for the parts of this build that matter just as much as the walls. We’re talking rainwater catchment, a wood-burning stove, a gas stove and geyser, the compost toilet, fencing.

And maybe, if we’re lucky, a bottle of wine or two to celebrate actually having a home.

What We Haven’t Done Yet

We want to be upfront: we haven’t had an in-person site visit or meeting with the Nutec guys yet. It’s their busy season. What we have had is a long, detailed call with their salesperson that left us feeling genuinely confident.

It wasn’t just about the VAT-inclusive and clearly laid out pricing structure they sent over, but in how they communicate. We’ll meet them in person before anything is finalised, but it goes to show how important good communication is.

One known unknown: we’ll need to rent a storage container on-site for the duration of the build, to protect their materials from weather and theft. We don’t have a price on that yet — we’ll update you once we do.

The One Small Disagreement

The last decision left was foundation type: stilts or a concrete slab.

Stilts would have meant not having to level the ground first — a real cost saving. But Sporty vetoed it outright. The Western Cape is wet, these structures are built on wood frames, and the idea of a slowly sagging house was a hard no.

Also, Ang later learnt that going the stilts route meant there’d be a gap under the house where critters could move in. Yikes. So we’re going with a proper slab foundation instead — more upfront cost, but way more peace of mind.

A Quick Note on Timing

That’s where we are: one build option chosen, one honest company, and a foundation that (hopefully) won’t move under us. Next up — groundwork, and the actual build timeline. Spoiler: It looks like it’s still going to take longer than we’d hoped.

Between pre-build admin and builders closing up shop over the December holidays, there's a good chance we won't see real progress until January. It could go faster, but we're not counting on it — worst case means we don't set ourselves up to be disappointed.

We got the title deed for our property a few weeks ago. It wasn’t quite the celebratory moment we envisaged. Between owning the land and actually being allowed to build on it, there’s a whole layer of admin nobody warns you about.

Paperwork you didn’t know existed, professionals you didn’t know you needed, and one very unwelcome discovery about where the toilet water goes. We budgeted R65,000 ($4,012) for this entire phase. We’re not there anymore.

Note: USD numbers are based on the exchange rate at time of publishing.

Check out the video for the backstory.

Watch

The Costs We Expected (Mostly)

Every property purchase comes with the standard trio: transfer duty, legal fees, and rates & taxes. We knew these were coming. What we didn’t have going in was a real number. Here’s where it got confusing: A number of the listed properties were advertised as “no transfer duty.”

We knew from buying a cookie cutter apartment off plan that this was a thing, but we didn’t realise that it might apply to a vacant land listing. Our excitement at potentially saving money quickly turned to a classic wah wah wah moment when the agent told us we would in fact have to pay transfer duty.

He did explain why the advert said “no transfer duty” when we ended up having to pay transfer costs, but it was a case of “you’re speaking English but I have no idea what you’re saying.” Oh well.

• Transfer duty: R13,000 ($801)

• Legal & admin fees: R2,038 ($126)

• Rates & taxes: R300 ($19) per month

Rates & taxes is the one recurring cost here — everything else in this total is a once-off fee.

The Paperwork & Oversight Crew

Before you can break ground, there's a small crew of professionals who have to sign off — and get paid — first. We get it — this is what stops people from going rogue and turning the neighbourhood into a free-for-all of dubious architectural endeavours.

Still, it’s annoying to have to cough up on so many fronts, especially when the budget's already stretched.

• Draughtsman: R6,000 ($370)

  • Draws up the plans, submits them to the local municipality where you intend building, and ensures they’re approved.

• Structural engineer: R8,000 ($493)

  • Has to be named on the official house plans, and oversees the build at every stage.

• Municipal submission fee: R2,070 ($128)

  • Officially called a scrutiny fee — you'll hear us call it the council fee in the video, but municipal submission fee is the more accurate term.

NHBRC Enrolment

Every residential project has to enroll with the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) at least 15 days before construction starts. It’s not optional — skip it, and it’s a criminal offence that can shut the entire project down.

The fee is a sliding scale, up to 1.5% of your total build value. For us, early estimates put that at R11,500 ($710). We've heard other builders describe NHBRC as slow to deal with. We'll let you know once we've actually gone through it ourselves.

Geotechnical Report

This one isn’t always required, but getting a geotechnical report done on the property is recommended since it tests whether the ground can actually support what we’re planning to build on it. We’ve heard this could range anywhere from R15,000–R60,000 ($924–$3,696), which is not a fun range to be sitting inside.

We’ll only know the exact figure once we’re further along with the whole build process. Right now we still have to decide on a build option and get plans drawn up. At this point the geo report feels like putting the cart before the horse.

Service Connections

We expected to pay for permanent water and electricity connections. What we didn’t expect was needing temporary connections just to be allowed to start building at all.

Temporary electricity connection: R6,500–R12,000+ ($400–$739) upfront, per Eskom’s own guide. Temporary water connection: R10,385 ($639) for a baseline 15mm connection through our municipality.

So somewhere between R16,885 and R22,385 ($1,039–$1,378) just to be allowed to start breaking ground — before permanent connections, before any of the actual building costs. We did think about breathing into a paper bag. We settled for a large glass of wine instead.

Septic vs. Compost — The Blindside

This is the one that actually changed our plan. When we first looked at the land, the estate agent mentioned — almost in passing — that there are no municipal sewage pipes in our area, and no timeline for when that changes. It didn’t register as a big deal at the time. In hindsight, it absolutely should have.

The area runs on septic tanks: We’re looking at R25,000-R45,000 ($1,540-$2,772) to install, plus around R800 ($50) per month for tank emptying. On its own, that’s already significant. But what tipped it for us was learning that the emptying service in our area is unreliable — and that’s not something you want to plan a household around.

So we’re going with a compost toilet instead: For a locally manufactured toilet the cost is in the region of R13,000-R18,000 ($800-$1,109). Lower cost, no dependency on a service that might not show up, and better for what we’re actually trying to build out here.

There's also an open question we couldn't resolve about the septic route: if municipal sewage eventually reaches us, would we have had to rip that system out? Going compost sidesteps the question entirely.

The Badger Report (Almost)

One of the container companies we spoke to offers something called a Badger Report — not a legal requirement, just a service on their menu. It’s a low-level ecological survey combined with a deep dive into what the municipality would actually allow us to build.

We said yes, thinking it’d be worth knowing before we committed to anything. The cost: R3,000 ($185). In the end, it didn’t move the needle much for us. We’re filing it under school fees.

And if you’re Googling it — “Badger Report” only turns up conservation projects about the actual animal. This is clearly the container company’s own shorthand for it, not an official term.

The Running Total

We budgeted R65,000 ($4,004) for this entire phase — legal costs, paperwork, permits, connections, all of it. Based on everything we now know, we’re estimating R150,000 ($9,239). That’s R85,000 ($5,236) over — more than double what we planned, and we haven’t even broken ground yet.

Next week: the actual build decision. We’ve been evaluating Nutec, container, and modular options, and we’re finally at the point where we have real quotes to compare instead of thumb-sucking the numbers. That’s where this budget either gets a lot scarier or finally starts making sense.

Fingers crossed it’s the latter.

Let’s start with the numbers.

The South African government old age pension pays R2,400 ($146) a month each. If we qualify — which we probably won’t.

We also have a retirement annuity, which we will definitely get. It pays out around R5,000 ($305) a month for both of us combined. At current prices, that’s maybe two weeks’ worth of groceries, or one health insurance payment, or half a month’s rent.

At one seventh of our total monthly budget it’s nothing to sneeze at. Until you factor in inflation. By the time we’re 85 it’ll be down to R2,000 ($122). While obviously better than nothing, it’s not a plan.

Rather than panic, we’re building something else instead.

Okay, there was a brief moment of panic, but then we got to work making a plan.

Check out the video for the backstory.

Watch now

The Plan (Its Not Complicated)

Buy a car. Done. We bought a reliable runaround because you can’t consider small town life without motorised transport. (Our trusty foldy won’t work in this situation — Ang will spend the entire day just to go grocery shopping.)

Buy land. Done. We’ve purchased a plot in Bot River, Western Cape — dipping into our investment to do it.

Build small. In progress. We’re evaluating build options right now — Nutec, container, modular. Whatever we go with, we’ll be diving into that same investment one last time to pull it off.

The Badger Report (the municipal assessment for what we can put on the land) has confirmed a minimum dwelling size of 30sqm and crucially, that a compost toilet is permitted.

There’ll be more on the report in an upcoming video. We’ll also be talking through the build decision in a couple of posts time, once we have actual quotes to compare.

Lastly, we need to reduce our monthly budget to a number we can realistically cover ourselves. This is what we’re talking about today.

The Number We Need to Bring In

Our current monthly expenses are sitting at around R35,000 ($2,135). That’s what it costs to run our life right now, in a rented place, before we’ve made any of the changes we’re planning.

The RA pays R5,000. The gap is R30,000-odd a month ($1,830). That’s what we need to close.

Once we’re on the land, rent comes out of the equation. We can’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet however, because we’ll still be covering utilities, rates and taxes, security, and we need to budget for building out the veggie garden and ongoing DIY maintenance. Our working assumption is that the monthly number will be similar for a while — and lower eventually, as the self-sufficiency side of things kicks in.

How do we cover R30,000 a month without a traditional employer?

What Our Income Streams Look Like Currently

Sporty’s Job

Sporty found a higher-paying position earlier this year, which is what stopped us just short of dipping into our investment to cover monthly expenses. That income is carrying us while we build everything else.

It’s not the permanent answer. It’s intense and while fulltime there’s no guarantee the landscape doesn’t change and make her redundant. For now, it’s buying us time to build the other streams properly.

YouTube

Currently bringing in roughly R1,000 ($61) a month. By successful YouTuber standards it’s not much, but it’s at least a start. The more our videos get watched, the more that grows — it’s genuinely not complicated, it just takes consistency and time.

And an engaged audience who loves hitting the subscribe, like, and share buttons. 😉

Substack

We’re keen to offer paid memberships, but first have to figure out what that would look like.

Buy Me a Coffee

It’s small right now but it’s real income and it’s growing. Huge thanks to everyone who has sponsored our caffeine habit on this platform. We appreciate you big time!

Digital Products

In development. We asked in the video if there’s something specific you’d actually pay a few dollars for. Feel free to leave a comment here as well. We want to build things that are genuinely useful, not just vehicles for cash.

TEFL Tutoring

This one surprised us. We bought TEFL courses back in 2021 and never used them. Ang’s friend at Toastmasters pointed out that English tutoring online pays between R6,000–R8,000 a month depending on the amount of hours one works. That’s not nothing. That’s going on the list.

Affiliate and Sponsorships

We’re busy fleshing this out at the moment. We feel like it’s a win/win, as you’ll get to learn about products or services you might otherwise not know about and if you buy one we get a commission at no cost to you.

Rest assured we’ll only promote things we actually use (or would use, in the case of, say, an item we don’t have access to here in deepest darkest Africa, but very much wish we did. Also, it’ll be good for the planet. 🌻 🌎 ♻️

That’s not a position statement, it’s just how this works.

Don’t Have All Your Eggs in One Basket

The thinking behind all of this is simple: don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

Right now, we do. If Sporty lost her job tomorrow, we’d be in trouble. That’s the exposure we’re working to reduce — not through panic, but by building multiple smaller streams until the combined number covers the gap.

It’s not a perfect plan. We don’t have all the numbers yet, and some of the income streams are more theoretical than actual at this point. But it’s a real plan, built around real numbers, for a situation that a lot of people in our position are quietly dealing with.

The pension wasn’t going to save us. So we built something else instead.

That’s the actual plan. We’ll keep you up to speed on how that’s going.

If you read the post where we explained why we dropped off the radar, you know the big picture: R1 million in investments (not nearly enough to retire on), income dropped by 50%, and a three-pronged plan that involves a small car, a piece of land, and the tiniest house our budget can manage.

What we didn’t get into was the part that had to happen first — figuring out how to live on one salary until Ang finds work. Because the car-land-house plan is feasible only if our monthly expenses don’t eat us alive while we’re executing it.

Turns out we had more room than we thought. We just hadn’t been paying attention.

Check out the video for the backstory.

Watch now

The Autopilot Problem

Here’s a thing that happens when two people are both working and keeping up with the bills: you stop looking at the details. Not because you’re extravagant — we’re not, and we weren’t — but because nothing’s technically on fire, so you just keep paying what you’ve always paid.

Our monthly spend before the income drop: R45,000 ($2,750).

After we sat down and actually looked at it, line by line: R32,000 ($1,950).

That’s R13,000 a month — roughly $800 — that was going somewhere we couldn’t immediately account for. Not on anything dramatic. On autopilot.

Buying the things we’d always bought.

Doing the things we’d always done.

Living the way we always had.

What We Cut

Groceries

This one had the most room. We’d gotten comfortable. We eat whole food plant-based, which sounds like it should be cheap and cheerful. And in theory it is, but comfort has a way of inflating a grocery bill without you noticing.

Two fancy gut-friendly loaves of bread a week at R82 each. Almond butter by the (large) jar, because apparently it’s a snack as much as it is a spread. Two yogurts where one does the job. None of it extravagant in isolation. But collectively, a lot more than it needed to be.

We also simplified our meals. Lunch and supper are now built around potatoes (sweet and regular), spinach, kale, carrots, lentils, and peas. Same thing pretty much every single day. We’re a month in and neither of us feels deprived. We’ll do a proper update on this once we’ve got more data.

For any potato naysayers out there, this podcast is worth a listen.

Health Insurance

We’d been on the same hospital plan for years without questioning it. One conversation with our financial advisor later, we’re on a lower premium with better coverage. The only difference: two hospitals instead of unlimited choice in an emergency.

We’re saving R1,000 ($62) a month and we’re actually better covered than before. The lesson: check your insurance (health, car, house) as well as other monthly plans e.g. phone, internet. You’ll never know if there’s a better deal out there unless you go looking for one. Your providers certainly won’t encourage you to pay less.

Eating Out

We weren’t eating out a lot, but we were indulging enough for there to be a noticeable difference when we cut back. Now we allow ourselves one thing a month. As it turns out, that’s plenty. Plus, you appreciate the occasion more. Who would’ve thunk it.

Subscriptions

We’ve totally stopped the “Netflix for a month” habit we used to succumb to once or twice a year. We also quit Canva, because although it’s well-priced and arguably one of the best design platforms out there, if you’re not using it regularly what’s the point?

The old blog hosting we’d been hanging onto got the boot as well. There’s no room for vague sentimentality when you’re tightening the purse strings. Besides, Substack is free and it does more than the blog did. Why pay when you don’t have to, right?

The One Thing We Tried To Cut and Couldn’t

Coffee.

We tried. The cheap option was R80, the good stuff was R110 or so. We told ourselves the robust flavour wasn’t worth the difference.

It was worth the difference. We lasted approximately two bags before admitting defeat and going back. Some hills are worth dying on. This is ours.

(Ang has since given up coffee entirely, but she still agrees.)

What the Exercise Actually Taught Us

It wasn’t the individual line items that mattered. It was the act of looking.

When you’re busy and keeping up and nothing is technically wrong, you don’t look. You pay what you’ve always paid because changing things takes energy and energy is finite. The result is a monthly spend that reflects who you were two years ago, not what you actually need now.

We weren’t overspending. We were under-looking.

If your budget is feeling uncomfortable, the exercise is worth doing — not to beat yourself up over past choices, but to find out where you actually are.

Make it a game.

How much can you find?

You might be surprised.

And if your budget is already lean, fair enough. Skip this part. But if you’ve been on autopilot for a while, there might be more wiggle room than you think.

The Number That Made Everything Else Possible

R13,000 a month back in our pocket meant the land plan wasn’t just a pie in the sky dream — it was executable. It meant we could actually get through the months ahead without touching the investment money before it had done its job.

Which, to be clear, it’s currently in the process of doing. All of it. Car, land, tiny build. The full picture is in our first newsletter. This week’s video covers both decisions — the cuts and the bigger one. If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s a good place to start.

Last week we went to meet with Zhauns, a company that produces DIY and fold-out houses. Today we’re unpacking the exact of cost of the units we viewed. But first, a word about the number that got us through the door.

R89,990 ($5,600). That’s what their website says. That’s the figure that lodged itself in our heads and made us think: maybe this is the affordable option. Maybe this is how we get off our lease and onto the land without breaking what’s left of the bank.

Turns out, R89,990 is for the 12 square meter (129 square foot) unit sitting unassumingly next to the cute house in the pic above. For those keeping track at home, that’s about the size of a large garden shed — or, as Sporty helpfully pointed out, we’d basically be living in a very well-constructed box.

To be fair, Zhauns did have a clearly visibly “FROM” in front of the price, so we weren’t completely naive in our expectations.

So. The real numbers.

Check out the video for the backstory.

Watch now

What Zhauns Actually Costs

Zhauns makes two types of structures. The Bachelor is the entry-level unit at 12sqm. The House is their fold-up unit at 36sqm (387sq. ft.). Here’s what those actually cost once you add 15% VAT:

Bachelor (12sqm): R103,489 (±$5,700)
House with deck (36sqm): R356,500 (±$19,600)

According to South African Revenue Service (SARS) guidelines, all prices charged or quoted to end-consumer clients must include VAT. But it seems builders often bypass this rule. I’m guessing to make the ticket price more appealing?

The House is out of reach. We knew that the moment we heard the price. At R356,500 we’d have almost nothing left for the actual build requirements — foundation, fencing, solar, water. It’s not a house price, it’s the whole budget.

Which is when the salesperson mentioned an option we hadn’t considered: join two Bachelor units. Side by side, they give us 24sqm. The cost comes in at around R207,000 (±$11,400) including VAT, without a deck. Delivery still to be quoted.

That number is more interesting. Not comfortable, but interesting.

The Thing That Swayed Us (A Little)

We went in curious, not sold. We left still not sold, but more curious than before — and one thing the salesperson said did move the needle.

Lifetime warranty.

On a structure we’d be betting our housing situation on, in a climate that does not mess around, that matters. Which brings us to Sporty’s initial skepticism. She wasn’t at all convinced that a fold-out house could withstand the Cape winds.

She was right to be skeptical. Anyone who’s spent a summer on the wrong side of a southeaster knows exactly what Sporty was on about. The warranty is reassuring. It’s helpful to know these aren’t “three little pigs” structures.

The Number Nobody Advertises

Here’s what R207,000 actually buys you, and here’s what it doesn’t.

It doesn’t include:

— Delivery (quote outstanding — this is not a small number when you’re in Bot River)
— Land levelling (our plot is on a slight slope)
— Concrete slab foundation
— Solar panels
— Rainwater catchment (only possible with pitched roof option, cost TBD)
— Fencing (we need two sides initially)
— A deck (deferrable, but eventually)

We don’t have all those numbers yet. We’re getting them. But the honest version of what this costs is meaningfully more than R207,000. Anyone saying otherwise is quoting for a Wendy house.

What Has to Happen Before We Can Decide

Here’s the thing about the two-Bachelor option: we can’t pursue it until we know it’s legal. We tried going the DIY route and contacting the municipality directly, but between the language barriers and the glacial pace typical of government, we’ve come to the conclusion that paying for a Badger Report makes more sense.

This is a survey that goes directly to the municipality and determines what can actually be built on our specific plot — including what qualifies as a temporary dwelling while permanent plans are submitted.

We've heard the national minimum is 30sqm (323 sq. ft.) for a permanent dwelling, but Western Cape bylaws may differ — which is exactly what the Badger Report will confirm.

Whether joining two Bachelor units satisfies that requirement is not something Zhauns can tell us. They build the houses. The municipality decides what’s permissible. The Badger Report is the next piece of information we actually need.

So the two-Bachelor workaround — the option we’re most interested in — is also the one we can’t move on yet. That’s where we are.

Where Zhauns Sits Right Now

In the running. Possibly the most affordable route when compared to a container home or a Nutec build — though we won’t know that for certain until we’ve visited the container company this weekend and spoken to a Nutec builder.

What we know: Zhauns installs in 1-5 days, which matters when you’re working against a lease deadline. The lifetime warranty matters. The all-in price is still TBD.

What we don’t know yet: delivery costs, the full extras picture, and whether the two-Bachelor configuration will get municipal sign-off.

Next up: container home visit this weekend. We’ll film it. Nutec builder meeting in the pipeline. Badger Report pending.

The newsletter gets the numbers first. If you’re not subscribed yet, link’s below.

Onwards.

We bought land. It took less time than buying the car. But I’m getting ahead of myself — let me tell you how we got here.

It started with a number: R300,000. That’s how much we’d earmarked for land. As if that wasn’t unrealistic enough, we’d hoped it would include the transfer costs. We found two plots in our price range.

Both were in parts of town we drove straight back out of. We didn’t even get out the car. We just looked at each other, shook our heads, and left. There was nothing to discuss. This wasn’t about being snobbish or looking down our noses at the poorer areas — although if we’re honest, that did play a role.

The bigger concern, however, was our investment. We need it to maintain its value, and it wouldn’t have if we’d gone for either one of those options.

When we arrived at the plot we eventually settled on it was a relatively easy yes. We’d already spent the morning driving around the town, so we knew enough to know the area fell somewhere in the middle. It’s close enough to the well-to-do part of town that if we lean over we can rub shoulders.

Similarly, if we lean the other way we’re hanging out with our up-and-coming neighbours. The area where the budget-friendly plot is situated is (thankfully) quite a bit further away. Location aside, the plot itself was appealing. It’s well-sized and enjoys a fantastic view of the mountains and the forest across the way.

We told the estate agent we’d sleep on it, but if we’re honest we’d already decided on the drive home. There was just something about Bot River that grabbed us. It felt like it could be home for more than a while.

Check out the video for the backstory.

Watch now

The Numbers — Full Breakdown

Once we realised that we’d woefully under-budgeted for the land we had a conversation that was short as it was uncomfortable. It went something like this:

Me: We need to up our budget for the land.

Sporty: I know.

Both of us: Uncomfortable silence.

Me: Oh well.

Sporty: Yup.

We ended up spending an additional R75,000 on the land and that was before we’d factored in the transfer costs. Fortunately for us, I noticed that the land wasn’t listed as a sole mandate and one of the other realtors was advertising it at a lower price.

We mentioned this to our estate agent and he agreed to submit the lower offer to purchase to his client. If I hadn’t found that out we’d have ended up paying R390,000 (before transfer costs) instead. Whew.

This is where the numbers stand currently:

• Plot: R375,000

• Transfer duties: R15,000

• Car: R115,000 (part of the plan, not separate from it)

• Total out: R505,000

What’s left: R495,000

That has to cover A LOT.

• House build

  • Level the land (it’s on a slight slope)

  • Foundation (concrete slab)

  • Dwelling (container home, modular build, Nutec, etc.)

• Property fence (two sides only, thankfully)

The plan was to keep R200,000 as emergency buffer, but there’s no way that’s going to happen. Right now, we’ll be lucky to hold back R50,000. Yes, that’s a little nerve wracking, but it is what it is. Practically speaking, we build as lean as possible and save towards our rainy day savings as we go.

Why Cash?

We opted to pay cash for the land rather than take out a bond with the bank. There are a few reasons for this. First, it keeps us debt-free. Plus, there’s no monthly obligation to worry about. Right now, we’re not exactly quality loans candidates from the bank’s perspective either.

Our age definitely counts against us here. With fewer years available to us to pay off the bond, the bank would very likely have insisted on a shorter loan period. And since Sporty has only been at her new job a month, we wouldn’t have qualified just yet anyway. (You need to be working at the same company for a minimum of three months.)

Lastly, it made our offer to purchase that much more attractive to the seller. We went in quite a bit lower than what she or the estate agent were hoping for and it was accepted without a counter offer. Cash talks.

What’s Next?

Now it’s time to figure out the build. On Saturday we went to see a company that makes modular houses. We were impressed, but we haven't reviewed all the options yet. We still plan to visit a container company and chat with some Nutec builders.

Crucially, we need to find out exactly what the national building regulations are regarding size. We heard from one builder that a property’s main dwelling may not be less than 30sqm, which would be ideal. However we’ll need to confirm this before moving ahead.

So that's where we are. Land bought, build TBD, rainy day savings looking a little thin. Onwards.

This newsletter took a detour while our YouTube channel went quiet. Turns out 'aging well' content is a lot less interesting when Sporty isn't in it. Anyway. Here's where we’re actually at.

Check out the video for the backstory.

Watch now

The Plain Truth: Our Full Financial Picture

Sporty and I spent our 30s pretending we’d never get old and our 40s dealing with the massive pile of debt we’d amassed over the years. By the time our 50s rolled in we’d rallied enough to have paid off our debt, built up a rainy day savings account, and grown our investments to R1 million ($61,500). Which sounds like a lot, but at 58 and 61 isn’t very much at all.

To put that in perspective, our current scenario will pay us R4,500 ($280) per month. At corset-level — and let’s face it, a little more would be lovely in retirement — our monthly expenses are around R42,000 ($2,600) per month. The rule of thumb is R1 million saved for every R5,000 you want to draw monthly. We'd need roughly R8.4 million to cover our current expenses comfortably. We have one eighth of that.

With both of us working and earning our investment sum was able to grow steadily, but in October last year my freelance work dried up, resulting in a 50% drop in household income. We couldn’t cover our monthly expenses, so we had to dip into our rainy day savings to bridge the shortfall.

We tightened our belts to corset-level to make the money last as long as possible. But about a month or so ago we realised that if something didn’t change fast we’d be dipping into the investment money to pay the bills. We’d basically blown through the R120,000 ($7,400) we had saved for emergencies.

What It Actually Felt Like

Everything felt fine, until it didn’t. There was a worrying realisation that all we were doing was maintaining a life that didn’t actually feel secure. It felt like we were running on a treadmill and wondering why we weren’t getting anywhere.

We reached a point where pretending it was a temporary situation stopped working. Still, it is what it is, no point crying over spilt soy milk (if it was wine, on the other hand…). We came to our senses in time and that’s what matters. All we had to do now was figure out our next steps.

How We Landed on a Plan

Sporty’s suggested we cash in our investment, buy a van, and head off into the sunset. If it was just the two of us we’d very likely have done exactly that. But we’ve got our rescue kitty Mr Handsome to consider and he’d have hated the lifestyle.

We relegated her idea to the “maybe down the line” folder and started thinking what we could do instead. We came up with a solid three-prong plan: Buy a car, invest in a piece of land, and build a tiny house.

We briefly considered dwelling on past decisions — like selling the perfectly good vehicle we had — and then Sporty pointed out it was a good idea at the time. She's right. Moving on.

Right, Now for the Numbers

Our first port of call was the car purchase. You need wheels when you’re shopping for land, especially when you’re looking beyond city limits. And that’s exactly what we were doing.

Our Car: 2016 Honda Brio

We enlisted the help of a friend’s son-in-law who’s in the car business and he helped us find Brennie (named after Brené Brown). She’s small, drives great, and is super light on fuel. There’s not really room for much more than Sporty, me, and Mr Handsome, but that’s fine.

If we need extra space down the line we can always get a tow hook and trailer. Right now, for our current purposes, she’s exactly what we need and we absolutely love her.

Cost: R115,000 ($7,000)

The Land: Still Looking

We’re under no illusion that our budget will send us outside of Cape Town’s fancy (overpriced) city limits and well into the country. We’ve found few areas that fit the bill.

We had high hopes for a fishing village called Hawston, but the gentrified prices didn’t quite align with what we saw. We also like the idea of Suurbraak, which is right next door to Swellendam, a small-ish town with a big heart.

And then there’s Kleinmond, a gorgeous seaside village, and finally Botrivier, a very small town with a friendly community and breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains and wine farms.

What’s appealing about the latter two is that they’re both in the Overberg region, an area with an extremely forward thinking approach to tiny houses. A lot of areas frown upon this lifestyle and insist on a minimum floor space far above anything we’d want, .

Budget: R350,000 ($21,500)

The Build: Still Deciding

We’re under even less illusion that we’ll be building a traditional brick and mortar anything. Which, honestly, is totally fine with us. We want to go as tiny as possible anyway, so we’re weighing up a converted container home and a Nutec build. They both have pros and cons that need to be considered carefully before making a decision.

Right now, a container home is more appealing because they literally deliver a readymade house. Going the Nutec route will definitely delay matters, plus we’ll have to deal with builders which can be tricky anyway, but even more so when you’re living far from the build site like we are.

Budget: R350,000 ($21,500)

What’s Left After All of It?

By now you’re probably wondering if there’s even anything left. This is it.

Money remaining: R185,000 ($11,500)

Maybe, like us, you’ve been breaking out in a sweat as you watched the number go down. I’m kidding, we’re not panicking about our diminishing investment. Mostly.

Yes, there's an undeniable yikes to what we're doing. But the alternative is even more unnerving. I mean, if we don’t do this there’s a very real chance we’d have blasted through the money just to pay our living expenses. We weren’t prepared to take that risk.

We're not sharing this because we've got it figured out. We're sharing it because we wish someone had shown us these numbers three years ago. If that's useful to you — welcome to the messy middle.

Ask most people in the 50+ bracket whether making friends gets harder as you get older and you’ll get an unequivocal yes. That’s what I used to think, too. It turns out we got it wrong.

Up until my forties I had plenty of friends — from work colleagues and close acquaintances to coffee pals and a cherished long-haul friendship, I was sorted socially. And then one day I wasn’t. Remote working definitely had a hand in it. But that’s only part of it.

When you stop nurturing relationships they fade away, and that’s what happened to mine. I didn’t dwell on it. Sporty and I are super happy together. And of course, there’s Mr Handsome. My long-haul friend was (and still is) a spectacularly good friend, but we live far apart and we’re both busy.

The worrying result is that I now inhabited a very small world. I knew enough about social isolation to see that this wasn’t ideal. But I didn’t know what to do about it, so I did what I do best: I ignored it and hoped it would sort itself out.

Lucky for me it did. Though not in the way I expected.

Enter Meals on Wheels

About a year ago I started volunteering as a hopper for Meals on Wheels. We travel in pairs: one person drives, one hops out to deliver the food. Every Thursday, that’s me — out the car, up the path, knocking on the door with a hearty meal and a happy smile.

These weekly outings were a genuine highlight from the get-go. The interactions are brief, usually no more than a few minutes on a doorstep. But they mean a lot. For some of our clients, mine is often the only face they’ll see all week.

That’s unfortunately the sad reality of being elderly, housebound, and largely forgotten by a world that’s in too much of a hurry to slow down and say hi. But these interactions are far from being a one-way street. I get as much from them as our clients do. Maybe even more.

The Friend I Didn’t See Coming

Recently, a new driver was assigned to my route. Rhonda and I hit it off immediately and our friendship has only grown in the weeks since. She’s without a doubt one of my favourite people.

Meeting her wasn’t complicated. It didn’t require apps, effort, or manufactured social occasions. I showed up somewhere regularly and found someone worth knowing. Easy peasy.

I’ve watched the same thing happen at Toastmasters, which I rejoined late last year, and with our meditation community at The Art of Living. The pattern is always the same: I leave the house, I show up consistently, I find my people.

Proximity to people who share your values, it turns out, is more useful than proximity to people who share your age or life stage. You don’t need a large social life. You just need an active one.

You can stop right there and have friends aplenty, but when you read the next bit you might be inspired to start a YouTube channel and find even more. 😁

YouTube Friends (It’s a Small world)

and I have been on-again-off-again YouTubers since late 2021. Along the way we’ve amassed a small, but engaged band of followers who honestly feel like friends. And I’m not just saying that for the feels. We’ve built a genuine and lasting connection with people in Canada, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and even, would you believe, right here in Cape Town.

True story: We met one of our YouTube friends at a Toastmasters meeting. I mean, what on earth are the odds? Wait, it gets better. We met another YouTube friend through our Ozone therapist (who’s also become a good friend). Last, but definitely not least, we bumped into a YouTube friend at a market recently.

This one was especially serendipitous because she’s an ex-Saffer who lives Down Under. She was here on holiday visiting family and happened to spot and I having lunch. Thing is, we pretty much never go to this market!

What Happens When the World Shrinks

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, partly because of what Sporty and I saw with our mothers. They were both outgoing, strong women — active, social, engaged with the world. Sporty’s mom was a skydiver, mine an ambulance reservist.

Then their worlds started shrinking, slowly and almost imperceptibly, until eventually going out was no longer a thing. The isolation that followed took a real toll. Dementia crept in for both of them.

I see evidence of this on my Thursday rounds with Meals on Wheels. Not with everyone — some of our clients are sharp and full of life — but with enough of them to make the similarities hard to ignore. The ones who struggle most are also the ones who’ve been alone the longest.

Just Show Up

This is not to say you need a packed calendar or a social life that would exhaust a college student. (Egads!) But you do need something. Running group, garden society, book club, choir, hiking, Toastmasters, volunteering — it doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it gets you out the door and around other people on a regular basis.

Friends are there for the taking. But only if you show up.

We owe you an update.

In true Ang and Sporty style, we started something, and then dropped off the radar. We’ve finally resurfaced — a little windswept but largely intact. Winter did its level best to finish us off recently. The diseased oak in our garden finally gave up the ghost during the thick of it all. We found an enormous branch in the garden the next morning, inches from the windows. Weirdly, none of us heard it fall.

Enough about the weather: there’s something more interesting afoot. We’re not quite ready to tell you the whole story just yet. That needs a video — yes, we’ll be back on YouTube in the very near future — but we didn’t want another fortnight to pass without at least letting you know that we’re still around and stuff is happening behind the scenes.

Big-ish stuff. We’re talking a car, a piece of land, and a plan we’ve been putting off for far too long. We’ll share more on all of this very soon. As in, two weeks at the absolute most kind of soon.

In the meantime, we thought you might like to know that Mr Handsome has started dating. We spotted him with his sweetheart, Beijing, in the parking lot the other evening and he ignored us completely, which he never does. When we mentioned it to Beijing’s human, she told us that he stops by fairly often.

Turns out our super needy tied to the apron strings kitty cat has a social life we know absolutely nothing about. We’re choosing to be supportive.

Watch this space, there’s exciting stuff in the works.

Lots of love,
Ang, Sporty, and Mr Handsome (who is very busy)

Month 1 — Create Breathing Room

Core question: What can I remove to feel immediate relief?

This month is all about creating space — physically, mentally, and emotionally — so that life feels lighter instead of heavier. Each week we’re tackling a different pillar, but everything we’re doing points toward the same outcome: capability.

Week 2 has us focusing on energy.

But before we start chasing supplements, productivity hacks, or complicated routines that have you waking up an hour before you go to bed and fasting until 2pm, it’s worth looking at what’s going on in the bedroom first.

Are we actually sleeping well?

Because if sleep is off, everything else becomes harder.

In case you missed it, make sure you check out Week 0: Welcome to The Age Well Year so you know what we’re doing here and why we’re not turning this into a scented candle ceremony.

The Boring Energy Secret (That Actually Works)

If you’re feeling tired most of the time, the internet will happily offer you:

• Another supplement
• A new morning routine
• A cold plunge
• A complicated protocol involving 17 steps and a special lamp

But the most reliable energy strategy is far less exciting.

Sleep.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, sleep isn’t just “rest.” It’s when the brain does essential maintenance: consolidating memories, clearing metabolic waste, and restoring systems that keep us thinking and functioning properly.

In other words, sleep isn’t downtime.

It’s repair time.

What the Blue Zones Do Differently

One of the reasons the Blue Zones populations age so well is that they protect their shut eye. In an interview with CNS, longevity researcher Dan Buettner explained it this way:

“Sleep is treated as sacred in all five Blue Zones. People rise with the sun and prioritize quality rest, without screens or caffeine disrupting circadian rhythms. Neurosurgeons often have to sacrifice sleep due to call schedules, but when possible, protecting 7–8 hours and prioritizing consistent routines—even if fragmented—has compounding cognitive benefits. If you can’t get longer sleep, go for better sleep: limit alcohol, avoid screens before bed, and create a calm, dark sleep environment. Brain health depends on it.”

There is SO much goodness to unpack from that. But given how “busy” we all are nowadays, this line is the key takeaway: “If you can’t get longer sleep, go for better sleep.”

I put the word busy in quotes because I think we all make our lives busier than they need to be.

People in places like Okinawa, Sardinia, and Ikaria aren’t biohacking their way to better sleep. Their approach (like the rest of their lives) is much simpler than that:

• They sleep with the night

• They wake with natural light

• They have a low-tech lifestyle

• They keep consistent routines

It’s really nothing fancy.

Just simple habits that support the body’s natural circadian rhythm.

Reality Check (Because Modern Life Is a Mess)

Our modern lifestyle isn’t exactly what you’d call sleep-friendly.

• We sit under bright lights late at night

• We scroll until our eyes blur from not blinking

• We drink coffee late in the day

• We binge watch series (often consuming multiple seasons in a sitting)

And we wonder why we feel foggy the next morning.

This isn’t a character flaw.

It’s just modern life getting in the way of us behaving like reasonable adults.

One of the simplest ways to improve your energy is to remove the friction that’s standing between you and those zees.

🎯 Your Mission (If You Choose to Accept It)

This week we’re not redesigning your life.

(That’ll come in Week 53. 😆)

We’re just improving the conditions for sleep.

Choose ONE small adjustment that supports better rest.

Ideas:

• Turn off screens 30–60 minutes before bed

• Go to bed an hour earlier

• Stop caffeine by midday

• Dim lights in the evening

• Keep a consistent bedtime for the week

• Aim for an eating sunset of 3-4 hours before bed

Pick one and see what happens.

Bonus level: notice how your energy feels during the day.

Mine: Reinstall my 4pm eating sunset (I got to bed at 8pm)

What This Is Really About

We often wake up tired and spend the rest of the day chasing the energy that wasn’t there in the morning.

We know the night before probably has something to do with it, but breaking the cycle can feel surprisingly hard. Whether you’re hooked on Netflix, a night owl, a late-night snacker, or simply navigating midlife (what we call the pausels in our house), you can end up constantly chasing those elusive energy levels.

And still, we don’t give sleep the respect it deserves.

We treat it like an afterthought — something we squeeze in at the end of the day.

But here’s the thing: sleep is infrastructure.

It’s the foundation that allows everything else — movement, mood, focus, resilience — to work properly.

Protect the foundation, and a lot of other things improve without much effort.

“But Ang, it’s not that simple.”

I know. Which is why I’ve rounded up a few resources if you’d like to dig deeper:

1. Sleeping With Science series of TED talks.

2. The Sleep Chronicles by Meghna Dassani

3. Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

The Bigger Question

This month we’re asking:

What can I remove to feel immediate relief?

When it comes to sleep, the answer is often surprisingly simple.

• Remove the late-night blue light stimulation

• Remove the endless doomscrolling*

• Remove the second cup of afternoon coffee

Sometimes improving your energy isn’t about adding something new.

It’s about taking away the things that are wrecking your sleep.

*I don’t mean only at bedtime. I mean throughout the day, too! Those negative inputs aren’t helping you. In fact, quite the opposite.

Personal example:

I used to read on the Kindle app on my iPad. It has a “nighttime” mode, which I figured meant it was okay to use in bed.

Sporty (because she almost always knows better) told me it wasn’t, but I insisted it was fine. At some point I decided to “call her bluff” on the subject and, well, let’s say I noticed a big difference in my sleep quality within a few days.

Talk about a tofu egg on my face moment! 💡😂

Small change.
Huge impact.

I know I’m reading on an iPad in the photo above. It’s an old one, I don’t do that anymore. 😅

The It-Still-Counts Clause

You don’t need a perfect bedtime routine. And you definitely don’t need to try and fix everything at once. (Because it’ll overwhelm you and you’ll give up.)

Do is this instead: Try one small adjustment.

Because sleep compounds.

And so does fatigue.

Choose the compound effect you want.

See you next week,
Ang ❤️

P.S. Sporty and Mr Handsome would like to remind everyone that naps are a highly underrated life strategy.

Month 1 — Create Breathing Room

Core question: What can I remove to feel immediate relief?

This month is all about creating space — physically, mentally, and emotionally — so that life feels lighter instead of heavier. Each week we’re tackling a different pillar, but everything we’re doing points toward the same outcome: capability.

Week 1 on this yearlong (and hopefully beyond) journey has us focusing on self-care. We’re building foundational habits to aid us in our mission to live and age well.

A long lifespan might have bragging rights (and a letter from Buckingham Palace if you reside in the UK), but health span is the real prize.

What Self-Care Really Looks Like

Let’s be honest — the internet has done a number on the notion of self-care.

Somewhere between influencer morning routines and Bali yoga retreats, it turned into:

Matcha.
Candles.
Perfect lighting.
Overpriced products in fancy packaging.

Real-life self-care at the 50+ stage of life is A LOT less glamorous.

It’s going to bed when you said you would.
Drinking water before coffee. (And maybe forgoing the coffee entirely.) sigh
Going for a walk even when you can’t be bothered.
Saying no when your energy says no.

It’s not glamorous.

But it keeps you functional.

And functional is underrated.

Reality Check (Because We’re Not 27)

Instagram self-care: pour-over coffee and journaling in linen pants while gazing wistfully out the window.

Real-world self-care:

• Turning your phone off earlier

• Eating food that actually fuels you (and no, it doesn’t have to be kale)

• Moving your body even if it’s just around the block

• Stopping the late-night doom scroll that wrecks your sleep

The goal isn’t to add 12 new habits.

The goal is to support your nervous system, your energy, and your future self.

Because here’s the truth:

Neglected basics compound.

But so do the ones you maintain. 💥

Reader Voices (Which I Love)

After Week 0, a few of you shared what you’re hoping for this year:

Jaye said, “I want more ‘putting myself first’ time. And more vibrant health.”

Awollkwall said, “My goal this year is to spend more time unplugged, and to focus on my health as my most valuable asset.”

I love this, because they’re both really about the same thing: protecting your energy and choosing yourself on purpose. 👏

That’s not indulgent.

That’s intelligent.

Energy, focus, and health are all assets.

And assets require maintenance.

🎯 Your Mission (If You Choose to Accept It) 😅

This week’s mission is not to jump off a skyscraper or ride a motorcycle off a cliff. We’ll leave that to Tom Cruise and his cronies. Our mission (because I’m doing this with you) is intentionally small:

Choose ONE supportive habit you already know helps you.

Not five.
Not three.
One.

Ideas:

• Go to bed 20 minutes earlier

• Take a short daily walk (not too short 🤨)

• Eat one proper meal sitting down (no devices!)

• Put your phone away for a defined chunk of the day

• Delay your first coffee by an hour

That’s it.

Bonus level: Notice how you feel.

Mine: No more blue light after 6pm. And yes, I will actually close my laptop. 🤓 😂

What This Is Really About

We’re not trying to build a flawless self-care routine.

We’re rebuilding self-trust.

Every time you follow through on something (even if it’s small), you reinforce the belief that:

“I’m someone who looks after myself.

I’m someone who does what I say I will do.”

That identity shift matters.

Because aging well isn’t one dramatic overhaul.

It’s maintenance decisions made repeatedly.

The Bigger Question

This month the question we’re asking is:

What can I remove to feel immediate relief?

Maybe self-care isn’t about adding.
Maybe it’s about removing the friction.

• Overstimulation

• Draining commitments

• Late-night screen time

Personal example:

For me, delaying coffee 60–90 minutes after waking reduced those delightful 2am cortisol wake-ups to zero.

Talk about a lightbulb moment! 💡🤔

Small change.
Huge impact.

The It-Still-Counts Clause

You don’t need to do everything.

But you do need to do something.

Imperfect action still counts.

Skipping because it won’t be perfect does not.

See you next week,
Ang ❤️

P.S. Sporty and Mr Handsome send much love to y’all.

It hit me this morning that The Age Well Year should line up with actual calendar months. It just makes sense. Plus, it’s neater. 🤓

So we officially kick off Week 1 on March 1st.

You’ll get the email the Friday before so you can buy all the required equipment, reorganise your life, and start waking up at 4am to fit everything in.

Relax. I’m kidding.

You’ll get the email the Friday before, but all you need to do is read it and choose your mission for the week.

That’s it.

In the meantime, let’s talk about something that’s been bothering me.

Convenience.

Convenience Is Not the Same as Simplicity

We’ve been sold on the idea that the easier something is, the better it is.

• Groceries delivered.

• Food pre-chopped.

• Kitchen gadgets for things our hands are perfectly capable of doing.

• Driving two blocks instead of walking.

• Parking as close as humanly possible.

• Shopping carts for loads we could carry.

• Robot vacuum cleaners.

It feels efficient.

But it’s quietly making us weaker.

Physically.
Mentally.
Socially.

I don’t know about you, but weak is not how I want to age.

The Blue Zones Didn’t Optimise — They Lived

In the Blue Zones — where reaching 100 isn’t unusual and happens at rates up to ten times higher than in the U.S. — people don’t give a hoot about:

• cold plunges

• biohacking

• 27-step morning routines

They move because they have to.
They cook because that’s what you do.
They walk or cycle because that’s how you get somewhere.
They talk to people because it’s the norm.

Their lives are simple, not convenient.

There’s a difference.

Convenience Is Sneaky

Convenience removes:

• friction

• effort

• decision-making

But friction is what keeps us capable.

Carrying groceries builds strength.
Walking builds stamina.
Cooking keeps your hands and brain working together.
Problem-solving builds mental resilience.

When we outsource everything, we outsource our independence.

And then we wonder why we feel older than we are.

Simplifying ≠ Doing Less

Simplifying means:

• Fewer meaningless tasks

• Fewer pointless obligations

• Fewer digital distractions

But somewhat counterintuitively if you’re on Team Convenience, it also means:

• Walking instead of driving

• Cooking instead of ordering

• Fixing instead of replacing

• Calling instead of scrolling

That’s not harder for the sake of it.

That’s choosing capability over comfort.

Mini Mission (Before March 1st)

This week, do one thing the slightly less convenient way.

• Walk somewhere you’d normally drive.

• Cook something simple instead of ordering.

• Carry your own bags.

• Stand instead of sit.

Not to punish yourself.

To remind your body it still works.

Why This Matters

If we want to age well, we can’t build a life that requires zero effort.

We need enough friction to stay sharp.

Capability. That’s what we’re after here.

March 1st, we start for real.

Until then, choose one inconvenience.

Your future self will thank you.

Lots of love and hippie vibes,
Ang ❤️

If you’re new here — welcome. For those of you who’ve been following for a while, I’m super chuffed you’re still here. (You’re biscuits, the lot of you.) 🥰

Last week, I suggested we make a solid plan for 2026. The Age Well Year is that plan.

Before we properly get going, I want to take a sec to explain what it is, how it works, and how I hope you’ll use it. Think of this as orientation — not an instruction manual (because honestly, nobody needs more instructions).

There’s no shortage of information about aging well. We all more or less know what we should be doing. The real problem isn’t knowledge — it’s overwhelm. Too many opinions, too many perfect routines, too much pressure to get it right.

So we scroll, we save, we plan…and then we do absolutely nothing. Raise your hand if that sounds like you?

Me: 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️!

This project is my attempt to change that — for myself first and foremost — by slowing things down and focusing on what actually helps in real life.

What This Is

Over the next 12 months, my goal is to turn back the clock. I’ll be 58 in March. By the time my next birthday rolls around I’d like to be 40 again. To make that happen, I’m intentionally working on aging well by paying attention to five key pillars:

• Simplify

• Declutter

• Self-care

• Energy

• Strength

If that sounds like something you want in on, here’s the lowdown.

Each week, we’ll focus on just one of the pillars. Then we cycle through them again. And again. Building gently instead of trying to overhaul our entire lives by Tuesday.

Been there, done that. It doesn’t work. Heck, you don’t even get a t-shirt for trying.

There’s no finish line. No falling behind. No catching up required.

You don’t start over.
You start where you are.

What This Is Not

This is not a challenge.
It’s not a bootcamp.
It’s not about discipline, perfection, or “fixing” yourself.

Some weeks will be on point, others will barely hit the mark. That’s normal. Life happens. We adjust and keep going.

Doing one small thing still counts.

Suck, don’t skip, as a mentor of mine likes to say.

Showing up, however poorly, is way better than not doing anything at all. It builds self-confidence. It tells you that you’re someone who does what you said you will do.

DWYSYWD.

How This Will Work (and How to Use It)

A few suggestions — not rules:

• Read the post. Don’t save it for some mythical future moment when you have more time.

• Pick the ideas that resonate and ignore the rest.

• Let what doesn’t apply go without guilt.

• Revisit older posts when the focus comes around again.

This is meant to support your life, not quietly become another item on your to-do list.

Week 0: The Gentle Kickoff

Today is our starting point.

Before we dive into the weekly rhythm, I’d love you to do two small(ish) things:

1️⃣ Declutter your space
Nothing dramatic. Just enough to make your environment feel like it’s ready for something new. You can think of it as Declutter Lite.

Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from going all in. Personally, if I’m feeling overwhelmed the best fix for me is a solid housecleaning sesh. And if it’s been a while, I’ll throw in some decluttering at the same time.

Yes, even minimalists have to declutter. It’s how we stay minimalist. 😅

2️⃣ Create your starting benchmark
Take some time jot down what you’d like to change, improve, or experience more of over the next year.

More energy?
More ease?
Less clutter in your home or your head?
Feeling stronger? Calmer? More like yourself again?

No pressure to be profound — just honest. This is for you, not a performance.

For me, it’s all about energy and mental wellbeing. I’ve spent the last year and a bit letting how I feel dictate my actions. That stops now (or by Monday at the latest 😂).

Right now, I don’t feel as good as I used to. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s menopause, or maybe it’s because I haven’t been taking my own advice.

Note to self: Mood follows action. (Pro tip: Watch the video at 1.5 or 1.75 playback speed.)

I actually have a bunch of specific things that I plan on improving or focusing on for the next 12 months, all with the end goal of feeling great again.

Hit reply or let me know in the comments if you’d like me to share it here.

Why I’m Doing This

I’m not interested in aging aggressively or pretending nothing is changing. I am interested in staying capable, energised, curious, and steady as the years go by.

I’m planning my next decade — not fixing myself.

And I’m doing this alongside you, in real time, sharing what works, what doesn’t, and everything in between.

If that sounds like something you’ve been needing, you’re in the right place.

If you feel like replying to one email this week, tell me this:

What do you want more of this year?

We kick off for real next week.

I’m super happy you’re here.

Ang ❤️

PS Sporty and Mr Handsome are cheering you on from the sidelines.

PPS If you’re wondering who the heck Sporty is you can read this post and check out our YouTube channel (currently in hibernation) to meet her in person online. 😉

My Nana always told my Mom not to get old. And then my Mom told me the same thing. They were obviously joking but the message was clear: Aging isn’t a cakewalk. Your hearing and eyesight diminish, aches and pains increase, things aren’t as easy as they used to be, and perhaps not surprisingly, your joie de vivre wanes.

It doesn’t have to be like that, though. We’re extremely fortunate to live in a time where sliding further into decrepitude with each passing year isn’t a given. We quite literally we have everything at our fingertips to ensure that doesn’t happen.

The internet is filled to the brim with useful information to help us age well. Of course, the downside to that is the resulting overwhelm, decision fatigue, and depleted mental bandwidth that leave us motionless.

We keep scrolling, but we do nothing. Sound familiar?

2026 Starts Now (Because, Why Not?)

I’ve had an idea brewing for a while now and I feel like it’s time to share it. I want to map out a plan for the next 12 months so that I’ve actually achieved something by the time the holidays roll around again.

If you had big plans for the new year and then found yourself in “deer in headlights” mode by the end of January, this is for you. If you’re going strong with your resolutions I’d urge your to stick around anyway, because it’s going to be a fun ride.

The plan is simple. We’ll focus our attention on five key areas, cycling through each week-on-week. Building, learning, and improving as we go.

• Simplify

• Declutter

• Self-care

• Energy

• Strength

Why These Five Areas in Particular?

If you want to age well, live life on your terms, achieve your goals, make your dreams a reality, or simply track down your joie de vivre, focusing on these areas is the way to do all of that.

Simplicity protects your bandwidth, decluttering creates space, self-care keeps your batteries topped up, energy provides the oomph required to get up in the morning and keep going throughout the day, and finally, strength keeps you stable and independent.

I mean, who wouldn’t want more of all of that?

I know I have “simplify” at the top of the above list, but we’ll be kicking things off with a good declutter. Your environment needs to reflect where you’re going, and clearing out the physical is a great place to get the ball rolling.

So, get ready to roll up your sleeves because we’ve got work to do! 😅 💥 ❤️ 🧹

Hi, I’m Ang. 👋

And if you’ve followed my work for a while, you might be thinking:

“Wait… wasn’t there a Sporty?”

Yes. There was. And still is — in life, love, marriage, and general day-to-day partnership. (That’s her in the red t-shirt. 🥰)

What’s changed is this: Live Simply • Age Well is now my solo creator space.

Not because anything went wrong.
Not because of a dramatic breakup or creative fallout.
But because 2026 is the year Sporty and I decided to individuate.

Separate projects. Separate voices. Same values. Same snacks on the couch.

The decision to go our separate ways online came about unexpectedly.

One minute we were all in, then next minute we were all out.

But it feels right.

As in, really right.

So we’re going with it.

Why This Newsletter Exists

I’m an almost 58-year-old Gen Xer who doesn’t buy the idea that midlife is a slow decline into exhaustion, stiffness, and resignation.

I also don’t believe the answer is extreme dieting, punishing workouts, or reinventing yourself (with the help of an image consultant) into someone you barely recognize.

What does work is simpler:

• living with less physical and mental clutter

• building small habits that actually stick

• lowering stress instead of constantly chasing optimization

• aging with intention, strength, and calm

That’s what Live Simply • Age Well is about.

It’s for women 50+ who feel too old for influencers, too young for bingo, and too smart to keep living on autopilot. If you feel like there must be a more grounded way to do this season of life, it’s because there is.

We just need to give ourselves permission to choose it.

The 2026 Focus: Aging Well and Getting Genuinely Fit

I’ve decided to make 2026 the year I become ultra-fit.

As in really fit and fit to run ultra-marathons.

(I’m a long way off, but we all have to start somewhere, right?)

To be clear, I’m not aiming for extreme Instagram “protein-shaker” vibes.

I want to be genuinely strong, aerobically fit, mobile, and metabolically healthy — in a way that supports everyday life and my BHAG to run crazy long distances.

I plan on being a longevity exemplar for this community. Not as a guru, but as a normal midlife woman experimenting in real time with what actually works.

I just know Dad is looking down right now, having a big laugh at the thought of his daughter referring to herself as middle-aged. 😂

That’s why I recently wrote about using a Garmin watch to track my health (and yes, earn free coffee from my health insurer — priorities). That post marked the beginning of a longer experiment in improving fitness, energy, and health, and basically getting my life back on track. (Read: kicking menopause to the curb for good!)

I’ll be sharing the journey here — the progress, the plateaus, and probably more than a few of the human moments in between.

What I’ll Be Writing About

This newsletter sits at the intersection of:

• simple living

• healthy aging and longevity

• habit-building

• nervous system regulation

• downsizing and decluttering

• creating a calmer, stronger everyday life

You can expect posts about:

• small, actionable health habits for women 50+

• simplifying your home and schedule without going extreme

• letting go of stuff — and outdated expectations

• fitness and longevity without any weird biohacking whatnot

• mindset shifts that make midlife feel lighter, not heavier

Who This Is For

Live Simply • Age Well is for you if:

• you’re a woman 50+ who wants to feel calmer, stronger, and more in control

• you’re tired of starting over every Monday (I hear you!)

• you want sustainable habits, not constant self-improvement projects

• you value simplicity, down-to-earth honesty, and progress over perfection

If you appreciate a good walk and a good nap, you’re in the right place.

How Often I’ll Publish

I’ll be posting weekly-ish — sometimes more, sometimes less — depending on life.

Expect a mix of essays, reflections, habit experiments, and practical insights you can actually use. This is a long-game project focused on building a life that feels good to live in, not just good to talk about.

An Invitation

If you want to live more simply, age more intentionally, and build habits that support your health and peace of mind — I’d love to have you here.

Subscribe below to get every post in your inbox.
It’s free, it’s practical, and it comes with zero pressure to overhaul your personality.

Welcome to Live Simply • Age Well. 💛