Family swaps their suburban home for a rural home in Ireland

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One family shared how they traded in their suburban home for a rural one. farm – and now they grow their own food and chop wood for warmth.

Amy Johnson, 34, and her husband Peter, 46, decided to explore a new way of life by following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Exhausted by the rat race, they moved their four children to County Mayo in Ireland and bought a six-acre property for £200,000 (230,000 euros) after selling their previous property. property in Lincolnshire for £275,000.

The Johnson family now tries to live off the land as much as possible by growing fruits and vegetables and drawing water from a well.

They estimate that they are now saving approximately £285 (€327) per month on utility bills and hope to reduce their current grocery store from £430 (€500) per month to just £175 (€200) after harvesting their crops. .

Amy, who was a receptionist but is now a full-time housewife, says the family couldn’t be happier.

“Throughout the pandemic, we re-evaluate our lives,” he explained.

‘We had paid off the mortgage on our first house and realized that we didn’t have as much satisfaction in life or work.

“We looked in Wales but prices had gone up and we saw an opportunity to move to Ireland and thought why not?

‘We fell in love with this one. I packed up, quit work and moved.

Amy and Peter, a self-employed builder, had always longed for more space. They had grown vegetables in their previous small garden, but they wanted something bigger.

They lived in London before moving to Lincolnshire and later traveled to County Mayo.

“I grew up in London and whenever we went out of London on a day trip, I always wanted to live somewhere else,” Amy said.

‘It gives us peace and opportunities that we have never had. We are growing a lot of our food and our children are growing up around animals. I feel more at peace here and more at home.

When they need the essentials, Amy goes to the supermarket, but the family has made an active decision to grow as much as they can.

“We have a vegetable garden, polytunnels, and a greenhouse,” Amy added.

We are looking for over 200 tomato plants, 150 pepper plants, potatoes, sunflowers, corn, kale, cabbages, 100 strawberry plants, fruit trees, apples, cherries, plums.

“I think it will be nice once we have guests that we can offer them a selection of their own fruit and vegetables when they stay.”

‘I’d like to create an off-the-grid experience. We only buy the essentials.

“We make oat milk at home and try to use local butchers for meat, but we don’t eat much.

‘Once we have a good supply of the stuff, I plan to store it, freeze it and dehydrate it. I want to download the purchase invoice. I plan to get into the world of canning soon too.

‘We also have more than 300 strange trees on our land and we dry the hawthorn trees to make tea from them. We also made some dandelion syrup.

Electricity is the only utility Amy and Peter pay for, although they say chopping wood for heating can be quite strenuous.

“When they said heating and electricity bills were going up in the UK, I was really worried before we moved, so we’ve definitely been very lucky that we only pay for electricity now,” Amy said.

“We paid around £150 (€175) a month for electricity and we were paying at least £250 a month before we moved, and that was before the price went up.”

Amy also homeschools her four children – Summa, 14, Oliver, 13, Gracie, nine and Amelie, eight – and says they’ve ‘never had such freedom before’.

She added: ‘I think they love the space and the freedom they have to go play.

They tend to go off and run off with the dog. They return home with stones, flowers and feathers.

‘We have always been much happier with homeschooling children. There is so much information out there and it is definitely more accessible than it was before. I think it’s such a nice way to raise your kids.

Amy and her family are on their way to completing their Irish home, but the land contains a number of other buildings that they hope to renovate and one day turn into an Airbnb.

“We have a two-bedroom cabin to renovate,” he said.

‘The walls need renovation and the bathroom needs renovation. We also want to create good paths and gates because there are many streams.

“We have a hay barn and three separate buildings that we want to convert and all the old buildings are being re-roofed at the moment.”

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