Eva Juozaitiene and her husband Mantas swapped London‘s commuter belt for Lithuania
(Picture: Handout)In February 2020, Eva Juozaitiene and her husband Mantas folded a blank piece of paper in half and wrote a list. On one side were reasons to stay in the UK. On the other were reasons to move to Lithuania, where they were both from. At the top of the second column, they put: “Having time to spend with the kids” and “living mortgage-free”.
By November that year, Eva and Mantas had left their jobs, sold their comfortable semi-detached house in Swanley, Kent, and moved in with Mantas’ parents in Rietavas, Lithuania, while they built a new, self-sufficient home for their family.
Eva and Mantas had moved to the commuter belt in 2006, living on London’s borders for 15 years. Mantas is a builder, while Eva worked as a hospitality manager at a Central London casino. They have a daughter, now eight, and Eva gave birth to their son last year.
“Having a kid in London – it’s tough. I was working nights, sleeping for three hours, taking her to school, getting ready for work and then going for my night shift again with a couple of hours’ sleep. It was a nightmare,” says Eva.
“I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, my daughter was six. I hadn’t even seen her. I was constantly at work. It was time to change something – earning money is like a drug which keeps you away from your dreams. I said no – I want to be mortgage free, I want to have my own business and, by 35, I don’t want to work for someone else.”
After coming back to Lithuania in February 2020, therefore, Eva and Mantas decided to pursue the dream that they had slowly been forming: to live self-sufficiently in the countryside in Lithuania, and to enjoy a slower pace of life.
In fact, they already had a starting point. the couple had purchased a 100-year-old farm in 2016, after a regular passenger on the bus that Eva’s father drove mentioned that he was looking for a buyer. Eva wasn’t initially interested, but agreed to accompany her father to visit the land, located in the forest near the village of Tverai, close to the Baltic Sea.
“When I went there, when I saw the colour of the pond, I was like: ‘I want it.’ That’s it – it was a minute’s decision. I could see the future there.”
Still, the property was falling apart. It needed to be underpinned, required a new roof, and there was no running water or toilets. Mantas decided to take on the job of restoring it, with construction beginning in November 2021 and expected to finish by the end of June.
Although the house is connected to an electricity supply, Eva says that it only provides enough to light the house. Therefore, they have installed solar panels, which will be the property’s main source of energy.
As winter temperatures regularly drop below -25 degrees, they’ve also added a wood burner and gas-powered underfloor heating. Without being connected to a gas supply, Eva and Mantas will buy the gas from the city and transport it to the house themselves.
Despite their dream of living self-sufficiently, neither Eva nor Mantas has done it before. “It’s tough. We have to learn a lot,” says Eva. “With everything we dream of, we’re green.”
Now, finally, the house is almost complete. Mantas has preserved the buildling’s original wooden beams, built an attic, tiled the bathrooms. The house, which has a rustic interior design, has a floor area of 160 square metres, accompanied by six acres of land. The master bedroom alone is 80 square metres.
Eva and Mantas have also installed a freestanding bath, which looks out of a four-metre-long window into the surrounding forest. They’ll add a jacuzzi to their patio, which encircles half the house.
“That’s what you don’t get in London – size. Our property was 127 square metres –it was quite big– but here, outside, it’s huge,” says Eva. “Living in London – so many people, running, running, running. Coming to the middle of a forest, there’s no one apart from wild animals. That’s why I wanted to stay.”
In total, they have spent €64,000 on the land and construction of their new home, with Mantas completing most of the labour himself.
Overall, Eva and Mantas’ living costs are set to be considerably lower than in London. Relying primarily on solar energy, Eva estimates that they’ll pay just €15 a month for electricity, compared to the UK average of £164 per month, according to Ofgem figures. Childcare, meanwhile, will reduce to around €45 a month, compared to £65 a day in London, says Eva.
The family plan to grow their own vegetables in greenhouses and raise chickens. “That’s another thing – you buy tomatoes in London, but they have no taste. It’s like water. It’s nothing compared to the smell and taste over here when you’re growing your own. That’s what I wanted for my kids,” says Eva.
Eva is opening a sushi and Thai restaurant in Rietavas in September, and the couple intend to construct other buildings on their land for use as Airbnb rentals.
“I do miss London – I loved it and it was like my home,” says Eva. “But [I was] constantly looking at my watch – constantly looking at the time. You’re running, running, running. Non-stop.”
She adds: “It’s a completely different feeling. We have a freedom here and all our plans are coming together. It took a while, but now it’s becoming a reality.”
