Latest news with #dreamlife
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Benny Blanco Shares Intimate, Never-Before-Seen Photos of Selena Gomez
As Selena Gomez rang in her 33rd birthday surrounded by her nearest and dearest inner circle, her fiancé Benny Blanco was by her side—and he took a moment after the disco-themed festivities quieted down to share a more private side of the singer. The music producer confirmed he's as smitten with Gomez as ever as he gave fans a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of their 'dream' life together, complete with a subtle roast of his own sleeping beauty's napping habits. 'Our life is a dream… so I'm never waking u up… happy birthday my love,' Blanco wrote in a photo dump shared with his 3 million followers on Tuesday, July 22. In contrast to his emotional caption, he appeared to keep things light with his photos as he shared not one, but five different photos of his wife-to-be sleeping in random places. Selena's "Dreaming of You" fittingly played in the background. In the first image, a blue hoodie-clad Blanco took a selfie in the back of a car while the 'Calm Down' singer dozed against his shoulder and the leather seats. A sleeping Gomez also made another appearance in the second photo, which showed her getting some shut-eye while snuggled up in a pink fuzzy blanket. The star could be seen wrapped in various cozy blankets while napping on the couch in two subsequent photos. The final image showed a makeup-free Gomez wearing a long-sleeved red shirt and clutching a sherpa blanket as she peacefully rested her eyes in bed. The cozy unfiltered scenes were a contrast to the glam, '80s disco-inspired party that Gomez held for her birthday. Celebrating alongside celebrity BFFs like Taylor Swift and Sofia Carson, the Only Murders in the Building actress—who was dressed to the nines in a reflective black Nadine Merabi jumpsuit paired with a multi-watt Brilliant Earth diamond necklace and fuzzy white coat—also shared several sweet photos of her kissing Blanco as well as one of her kneeling on the ground outside while playfully grabbing his legs. Reflecting on her 'incredible journey' over the past year, Gomez called 32 the 'most beautiful year of [her] life' in her emotional caption. Read the original article on InStyle
The Guardian
10-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The life swap dream – or a marketing gimmick? The Italian towns selling houses for €1
If you could move anywhere, where would it be? This used to be a question I'd ask myself or others at dinner parties, but two years ago, as new parents facing the unsustainable costs of Bay Area life and the looming threat of middle-age atrophy, my husband, Ben, and I took to the internet in earnest with the notion of reinventing our lives somewhere new. We were, of course, part of a widespread trend: seeking adventure and greener pastures elsewhere in the era of globalisation. Even so, the notion felt thrilling. Where would we go? Our search had some parameters: affordability, a natural landscape (I dreamed of cicadas, cypress trees), a place with a language we either already spoke or could learn easily enough so that we could contribute to the community. We'd spent our careers working in schools and nonprofits with young immigrants, and, however different it might look in a new country, we had no intention of leaving a life of service behind. Above all, though, what we wanted was an environment in which we could spend a lot of time writing and afford to do it. But Ben had another non-negotiable of his own: proximity to surfing. This annoyed me, as it significantly limited our search, but I supposed it was reasonable enough to design a dream life according to one's actual dreams. 'There's surfing in Sardinia,' he said. We'd heard about the '€1 house' programme in which poor, depopulating towns put their abandoned or unused buildings up for sale. The programme, I soon learned, was actually a loose collection of schemes that economically struggling towns used to lure outside investment and new residents. The campaigns seemed to me to have been largely successful – some towns had sold all their listed properties. I pored over dozens of news articles that had served as €1 house promotion over the years. By attracting international buyers to a house that 'costs less than a cup of coffee', as one piece put it, some of Italy's most remote towns now had new life circulating through them. Many local officials had come to see €1 house experiments as their potential salvation. What was the catch? It seemed most municipalities required you to renovate the house within a couple of years of its purchase, and due to high levels of interest, the houses often went to auction, ultimately selling for much more than a single euro. But what we wondered about were the ethical considerations – the classic tensions of gentrification. What would it mean just to buy our way into a foreign place where we had no connections and try to set up a home there? Still, we kept looking. There is a town in northern Sardinia called Sedini that was, according to Liliana Forina, a woman I got in touch with online, about to launch a €1 house initiative of its own. A stylish woman in her 60s from Milan, she had recently moved to Sedini from the mainland. The town wasn't far from the beach and, judging by the pictures and Forina's descriptions, seemed beautiful. I arranged a meeting with her over Zoom. She appeared on-screen from her office, a Sardinian valley stretching behind her. A few years ago, she explained, she and her new husband began scouring Italy for the perfect place to live. Each weekend, they would visit a new region, feeling out the vibe in remote villages and golden-lit coastal towns speckled with beaches, in each place trying to imagine a life. It was relatively easy to cross options off their list: this town was too expensive; this one too was full of tourists; this one lacked trees. They wanted easy access to basic services such as a hospital, a pharmacy, a police station. They also wanted a view. But above all, they were looking for what Forina called their dolce vita, their sweet life. Eventually, they found it in Sedini, this breezy, hilltop town in northern Sardinia where the bells of several churches rang at noon, and, from a distance, the white-stone houses appeared stacked like antique toys on a rickety shelf. A local estate agent had found them a three-storey house right in the historic town centre with a view of the great green valley below. The house was livable but rather run-down and not to Forina's taste, so the couple got to work renovating it, adding an upstairs terrace, exposing old beams, bringing antique tiles to a new gleam and knocking down walls to allow in more light. Their dream life was indeed becoming a reality. Mostly. As beautiful as their home was, Forina noted early on that many of the other houses in Sedini were in a state of complete dilapidation. This left the otherwise picturesque old-world town with a ghostly quality. The town was stunning, but it needed more people – ideally people from outside Sardinia. She dreamed of more cosmopolitan neighbours, people more like her. Might I be one of them? Depopulation is a primary struggle for many places throughout Italy's interior. Young people, especially, are leaving towns such as Sedini, moving elsewhere for educational opportunities or for work. These historic settlements are littered with buildings that now sit empty. Forina began researching the €1 house scheme and brought the idea to Sedini's town government. The mayor and his staff – all longtime residents whose families had lived there for generations – were easily convinced. That summer, they were going to introduce the idea to the rest of the locals. 'Come visit us in Sedini!' she told me on our call. 'Stay in my home. You will love it here.' If you could move anywhere, where would it be? It's a question that gestures toward a life in some stage of calcification – the could implying constraint, limitations, the presumption that one simply cannot, in fact, up and move. The €1 house programme serves as the doorway for just this sort of yearning for something new. Hate your job? Want to move but can't afford a house? Worried about where you'll retire, or how you'll even manage to retire at all? If you have the right passport and enough money, you can find somewhere else to live. Why not make that place Italy? Last summer, I decided to take Forina up on her offer to visit Sedini and, while I was at it, a host of other depopulating towns throughout Italy, too. My husband and I stuffed an inordinate amount of belongings into a preposterous number of bags and flew with our 11-month-old to Italy for an adventure in pursuit of the possibility of a brand-new life. 'Everyone wants a piece of history,' Giacomo Verrua, an Italian property developer, told me. 'And in Italy, history is everywhere.' Within this cliche, a person can achieve a life's purpose and a sense of belonging through possession. But Italy's cheap real estate is only available to foreigners because, contrary to popular mythology, Italian life isn't pure romance and ease. The country is home to roughly 60 million people, but that figure is predicted to decline by 2 million by 2040 and by at least 4 million by 2050 – one of the steepest depopulation rates in all of Europe. This is due to an ageing population, but it is also a result of lack of opportunity that sees poor and wealthy Italians alike moving in search of better opportunities. In 2023, 9.8% of Italians lived below the poverty line, up from 6.9% in 2014. In Sardinia, roughly 20% of people live in poverty. The country's birthrate has hit all-time lows, and nearly 30% of its homes are unoccupied. Small Italian towns are experimenting with all sorts of financial incentives – tax breaks, even cash handouts – to bring Italians back to the countryside. In 2022, Sardinia offered a €15,000 bonus, with some strings attached, for moving to the island. Other places are experimenting with similar incentives. Tulsa, Oklahoma, offers a $10,000 relocation grant to remote workers as well a membership at a downtown coworking space. Across Japan, abandoned homes sell for zero dollars. There are special visas for UK and other non-EU citizens seeking to relocate to Spain; all they need to show is a certain amount of money in their bank account to qualify. Greece offers a 'golden visa' to anyone who can invest at least €250,000 in a Greek property. But no such initiative has quite captured the public imagination as the €1 house scheme. 'It's a PR campaign,' said Maurizio Berti, who runs a website dedicated to tracking and promoting various €1 house towns. And it's a wildly successful one at that. The €1 house project seems to have been the brainchild of Vittorio Sgarbi, the Italian art critic and TV personality turned mayor of the small, rapidly depopulating town of Salemi, Sicily. On being elected in 2008, he began wondering whether he could draw investment into Salemi by offering up its empty, falling-toward-ruin buildings to foreigners for a token fee. Outsiders scrambled to snatch up the dirt-cheap properties, demand for local construction boomed and Salemi's emptied houses were once again filled. Seeing this success, other Italian municipalities began devising their own €1 house plans. According to there are now 73 towns that have launched or are in the process of adopting a version of the model. Each town organises the operation slightly differently: some oversee the property sales directly, while others merely connect interested buyers to sellers and hype the event to the press. But the key is that the town can place conditions on the sales. Generally, buyers are required to fix the houses up within a certain amount of time (and will often have to rely on local architects and artisans). Some towns also require buyers to maintain full-time residence, or to open a business. Advocates of the scheme insist that everyone stands to win: the town benefits economically with an increased tax base, more people to patronise local businesses and a local building boom, while buyers gain the home – and the life – of their dreams. But its detractors worry that these flash sales risk turning these endangered Italian towns into mere curiosities, packing them with foreigners so that the culture all but disappears. The philosophical conundrum of these ageing, depopulating towns is this: open a place up to newcomers and risk eroding its essential nature, or allow it to wither away and die? Seen one way, the story of every place on Earth is that of migration and change. Between 1880 and 1924, somemore than 4 million Italians migrated to the United States. Meanwhile, in the past decade, about 900,000 refugees have found their way to Italy – from Syria, Afghanistan, Mali, Eritrea, Guinea, Pakistan and dozens of other countries. The Italian government is working hard to seal up its borders to keep these migrants out, while municipalities invite the €1 house gawkers. The €1 house scheme represents a new era of migration. A product of late capitalism, it seeks to fill the gaps left in one place with willing, resourced travellers from another – those with some money in the bank, stable passports and thus with other options. People, in other words, like me. On the first leg of our trip, we'd arranged to join Ben's dad, stepmother and numerous members of his extended Italian American family in Tuscany. They'd rented a magnificent 13th century, two-storey stone villa that overlooked fields of sorghum and sunflowers. This place was, it occurred to me, tailor-made for the wistful outsider, possessing enough of the quintessential Italian iconography (draping vines, sweeping views from shuttered windows, stone floors) and the new: an open floor plan, air conditioning and palatial private bathrooms off most bedrooms. The villa was managed by Yulia, a Ukrainian émigré in her 30s. One afternoon, she came over to help us with the air conditioning and brought her one-year-old, who joined my baby in crawling around the living-room floor. 'How much does childcare cost in California?' she asked. '$2,300 dollars a month,' I told her, shocking myself as I said the words. Yulia gasped. She had a daughter a few months older than ours and had been lamenting the Italian price tag of around €300 a month. Considering that our childcare cost more than we spent on housing, it was all too obvious to wonder yet again – what the fuck were we doing with our lives? House prices have soared in recent decades and rents continue to rise, and all the while more and more people have jobs that allow them to work from anywhere with an internet connection. 'If you find the right place, we'd go in on it with you,' Ben's uncle Aldo said. Our rental villa was just an hour and a half from the Tuscan town of Montieri, a hilltop settlement dating back to pre-Roman times that had been one of the first to adopt a €1 house model back in 2016. I left the family one day to visit the town, winding through fields of sunflowers and climbing a few thousand feet in elevation through cooling stands of forest. Montieri's young mayor, Nicola Verruzzi, took me on a walking tour of the town, with its streets and narrow stone passages, which were almost entirely empty of people. 'The heat,' he said with a shrug. Montieri had been a mining town since its founding around the year 1000 – silver and copper, then pyrite and lead. But when the last mine closed in the 1990s, the town was flung into a cycle of depopulation and abandonment. In the 1960s, Verruzzi said, roughly 4,000 people lived here. In the two decades after the mines closed, Montieri lost 3,000. Houses in the main squares were empty and falling to ruin, and businesses were on the brink of closure. In 2014, Verruzzi announced his plan to sell its abandoned houses for €1. It was just a whim, he told me. Unlike Sardinia and many of Italy's poorer regions, Tuscany already loomed large in the foreign imagination. The municipality's inboxes were quickly crammed with interested buyers from all around the world. In some ways, Montieri was the ideal candidate for the €1 house experiment. The town had already been hard at work updating its energy and heating infrastructure and laying fibre internet cable. And Tuscany is already a tourist destination, particularly for cyclists, mountain bikers and hikers. Still, the success of its €1 house scheme was remarkable. Verruzzi estimates that 30 new businesses have opened in this small town as a result of the initiative. On our tour, I was fascinated to see just how many buildings in the dead-centre of town had been renovated by foreigners in the past few years. 'This house was an old prison,' he told me, pointing to a narrow two-storey that had sold for €80,000, its original stone covered in places by new stucco punctured by large, modern windows. Since the launch, some 70 houses have sold. Many of them are used as vacation homes, but they were no longer empty and falling into ruin. New electrician businesses have opened to service the renovators, there are new restaurants and bars, and tourism revenue is up. Admittedly, much of the evidence for the success of the €1 house programme more broadly remains anecdotal, and most of it comes from town leaders themselves. But what little data does exist suggests the initiatives' remarkable economic promise. Since announcing a €1 house campaign in 2017, the 10,000-strong town of Mussomeli, Sicily, for instance, has seen more than 125 houses sold. The mayor's office calculated that this brought €7m to the local economy, including builders, tradespeople, restaurants and hotels. The economic boom wasn't just a result of the house sales: it estimated that roughly 6,000 people visited Mussomeli just to look at houses in 2018 and 2019, bringing income to local restaurants and hotels. In Montieri, Verruzzi put me in touch with Paolo, a Tuscan architect who married a Canadian woman; the two of them now comprise the in-demand design team of Montieri's new, foreign class. Though enchanted by the notional history of the place they are buying, many buyers have a poor historical sense of just what it is they've bought, Paolo said. He and his wife told me, with a smile and a slight eye-roll, that American visitors 'are always looking for frescoes'. The trickiest part about the €1 house scheme for buyers, Paolo explained, is that it is a gamble: inspections on old homes such as this can only glean so much information, making it hard to know what, in truth, you're buying and how much work it will need. That's also part of the fun. He recalled that one house in Montieri took years to sell because a menacing crack ran down a central wall. Perhaps the whole building would need retrofitting – or to be built anew. When it finally sold, the buyers hired Paolo, whose team carefully removed the plaster on the damaged wall only to find a beautiful stone chimney behind it. This was what had caused the plaster to buckle. What had seemed like a liability was in fact a stunning relic of the old house. We spent the week sprawled like lizards in Tuscany, enjoying the quiet and the natural light and availing ourselves of the free local childcare (the grandparents). Then early one morning, Ben, the baby and I got in the car and drove to the ferry, which delivered us to the eastern side of Sardinia, where we went looking for a beach with surfable waves. We headed westward, crossing through the mountains and the town of Montresta, which has also jumped on the €1 house bandwagon. It was settled in the 18th century by Greeks fleeing the Ottoman empire. Now, the place and its people were weighing whether to usher in the next wave of people from far away. It was hot and empty, like Montieri had been, and all its businesses were closed. We didn't see a soul. It was hard to picture living there for practical reasons. We'd spent over a week straight enjoying the help of grandparents in looking after our baby. If we moved here – even if surrounded by people – we'd be, at first anyway, all on our own. Was that the life we wanted? A person can buy a house, in other words, but home is something that seems to require more than money: the currency of relationships and time. The next day, I was due in Sedini, where I'd meet Forina and attend the launch event for the town's €1 house initiative. I arrived just as the evening's setup was beginning. 'We're a town of old people,' Sebastiano Finá, one of Sedini's town councillors, told me with a shrug as he dragged chairs into a large meeting room in the centre of town. A lean, handsome man in his 60s, Finá was sporting shorts and a tan and had just stubbed out a cigarette in the entryway. In just a few short hours, the hall would be full of townspeople for the formal announcement of the new housing plan that Forina had helped to draft, hoping to convince the owners of Sedini's old, abandoned houses. Some had moved away. Others lived nearby and simply couldn't afford – or didn't want to bother with – the upkeep. And some of the homes were shared by so many descendants of the original owners that they hadn't figured how to split the costs of the renovations or make a cogent decision about the building's future. Under the new proposal, the town authorities would create the necessary tax structures and offer tax incentives to both buyers and sellers, in addition to channelling interested parties directly to the Sedini residents selling their old tumbledowns. This was part of a larger initiative called 'Sedini per la rinascita' (Sedini for Rebirth). While Finá finished unstacking chairs, Forina stood at the front of the room, clad in a chic purple pantsuit and fiddling with a projector. 'How do I make this connect?' she groaned with frustration. 'A town of old people!' Finá repeated, pointing to Forina with a laugh. 'This is why we need this programme!' We still had some time before the event began, so Forina offered to show me around town. Southern Europe was in the midst of a heatwave. It was about 38C (100F) in Sedini, the air so thick that it was unpleasant to breathe. The asphalt and centuries-old stone emitted a heat haze that made everything appear warped, as if viewed through smudged glass. It wasn't precisely the paradise I had pictured for myself, because, I realised once I'd arrived in Sedini, I wasn't actually all that interested in living in the centre of a town but more in the remote ramble of the countryside – which wasn't what the €1 house programme was generally selling. But, susceptible to the call of cheap real estate and the yearning for a full reinvention of self and life, I had at that very moment been wondering what exactly it was selling. By six, we were back at the meeting hall where people were taking their seats. Some 40-odd people had turned out – not a bad showing given the heat. Much to my discomfort, I was seated at the front facing the crowd, along with Forina; Salvatore Carta, the gravel-voiced mayor; and Angela Fresi, the town's buoyant deputy mayor, dressed in a fitted pantsuit of bright green. 'Welcome,' Carta bid the crowd in Italian. Not to worry, he assured the audience: the '€1 euro' price was just a starting point. Sellers could list for much as they wanted. 'The municipality is only the facilitator of the sale,' he said. It would be the job of the mayor's office to attract buyers. When it was Forina's turn to speak, she implored the crowd and the owners of an abandoned or uninhabited house to 'understand the importance of handing it over to those who can and want to renovate and live in it. Otherwise, there will be double damage: the owner will end up with a pile of broken bricks of no value and the degradation of the village will be progressive and irreversible.' A Dutch couple who were renovating their recently bought Sedini home took the stage. The husband, a white-haired gentleman with a slight swagger, spoke at length in decent Italian about his fondness for the town. His wife, a trim woman with short auburn hair, apologised for her lack of Italian. 'Thank you for the warm welcome to your country and to your town,' she said. 'I find this place very authentic. I feel the future here.' After a pause, she added, 'And I see the future here for us.' 'A country,' writes Paolo Pileri, an Italian professor of urban design and an outspoken critic of the €1 house model, 'is a complex artefact of architecture, streets, alleys and houses, combined with a web of relationships, experiences and interrelated social practices, and it therefore cannot be reduced to a mere confused sum of houses.' And yet houses are what are for sale. The worry is that, as with all forms of gentrification, a sudden influx of moneyed outsiders will change the culture of a place – erode its customs, turn its values on their head, change its fundamental essence. Fresi, Sedini's deputy mayor, had spoken to me at length about the food festival the town held each autumn, in which families opened up their wine cellars, and farmers their barns and living rooms, so that people could share their harvests with one another. This was a point of pride for the locals and a matter of community connection. It also was a lure for buyers. Such events wouldn't vanish with the mere presence of outsiders, but the detractors of the €1 house scheme seemed to fear that such events would become less of a genuine cultural tradition and more of a show – these towns becoming Disneyfied villages to be fetishised, even by their inhabitants. Marco Pizzi, a sociologist who has conducted extensive research into the impacts of the €1 house campaigns in Umbria, told me that though he was sceptical when he began his research, he's come to see the programme as an innovative local approach to economic redevelopment. The foreign investment may, in fact, be what allows some of these towns to survive – and the very fact of their survival would allow their traditions to continue. Almost everyone I spoke with in Italy with first-hand experience of €1 house initiatives agreed: these schemes were a form of revival and had drawn people from abroad who were curious to learn about and participate in local ways of life. I spoke to Jennifer Fortune, a veterinarian from the Florida panhandle who started researching Italian real estate during a 2022 family vacation. She'd heard of the €1 house scheme, but soon figured out that there were lots of cheap houses for sale all over Italy that lacked some of the €1 house competition and red tape. On the real-estate site she found a handsome three-storey house not far from where she was staying in northern Italy. After failing to reach the real-estate agent, she snuck inside to take a look. The place was even more enchanting than she'd imagined. A stone house with brick ceilings and tiled floors, overlooking the Alps and a hazelnut grove, it was, she said, the stuff of dreams. The property was in rough shape and would need a lot of work, but she was undeterred. In fact, the work seemed like fun. She hired Italian property lawyers to help sort out the purchase. But even with their help, the process involved seemingly endless paperwork. And then came the renovations. It could feel like a full-time job, she told me – not just because of all the choices one has to make for such a big project, but due to the bureaucratic logjams. It didn't help that she doesn't speak Italian. 'But I am really friendly,' she told me, 'and I laugh a lot. And I have a credit card – that helps, too.' Purchasing a property in Italy, in other words, is not for the faint of heart. This seems to be baked into the €1 house model: the barriers to a foreigner buying property in Italy ensure that only the most committed buyers make it to the finish line – those who really want to make a life in the town and have the funds to do it. Some €1 house municipalities are now so crammed with foreigners that one wonders what – beyond historical curiosity – the original town still has, or will soon become. The Sicilian town of Sambuca di Sicilia, as CNN reports, has been so successful in luring €1 housers that it's now considered the Sicilian 'Little America'. It's not clear whether Italian residents of the region mind. Pileri's argument against the €1 house model makes perfect sense to me when levelled against moneyed outsiders, but it also verges on the kind of nativism that seeks to keep refugees and poor immigrants out of Italy. What is an 'original' place, anyway, when every place is the product of migration upon migration, change after change? And is a town really better off if half emptied? What of Sedini's dreams of rebirth? Now, nearly two years later, Forina says only a handful of Sedini residents have committed to selling their homes in the historic centre of town – some for the token €1 price, and others for a starting price of closer to €5,000. She remains somewhat at the helm. She has teamed up with Maurizio Berti and a tourist outfit to offer a 'grand tour' of the area this coming summer in hopes of attracting international buyers and, for the tour operator and Berti, of perhaps making some money along the way. I asked Fresi, the mayor, why she thought so few had yet signed over their houses to sell. She wasn't sure. She admitted there was already a 'lack of trust' between the town's longtime residents and the few newcomers who had recently moved into town. All this effort to sell their town to outsiders, and so quickly, felt suspicious to some. Yes, they wanted the town to survive. But many liked things how they were. One of the fundamental purposes of the €1 house programme, according to Sedini's official guidelines, 'is the revitalisation of the historic part of the town, restoring it to its historic function of the driving force of life, culture and activity'. A town needs people, Fresi and the rest of the town leaders knew. It needs patrons of its restaurants and bars and grocers; it needs people to tend its streets and take away its garbage; it needs people to help make its decisions, build its houses, teach its children, care for its elders and dress its people's wounds. It needs people to have its children and bury its dead. The question, really, is who these people will be. By the time we got back home to California from our own grand tour, we weren't so sure any longer about the Sardinia plan. It was far; it was hot; living all by ourselves in the countryside with a small baby might be a really excellent way to lose our minds. But while en route home, I'd received an email from a couple who were trying to attract buyers to a small hamlet called Bozzolo in the northern region of Liguria. The email was over the top in its evocation of paradise, but it had an effect. Had we given up too quickly? Maybe there was a dream place for us in Italy and we just hadn't found it yet. Or maybe what we needed to be happy was not to defect from our lives, but hold the possibility of defection forever in our back pocket, taking it out and turning it over in our hands from time to time, because doing so revealed that the life we already had was actually, blessedly, pretty damn good. I often recall a bike trip we took one afternoon from our Tuscan villa, arriving, sweating and panting, at the top of a hill where a house, boarded up and overgrown with scrub brush, sat quietly in the sweltering heat. One window remained open, and an old curtain, just a scrap of cloth, now, billowed with breeze – a suggestion of life. Every now and then, convincing myself it's just for research, I'll poke around on the internet to see if it's for sale. This is an edited version of a story that first appeared in VQR Listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.
Forbes
10-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How To Build Your Dream Life With AI
How to build your dream life with AI Living your dream life is more possible than ever before. You can be anyone you want to be, live wherever you want, set up the career that uses your superpowers and spend your time doing work that fills you up and hobbies you enjoy. The robots can handle the rest. Award-winning entrepreneur Ngozi Elobuike knows this firsthand. The global AI strategist and founder transformed a moment of rock bottom (sleeping on her sister's couch) into a multi-country venture powered by AI. Now living across three countries (U.S., Ireland, and France) and pursuing her third master's degree, Ngozi has built Ireland's first black-led wine club, launched two premium beverage products, written an AI-powered travel book, and taught over 500 creatives how to use AI to unlock their potential. In her recent TEDx talk, that has already had over 200,000 views, Ngozi explains how to use today's tools to create a better tomorrow. Most people stay stuck in lives they don't love because they think transformation takes years. They believe dream lives belong to other people. The lucky ones with connections, money, or special talents. But AI has demolished those barriers. When you give repetitive tasks to technology, you create space for what matters. Time to explore. Time to build. Time to become who you're meant to be. I sold my social media agency in 2021 and used AI to build my next business. I learned to delegate everything that wasn't uniquely human to AI. I focus on doing the work I love: writing for Forbes, competing internationally in powerlifting, and living as a digital nomad across 35 cities. The tools exist. The opportunity is here. You just need to start using them strategically instead of playing around. Stop treating ChatGPT like a toy and start building systems that free your time and amplify your strengths. "What does a scientist do? They think about life as an experiment," says Elobuike. "You have dependent variables and you have independent variables. You have things that you can control in your settings." She calls AI an independent variable with the power to transform outcomes. "It actually has the ability to act as an enzyme. It has the ability to lower the activation energy needed to complete a task." Start by auditing where your time actually goes. Track your days for a week. Note what drains you versus what energizes you. Identify the repetitive tasks eating your hours. Those are your first targets for AI automation. Use tools like Claude for writing, Zapier for workflows, or Perplexity for research. Each task you delegate creates space for activities that require your unique perspective and creativity. Most people use AI for basic tasks when they could be accessing wisdom. "In the absence of an advisory board that has the ability to advise you on your business or the next step, how does AI slot in?" Elobuike asks. "Instead of asking your friend who may be a naysayer, 'hey, I'm thinking about starting this new idea venture', consider asking AI." Create specialized AI advisors for different areas of your dream life. One for business strategy. Another for creative projects. A third for personal development. Give each specific context about your goals and challenges. "Prompt ChatGPT and say, I have an idea for X. Give me advice as if you were Oprah," suggests Elobuike. "This allows you to gain insight on things that you typically wouldn't have access to." Most people never start because they think they need the perfect plan. But Elobuike advocates thinking like a consultant: "What consulting teaches you is to think about life as an experiment, but to think along the lines of ROI, return on investment, MVP, minimally viable product, and USP, unique selling point." You don't need to quit your job tomorrow. Start with micro-experiments. Want to write? Use AI to help you publish one article. Dream of starting a business? Let AI help you validate your idea with market research. "If you want to test whether or not your audience will be interested in a new wine that you're presenting to them, the first step is not to create a wine," Elobuike explains. "The first step is to make a product mockup to see if the design that you've envisioned is something that your audience has an appetite for." The numbers tell an interesting story. Around 32% of adults believe AI will benefit them, with younger adults and degree holders leading the optimism. Meanwhile, 36% remain sceptical, particularly women and older adults. This gap creates opportunity. While others debate whether AI is good or bad, you can be building. Their hesitation is your head start. Use AI to maximize your natural talents while sceptics argue about hypotheticals. By the time they catch up, you'll have built the life they're still dreaming about. "Growth hacking is what startup entrepreneurs created as a term back in 2010," notes Elobuike. "What is growth hacking? Imagine if you got not 1% better every day, but 10% better every day." You don't do this by becoming a robot. You do this by making intentional improvement in areas that matter to you. Pick one aspect of your dream life. Maybe it's your morning routine, your creative output, or your business systems. Use AI to analyze what's working and what isn't. Test variations. Track results. "If you think about a system of continuous improvement, you thoroughly analyze each step in your user journey and think about how they can gain greater access to your product or service," Elobuike explains. Apply this thinking to your own life journey. "Sparring is training," Elobuike reminds us. "You will not cut your teeth in your bedroom with your idea on a piece of paper, refusing to take action on it." The dream life you want won't build itself. But with AI as your partner, you can move faster than ever before. Start today. Open ChatGPT and describe your dream life in detail. Ask it to help you identify the first three steps. Use AI to research, plan, and execute. Let it handle the mundane so you can focus on what makes you irreplaceable. Your dream life isn't a fantasy. It's a project waiting for you to begin. Get my best ChatGPT prompts to change your life.
The Sun
02-06-2025
- Business
- The Sun
We swapped our UK home for an exotic beach where rent is just £166 a month, but paradise ripped my marriage apart
A COUPLE who swapped their life in the UK to live out their dream life, paying just £166 a month to live a stone's throw from the beach, have split up. Matt Dearing, 38, and his partner Carlie Donnelley, 37, left Manchester for Bali so their family could be " financially free". 5 5 But two years on, the pair, who also moved their three children – Lincoln, Delilah, and Adelaide – across the world with them, have split. As well as adding adventure to their kids' lives, the relocation was intended to bolster their bank balance after growing tired of ' living to work ' and spending cash on soaring bills. The family sold their three-bedroom home in Denton for £365,000 to 'escape the rat race' in favour of life on the idyllic Indonesian island. They exchanged it for a similar-sized home on the island that cost just £2,000 to rent for the whole year. Whilst living overseas, the couple planned to start their own construction firm, called Serenity Living Bali, and intended to build their own luxurious villa, as well as a number of two, four, and five-bedroom properties to sell or rent out. However, according to the Mail Online, the couple, who had been together for 15 years, have now split. Carlie, who has 11,000 TikTok followers, explained that things 'did not go to plan' but she is now 'trying to navigate this new life, on the other side of the world, on my own.' Despite 'living in paradise,' the single mum revealed that she is going through 'a really bad time' but doesn't have any regrets. Carlie said she would still recommend Bali to other Brits as 'the people are amazing' and they are 'striving to be their best selves and it's definitely a more positive way of life.' I ditched my retail job in the UK for island paradise…rent is just £225, dinner costs £2 & our poolside office has a spa She also mentioned that the kids are happy, but it is just Carlie, who continues to co-parent with Matt, finding the breakup hard. Carlie did not reveal details about the split, but both parents are remaining in Bali and are trying to continue to make a ' better life ' for their children. The mum has also deleted her former Instagram account, which was filled with pictures of her and Matt. Instead, she has a new account showcasing 'Bali living' and her life as a mum-of-three in her 'beach gal era.' Family thoughts The couple had bought one-way tickets to the country in November 2022, despite relatives thinking they were 'mad'. Matt – who claimed he sometimes worked ten hours a day, seven days a week in the UK – says his family had "struck gold" in Bali. Speaking previously, and prior to the split, Matt, who previously owned five houses in Manchester, said: "The return on your investment here is amazing. We sold the house we were living in [in the UK] for £365,000. "With that money, we were able to buy a 1,200 square foot plot of land to build two four or five-bedroom villas on. 5 5 "We have struck gold – this is everything we want. "For us, being financially free is literally freedom to do whatever we want with the kids, compared to working 10 hours, seven days a week sometimes. "I have always dreamed of dropping the kids off at school and picking them up – I can do that here. "The people here are lovely and show a lot of gratitude – it ticked all the right boxes." Signs your relationship is heading for a divorce Persistent Communication Breakdowns Constant misunderstandings, arguments, or a complete lack of meaningful conversation can signal deep-seated issues. Emotional Distance Feeling like roommates rather than partners, with a noticeable lack of intimacy or emotional connection. Frequent Criticism and Contempt Regularly criticising each other and showing contempt, such as sarcasm, eye-rolling, or mocking, can erode the relationship's foundation. Unresolved Conflicts Recurrent arguments about the same issues without any resolution can indicate deeper incompatibilities. Loss of Trust Trust is crucial in any relationship. If it's been broken and cannot be rebuilt, it may be a sign that the relationship is in trouble. Different Life Goals Significant differences in future aspirations, such as career goals, lifestyle choices, or family planning, can create insurmountable divides. Avoidance Preferring to spend time apart rather than together, whether through work, hobbies, or social activities, can indicate a desire to escape the relationship. Lack of Support Feeling unsupported, whether emotionally, financially, or practically, can lead to feelings of isolation and resentment. Financial Disagreements Constantly arguing about money, spending habits, or financial priorities can strain the relationship. Infidelity Whether physical or emotional, infidelity can be a major breach of trust and a sign of deeper issues in the relationship. Changes in Affection A noticeable decrease in affection, physical touch, or romantic gestures can indicate a loss of connection.
The Sun
12-05-2025
- The Sun
I ditched my waitress job to move to a paradise European island – rent is £250 & a cold beer only £2
A WOMAN has revealed why she ditched the UK to live her dream life on an idyllic island without worrying about bills or rent – but is now forced to make her tea in a saucepan. Olivia Mamode grew up in London but after finishing her studies, started growing sick of the cold British climate, and rising housing and living costs. 13 13 13 Fed up with not being able to enjoy her money, the 24-year-old, who worked as a waitress, gave up her old life and jetted off to Menorca with nothing but a suitcase and a dream to become an English teacher. Since moving, she says her quality of life has improved substantially. 'After a long visa process, I headed to Spain with about 25kg of personal belongings packed into a suitcase and hand luggage,' she told Luxury Travel Daily. 'I had no clear idea or plans about where I would be living but [figured I would] wing it when I got there. 'It felt extremely liberating to pack up and start a new chapter in a new, foreign place. 'At times, the moving process has been overwhelming – the Spanish bureaucracy is definitely not for the weak. 'But it has always felt worth it, since my lifestyle here is incomparable to anything I have experienced in the UK.' After hopping around a few hostels, Olivia soon found a flat with a Spanish woman. Her current rent is just over £255pcm – compared to her previous £1,000pcm room in London. Olivia, who is fluent in Spanish, has also joined a teaching programme to help locals learn English. She said: 'I feel absolutely settled and comfortable in Spain, it feels like home. 'Once I got into the swing of things and got accustomed to the process of 'building my life' here, everything started to fall into place. 'I don't feel like I'm breaking the bank anymore if I go out for a breakfast or drinks, since a beer here is usually less than €3 (£2.55) and a coffee is around €1.50 (£1.28). Low cost 'On top of that, I have very few other expenses since public transportation is free for residents in Menorca and I get everywhere either by foot or by bus. 'Also, my hobbies are very low cost, usually free in fact – like hiking and exploring beaches. 'I find that having fun here is usually inexpensive. 'I wake up every morning excited to get out of bed and take advantage of the day. 'I think that sums up how I feel about my life here.' 13 13 13 While most of her experiences so far have been positive, the young woman has been forced to make some adjustments – such as to her daily cuppa. She said: 'I now make my tea in the microwave or in a saucepan! 'None of the apartments I have seen or lived in come with a kettle here. '[Also], despite them [men] being known as 'princesos' [princesses] I have met a lot of lovely men here who I have loved spending time with. 'However unfortunately since my future plans are not clear, I have always been hesitant to commit seriously to another person. 'I love dating here, because the dates usually involve the beach, chill drinks, or a hike, all of which I am a big fan of. I find that having fun here is usually inexpensive Olivia Mamode 'Something spontaneous happens almost every weekend. 'The most unique one [experience] would probably be meeting a Portuguese Naval squadron who had been patrolling the Mediterranean for a few months by submarine. 'He offered me a guided tour of the sub the next day. 'We then had a great night partying together!' For now, Olivia is living life in the moment and is happy in Menorca, but there is no telling what the future holds. She said: 'I was drawn to the islands because of their stunning natural beauty and, of course, the proximity to so many beaches. 'Living here has given me an insight into the standard of living that I would like to uphold, and changed my outlook on the way life can be lived.' 13 13 13 13
