Budget Breakdown: In a Pandemic Pivot, a Couple Take Up Carpentry and Build Their Own Home for $35K

Early in the pandemic, Natalia Pronczuk and her partner, Mario Marotta, lost their jobs at Carrasco International Airport in Montevideo, Uruguay. (She worked for Iberia; he for Aerolíneas Argentinas.) The shock led them to make a radical decision: to give up the three-bedroom rental where they lived with their young daughter and build a compact wooden dwelling at the back of Natalia’s mother’s yard.