Angie & Damo, Now Living Fulltime in a Motorhome!
Hi, we are Angie & Damo, nomadic travellers and living fulltime in a motorhome. We met and decided to buy our motorhome after just 3 weeks. Within 3 months we were living in it. Obviously, we threw caution to the wind a little. But, our story does show you that it really can be done.
We decided to jack in the rat race and create our journey of life rather than living a more conventional lifestyle, going to work to pay the mortgage or rent and our bills, stressed out and not necessarily enjoying our work! So We hatched a plan and now our home is literally where we park it!
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Where Did The Idea of Living Fulltime in a Motorhome Start?
In the earlier days of the covid-19, when people were working from home if they were in office jobs, I asked my boss if I could work in Sicily and work short weeks, ie 2 or 3 days work and 2 or 3 days holiday. I did this for 6 weeks. During the first year of covid, I had had 6 holidays cancelled. From Lebanon to Mauritania and Jordan to France. Everywhere was in varying stages of lock downs. At this point, Italy was coming out of lockdown and UK was going into another one. Travelling was really what I worked for. The kids had left home, I spent all of the lockdowns alone and it had a big impact on me, as it did with many others.Â
I started my journey in the Sicilian capital of Palermo and worked my way all around the coast, stopping here and there, travelling via trains and buses and booking little places along the way. It was at this stage, I rang my sister and said “I’ve spoke to some estate agents, I have put my house on the market, will you go and take photos of it please? I am selling everything and going to buy a van to live in” … and that was the start of it all. Â
So How Come it is Angie & Damo?
Damo and I met on the day after I returned back to the UK. Mid November. And he had his own plans of travelling abroad as a single man. He just said “Can I join you on your adventures?” and I just said ” Yeah, OK then!” and that was that. The birth of Not Quite North. Well – it wasn’t actually, it was the birth of starting to look at vans and motorhomes after about 2 weeks of knowing each other. It must have seemed slightly startling for everyone around us, but we just took the approach of “What’s the worst that can happen?”. After 3 weeks of knowing each other, we had found our motorhome.
What Did You Do to Buy Your Motorhome?
Well, we had to sell a lot of things to raise the cash to buy the motorhome. My house was on the market, but it didn’t sell straightaway. Not only that, I had a massive mortgage, and that was the millstone I wanted to get rid of. Damo lived in a flat in Framlingham, Suffolk so he needed to bide his time as to when he was going to hand his notice in.Â
In the meantime, we found Freddy, our 20 year old Fiat Ducato motorhome really quickly. We were just super lucky I think. It did however mean that we had to find the money to buy him. Our sellers were absolutely lovely and with a deposit down, they held it for us for nearly 3 weeks. That is when we started to scramble to sell things to get the money together. It goes without saying that we had to split the cost between us and find our own little pots of money. By December 23rd, we proudly drove our new to us motorhome out of Ipswich, and into the worst rain storms ever. We spent that night on a roadside cut off by flooding!Â
Should we have left a deposit? Well, obviously we did all the required checks on it first. Has the motorhome got any finance on it? Is the MOT mileage genuine? Was anything about to fall off of it? All those things, and before we made the final payment, we had the AA check it over and a hab check too. I think I would also say, that if you can’t trust your sellers, should you really be buying a massive motorhome from them?Â
How Did You Know You Could Travel and Live Fulltime in a Motorhome?
Well, to be honest, we didn’t. We have learned a HUGE amount about fulltime motorhome life and living in a motorhome. We made mistakes and we learnt from it. But this is how we set about getting things in order to embrace fulltime motorhome life.
- Go through your bank statements and create a spreadsheet on everything that you are spending. Down to the coffee you buy in the office or the park and ride tickets you have to buy once a month.Â
- Categorise all of your outgoings into different categories in a similar way you might normally do if you are good with your budget. If you aren’t very good, you are about to get good!
- First thing is first – if you need to be able to track what you are spending – stop using cash. That is actually not that difficult now as you can pay for everything with card these days, especially since covid. But it is only by paying for EVERYTHING by card that you can start to track everything.
- Now categorise everything. I used everything that related to work (park and ride, coffees, lunches, adhoc lunch time spending etc), household bills (this only included anything that would disappear once I sold my house), everything that was leisure, food etc. Your online bank will probably have report functions that will help you do this.Â
- Now start to work out what can stop now, what would stop if you jacked your job in, what would stop if you sold your house etc. You can really get a feel for what things might feel like for you.
- You can play around with different options. You might not want to sell your house, you might want to keep it. So if you have a mortgage, then you need to think about how you are going to pay it. Maybe you want to rent it?Â
How Did You Save Money?
Don’t forget, that if you live in a house, you will have ALL THAT STUFF TO GET RID OF. And all that stuff means lots of money. It is surprising quite how much. We use Facebook market place to sell lots of our stuff. It is surprising how it all adds up. And now you just need to start saving.
Save, Save, Save or Pay Debt, Pay Debt, Pay Debt! Pay the debt first before you start saving.
- I sold my house, but I kept working for a few months afterwards fulltime, whilst living in the van. This allowed me to take nearly all my monthly salary to pay off debts that I had accumulated. I had to pay the debts off to enable me to quit my job because otherwise I would have debt payments to pay, with no money to pay them!Â
- Now you need to decide what works best for you. Which combination of options so you want to go for?Â
- How you are going to close the gap between where you are now and where you need to be. This can be TOUGH. But only you can decide which trade offs are worth it and which are not.
Now is the time to stop the takeout’s, stop buying ‘stuff’, get off the bandwagon of consumerism that we all seem to live in these days. Every month, go through and re-categorise that months spending and see where you can save more and spend less. Do this EVERY MONTH. You will be staggered at how much money you like fritter and waste. Try reducing the food brands you buy, cook more bulk cooking. Do EVERYTHING you possibly can. Remember, only you know how much you want to do this and how much you want the freedom and joy of travel. Â
How Can You Keep Earning?
At this point in time, it is useful to start thinking about how you are going to earn money on the road – if you need to. I started to do extra study in the evening to get a TEFL course (teaching English as a foreign language) so that I could use that possibly as a back up for money. There was also the potential option of contract work, so I started to look at whether that would be an option for me. I also just saved everything I could to stash away so I had as big a slush fund as possible.Â
Then I just chose a date to quit. Choosing when to quit your job is a bit like starting a family! There never seems to be an ideal time – but you have to take that bold step. Always remember, if push comes to shove, you can just get another one. Â
And then I quit…..Â
And Damo quit his job as a teacher too. I think it was easier for Damo as he didn’t have a house to sell and he also didn’t have debt to pay off. He was also teaching online already due to the pandemic and had that transferrable skill, which would be something that he could use whilst we were living fulltime in a motorhome.Â
Can You Really Live Fulltime in a Motorhome?
Yes, is the short answer. We actually do live fulltime in a motorhome. There is no house waiting in the wings for us, we don’t have a house. We wanted to show people that you can do this. You can live a more nomadic lifestyle. It can be done. If a school teacher and someone who worked in an insurance company can do it, then you can do it too!Â
We aren’t rich. There isn’t a big money pit we can fall back on. We can’t afford a £50,000 motorhome and we don’t have a huge amount of money. Sometimes money (or lack of it) can be a bit stressful. We might have to pick up a job here and there to help us through. What we are also able to do now, is to help others that are interested in travelling and living in a motorhome. We can pass on our hard earned knowledge so that you don’t make the mistakes that we have made!Â
What we genuinely can say now, is that life is one long adventure! It’s not always smooth and it’s not always easy, but it sure as hell is a whole lot more fun, interesting, adventurous and soul soothing than a 9 – 5 in the office working for an insurance company!Â
Live
With so many opportunities and experiences waiting for us, there’s no need to let anything hold us back from living our best lives. Seize every moment. Travel as far and as much as you can.
Van
Living in a van does have its challenges - but follow your passions and dreams, and know that there are no limits to what you can achieve. Take the courage and explore the world around you.
Travel
Experience the foods, savour the flavours, immerse in the culture, meet the locals and learn from them. Yes, you will come across adversity but you can do this. Drop the shackles and constraints that society dictates. Be free.
