A couple bought a "tatty" static caravan from a scrapyard for £6k to live rent-free - and now save 90 per cent of their wages every month.
Rudi Smith, 27, and his partner, Lauren Smith, 28, found themselves struggling with rent for their £750-a-month home in Leeds - despite both working full time.
They decided to look for an alternative and bought a 25m by 100m plot of land for £8,000 and a second-hand caravan for £6,000. Now, they say they save £13.8k-a-year on rent by living in their caravan.
Rudi Smith, 27, and his partner, Lauren Smith, 28, found themselves struggling with rent for their £750-a-month home in Leeds - despite both working full time.
They decided to look for an alternative and bought a 25m by 100m plot of land for £8,000 and a second-hand caravan for £6,000. Now, they say they save £13.8k-a-year on rent by living in their caravan.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Here are some of your most asked questions about living in a caravan.
00:03So I think first the most asked question we had was where would I find a land?
00:08Now we're fortunate enough that this land was supplied to us by
00:11family. It was disused, it was a mess, we had to tidy it up
00:15but we were lucky enough that that came through. But I think if you're looking
00:18for a patch of land somewhere, these types of lands aren't usually
00:21advertised on the internet. They're usually looked at as just
00:25pointless or unused by the person that owns them and they've never thought to
00:28rent them out. So my suggestion would be word of mouth, put a few posts out on
00:32Facebook, ask family, friends, even go ask farmers because there might
00:35be a corner of their field they're just not using that they'll be willing to
00:38rent out for a small price a month. I think the next question was how do
00:42you power it? Again we were fortunate enough that
00:45there's a power line here that we can tap into
00:48but you could also run the entire thing off solar panels. I have seen that done
00:51and it would supply enough power to run a household.
00:55I think next is do I need planning permission? As far as I know
00:59caravans are classed as temporary structures or non-permanent structures
01:02which can be moved at any time just like a shed
01:05or something else like that. So I'm pretty sure that you don't need planning
01:08permission. Next, how much do they cost? This one
01:12cost us five and a half grand but I have seen them a lot cheaper and also a lot
01:16more expensive. I've even seen them for free if you can
01:18pay for removal or like transport and the transport that we paid for
01:23with a high ab to lift it into the area cost 1500 quid for the day.
01:27Another big question we got asked was why would we live like this when we
01:30could just go rent a house? Why would we put ourselves through the
01:33cold winters? Well for us it's part of a much bigger
01:36plan which is allowing us to save money a lot quicker
01:38and we've just bought a bus which we're converting so we're able to do that
01:42and go on holiday and eat out quite a lot and live a pretty good lifestyle
01:45considering the economy. So yeah if there's any other
01:49questions I haven't cleared up I'll be replying to comments today so just
01:51drop them down below if I've missed anything
01:54and I'll see you in the next vid. This is how we saved £10,000 in under 12
01:58months and reduced our bills by up to 80%.
02:01So for all of our hot water and our cooking this thing only cost us £96
02:05and it lasts four to six months. As for heating the caravan we have to
02:08stock wood and rely on that to keep us warm through the winter. It's a bit of
02:12graft but it's so nice having a fire. As for the kitchen it's not really much
02:16different to any other kitchen it's just slightly smaller and it's something you
02:18get used to. Inside the space we've managed to
02:21cram in a podcast studio where we do all our work from
02:23and the living room is 12 foot by 12 foot so it's still quite a cozy space
02:28and very much livable and we live with a big 25 kilo
02:32Staffordshire so he loves the space. Then we've got our cozy little bedroom
02:37which is quite small but again it just creates this cozy vibe and
02:40especially at night when we've got all the little lights on.
02:43The bathroom as you'd expect not massive but again
02:46nice clean and easy very easy to clean all fiberglass shower
02:51really high water pressure surprisingly like much higher than I had in my last
02:55house so that was always a bonus. But yeah I understand everybody can't
02:59do this you need a space to put it in but if you can do it then I definitely
03:03would. Here are some of the worst things about
03:06living in a caravan. Brutally honest edition.
03:08So the gas is great when it's running but when it does run out it tends to run
03:12out when you're halfway through a shower or you're just about to go out.
03:15When your pipes get clogged you have to be the one to unclog them that means
03:18sifting through and mixing around loads of your own dirty shit water.
03:23Living on a patch of land there is no path to the caravan which means you're
03:26trailing in mud a lot of the time especially during winter and the wetter
03:29months. This can get annoying but usually we
03:31just wait for it to dry and sweep it back out or replace the carpet often.
03:35In the winter when we don't have enough wood we have to use various items to
03:39keep ourselves warm all of which are very expensive to run
03:41electrical wise. During the winter when it's frosty outside
03:45our pipes can freeze that's our water inlet and our water outlet
03:48which means when you go to turn the tap on in the morning we get no water.
03:52Also during the winter months we find it really hard to keep these cupboards
03:55moisture free even with dehumidifiers we've found
03:57mould on our clothes. This video is just focused on the negative sides of living
04:01in a caravan and there are trade-offs for everything
04:03but the upsides for us make it worthwhile and is a stepping stone for
04:06our future.
04:07Uh you live in a caravan? Yes I do.
04:16If you want to know how you could set up something like this and how much it all
04:19costs and what the process is to do it here in England
04:21legally, grey area but legal, then I'll make a follow-up video so just
04:26drop us a follow and I'll show you how to do it in the next video.