Time as we all know is the most precious commodity we have. For us we found ourselves lacking in any time to just unwind and relax, sure we would have each evening to ourselves and weekends but it was always jaded by knowing how limited it was. Nothing felt in balance and I personally found myself wishing my life away, yearning for retirement when we would have more of our time to ourselves to just do simple things life grow vegetables, go for walks and see the world. Of course we did get to do these things but there was just no balance and we often felt that working until we was 68 to enjoy a very small amount of time at the end of our lives was just not how our experiences of being alive should be.

I was very mindful that I may not even be in a position from a physical perspective, to be able to enjoy life and travel when we did get to our "Golden Years". Dan worked a lot with people who were retired and he was all too aware from the stories his colleagues would tell him that, although we often think we can enjoy retirement in later life it very often does not happen this way. By the time we get to a place where we have the time to enjoy life, our bodies and minds are often too tired to enjoy what we worked so hard to achieve

Reason 2: Improved Physical and Mental Health

Dan always found time even when working to get out and exercise but even then he felt it was not nearly enough. The daily dredge of travelling by train to work and all the daily challenges of the job, often left him feeling tense and stressed out at the and of each day so he would often be left feeling mentally exhausted.

Dan did and still does find busy spaces extremely anxiety provoking, which in much of our life was unavoidable. My physical health was not great and my job was very much tied to sitting at a desk which led to neck and shoulder pain daily. I worked all through the pandemic and was burnt out.

Despite always enjoying helping others, I felt each day that my time in the job was coming to an end. Everyday I would be having imaginary arguments in my head and just felt angry all the time and I was at breaking point. It was getting to the point that if I had not moved on, I would have ended up being sacked because I could not keep my emotions in check, I was full up and the metaphorical glass was overspilling.

Reason 3: Seeing the World

Travel is something that we rarely got to do. We were never really the type to have holidays each year, mostly because I am tight and refused to spend lots of money for one week of holiday! We did have some times away, some cheap ones too! One time we just packed a tent and went off to Cornwall for a few days which was really nice.

The trouble really was the lack of time to travel. Although I had a good amount of annual leave from work I was often too tired to contemplate all the planning involved with a few days away. Dan and I had always wanted to see more of the world but as most will know, commitment to full time job makes that very difficult. Call us greedy but we wanted more than just a few days away. Unfortunately, when you do have a holiday you need time to unwind your work brain to enjoy this and we often found ourselves not able to enjoy seeing the sights as much as we would like.

There was also the perspective of routine. I totally respect the value of routine but I do have an impulsive streak and the same routine everyday was killing my soul! Getting up each morning, showering, cleaning my teeth, driving to work, coming home, making dinner…eugh! I found this probably one of the most challenging things about our old life, I needed variety and sadly when you start making commitments to employment and a home you pay for it in with a strict routine to maintain it. Nowadays I actually enjoy some of our routine when it comes to periods of working, it is really important to have structure in life but it also needs to be balanced so that the structure is not your whole life

Reason 4: Self-Development

This is about finding out what you are capable of. The routine and structure we had before was challenging because it was boring not because it helped with our self development. When we sit in the same routine, nothing ever changes and therefore you never really get to find out what you can really do.

Prior to starting our journey most of self-development was either dominated by what our employers thought our development should be or constricted by the limited time and money we had to pursue other interests. Now don’t get me wrong, we are all different and some people are able to do both in tandem and hats off to them but we are not those people! We had to figure out so many different things to start our journey and find ways of working. We have trained for new jobs (more on this in our next blog!), learned about maintaining our vehicle (very much work in progress) and learned how to live without conveniences such as a shower, hot water and heating.

This was so powerful because we re-learned how to appreciate the simplest things in life. I have come to believe that the less you have available the sweeter it life tastes. Don’t get me wrong I am all too aware just how much not having enough to meet your needs impacts on people every day. I am talking about having too much and it spoiling your appreciation for some of the simpler things in life. Dan is amazing, he has learned how to create and edit media to create our YouTube channels and I have been learning how to write computer code in HTML, this website is written in the code I learned and I find it really fascinating (nerd alert!) but I do love finding out how to do things myself so I don’t need to pay others to do it for us!

Reason 5: Reducing bills and saving money

Do you ever feel that every time you earned a crust someone came along an pinched half of it? We did.

From the mortgage or rent, the council tax, the electricity, the gas, the tv licence, the list goes on. Every time we get our hard earned wages, we end up lining someone else’s pockets. We found little opportunity to save money for our future and resented that we was constantly working for others. Of course you can start your own business but this is a risky venture and can often saddle many with even more debt than they started with!

We wanted to keep what we earned for ourselves and in the usual mode of life, this is a near impossibility and we've now created a trade off. Yes, we do earn a lot less than we used to but we now keep all of what we earn to support a life we want to live and we are even able to put a small amount aside for a rainy day. We now work when we need to and I can tell you this is far less than we ever did before plus we are still able to go out an have lunch every now and then and enjoy small luxuries.

This is possible as once you have your van as you simply do not have the outgoings required of conventional living. Of course we have to keep up the Van and pay for diesel but I had to do that with my car to travel to and from work before this adventure. Our outgoings are limited and this will eventually amd hopefully mean that when we are ready to settle back down, we will be in a position to have a small mortgage and be able to work part time, well in theory anyway!

I have always been one of those people that don’t like to hand over my cash (my motto is “if it is not 50p, I am not interested!) and we just love that we can stem that flow of our hard earned cash from seeping into the overgrown pockets of the financially over-privileged.

Thats it folks, if you got this far and read my ramblings-thank you!

we could go on an explore more as we have found more and more reasons each day as to why we have chosen this lifestyle. We are grateful everyday for this opportunity, and we are very aware that this lifestyle can be out of reach for many. Vans are not cheap and lots of people won’t even have the ability to finance the expensive journey of learning to drive.

This life is not the glamour that social media would have us believe either, it can be really challenging and it is not for everyone. That said we could not imagine going back to living how we was before and for us we would not change a thing. Well, thank you for taking the time to read our first blog and we hope you enjoyed it!

Do you want to see more of our Van life journey? Head over to the Homepage and take a peek at our van life vlogs to see more. You can also follow our journey on Instagram and You Tube by clicking on the blue buttons below.