Jane and Stephen have lived in a van for a year and a half and say they have never been happier.
A successful marketing manager has told how she and her husband have saved £40,000 towards building their dream home by living in and working remotely from a van parked in the Scottish Highlands.
Jane Holmes, 34, and her mountaineering instructor husband Stephen, 37 – who gave up bricks and mortar in favour of a life on the open road as a temporary measure 18 months ago, so they could save enough money to buy a plot of land and build a house – say they have never been happier.
Jane, who still works five days a week for a London-based tech company from their long wheel base Volkswagen LT, said: “There was a lot of toing and froing before we decided to go and live in the van, while we considered what other people might think, as we knew there would be a stigma around it.
“We know it is unorthodox. We live in a world where everyone is trying to keep up with the Joneses, but we are the makers of our own destiny and we thought, ‘Why shouldn’t we? It makes total sense.'”
Now living just outside the isolated Highland town of Fort William in their house on wheels, which is furnished with a bed, sofa and cupboards, along with an oven and portable toilet which they can empty, Jane and Stephen insist they miss nothing from their former life.
“At first it was more difficult, not having a shower unless we went to a local gym and not being able to put the heating on after a wet day,” said Jane, who also lives with Goose, the couple’s Siberian Husky.
She continued: “But more and more we have learned to adapt to life in the van and I feel like I have everything I’ve ever needed.
“I live in a place with stunning views, I have my health and my loving partner, and the ability to fit my working life around what works for me.
“What more could you want?”
After meeting 12 years earlier through Jane’s sister, Joanne, 39, an adviser for BT, when Stephen was in the Royal Marines, the couple had their first taste of living in a van when they went on a four-month road trip around Europe in a Citroen Relay in 2013.
Jane, who had been working remotely from home in the couple’s rented house in Dundee, Angus, explained: “Steve and I both have the travel bug in us and had planned to do this trip for a while.
“I handed in my notice to my boss, but to my surprise he turned around and said, ‘Why do you need to quit? You could just work on the road?'”
And so she did, working two or three days a week while travelling through France, Spain and Portugal, using a portable Wi-Fi router to keep connected with her colleagues in the UK.
She continued: “Having that flexibility with work made me realise that this was something you could do, and you didn’t have to necessarily be shackled to one place.
“That was what really planted the seed for everything that was to come.”
Returning home in December 2013, the couple moved to a £550 per month rented house in Fort William in early 2014 to be closer to the Highlands, where Stephen runs mountaineering excursions, and then tied the knot in November 2016.
But, despite both working full-time, they calculated that it would take years of saving in order to buy the home of their own that they so desired, after renting for years.
“Mortgages and deposits cost so much and it became clear after we married that we’d have to really tighten our belts if we wanted any chance of buying a house,” said Jane.
“Then it occurred to us both that we could get around the problem by going to live in a van.
“We had done it before on our trip in Europe and knew that it worked for us, so we thought, ‘What’s stopping us from doing it again?'”
Packing up their belongings in April 2017, they bought a 14-year-old van big enough to fit a double bed in for £2,000, and leaving conventional living behind them, they headed to the Highlands.
Explaining the situation to her boss at Cloudbooking, a meeting room booking platform, Jane was able to continue working in the same capacity as marketing and communications manager, despite living in a home with no access to water, electricity or gas.
She said: “In the 21st century, it doesn’t always make sense for everyone to be based in the same place when it’s just as easy for people to work remotely with all the technologies we have today.
“I’m very lucky to have a boss who understands that and who gets that employee wellbeing is the most important element if someone is going to do a job well.”
Living entirely off-grid for the first nine months, the pair braved the northern winter by keeping warm using a wood burner, showering at local gyms and powering up with rechargeable batteries. They provided around a fortnight of electricity, before the couple had to charge them again at friends’ houses.
But when in February 2018 they stopped off at a holiday park a mile outside Fort William and were then offered a more permanent location by the park’s owners for £200 per month, they decided to stay put, giving them access to the site’s electricity and washing facilities.
Based there for almost a year now, they have saved two thirds of their £60,000 target, with which they plan to buy enough land in the Highlands to build a three-bedroom house from stone.
“It isn’t something that we would have been able to do otherwise at all,” said Jane, who estimates that they will probably be living in the van for another 18 months, to save the remaining £20,000.
“A lot of our friends and family thought we were mad at first, but then when you actually explain to people why it is that we made the decision, they start to understand and accept it as being a rational choice.
“In the summer we will be going to France for a two-month holiday, something we’d never have been able to do if we’d been skimping and saving in rented accommodation. You can’t spend your whole time saving up your money because life is short and it’s there to be enjoyed.”
