His home costs less than your monthly rent!

Author

Ark
November 18, 2024

His home costs less than your monthly rent!

Alright guys, welcome back to another video. Today we’re meeting up with Callum, who’s living in a tiny van, and he even has a log burner in there. We hope you enjoyed the video. Let us know in the comments what you think, and if you like the video, make sure you give it a thumbs up. And if you want to see more content like this, make sure you’re subscribed.

I’m Callum, and this is my Renault camper. I’ve been here for nearly 3 years now. Before I lived here, I had a caravan, like a touring caravan that I had on campsites and stuff like that. Then I was just looking for a cheap van to escape on the weekend and go away for a little while. Then I found this van, went away for 3 weeks, came back, and started working out the van and stuff like that. Life just seemed so easy; I just sort of ended up staying in there, and yeah, time goes fast.

The van was up on Gumtree for £1,000 and had been standing for 6 years. Yeah, I managed to get it down to £800, which probably cost me another £500 in repairs to get it up to scratch and stuff. I didn’t plan to live here full-time, so it was only going to be for weekends, maybe a couple of weeks here and there. For one person, I don’t feel like — I don’t know — it doesn’t really feel that small anymore. Until I’ve got my friends around, yeah, tight in there.

I repair stonework and brickwork for myself, and then in between, I don’t have work; I sort of labor for friends’ companies and stuff like that, just laboring. Nelly comes with me every day, so I try to take the best months of the season off. So, you know, I’m not going to be working between June and September, and I don’t really work between December and February. I usually go away for them and then work flat out in between and maybe just do like a weekend here or there just to get away, sort of thing, you know?

I don’t have to work through the summers; I can just go away and enjoy myself a bit more. And yeah, I’ve had the last three Christmases away, up in Scotland and the Lake District. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to take all that time off if I were renting somewhere, you know? I don’t work to give anybody my money, so what I earn, I keep, you know? I work all week, and on Friday, when I get paid, the money goes straight into my pocket and doesn’t go to anybody. And I definitely feel happier just being out of the rat race, you know? And not like, you know, I look forward to the summers, where before I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to earn this and this’. Well, I feel like that’s why everybody’s sort of struggling with their mental health, and yeah, I just feel like living in a van just answers mostly, like, if you’re struggling with your mental health and you’re parking up places like this, it’s going to make you feel better, surely.

If you’re struggling for money and you live in a van, you won’t be struggling for money anymore, you know? I think the reason I wouldn’t go back to living in a house is just the financial side of it, you know? It just seems silly to pay that money when I’m really comfortable like this, you know? I feel like this is a no-brainer for me to live like this, you know? Single guy, you sort of broke out of the rat race a little bit, you know? So I’m not working to pay bills; I’m just working to be able to go away.

So it’s a 2003 Renault Kangoo, just over 90,000 miles now. It was up for £1,000 on Gumtree, and then I paid. I got him down to about 800 quid, and it did need some repairs. It was full of moss and, you know, just wasn’t in good shape. Yeah, I could easily spend all day in there, you know? It’s not; I don’t feel claustrophobic or anything in there, but yeah, I do go to the toilet outside, wash up outside sometimes, and obviously have a shower outside sometimes when it’s not raining.

I’ve got my roof box at the moment in there; I just got like tools, nothing too expensive, firewood, and stuff like that. It’s like the garage up the top there, really. So it’s just nice to have an outside space ’cause I’m working all the time, like, I’ll finish working, I’ll be all dusty and stuff, and I won’t get into the van, you know? I’ll just sort of strip off the van and chuck everything in the roof box, like anything dirty goes up there, dirty washing, anything that’s wet or damp goes up there.

The log burner is probably the least discreet thing about the van, but I feel like it’s essential. Well, some sort of heating is essential. I was toying with the diesel heater or the log burner, but I’m always trying to keep the cost down, and I can never run out of fuel from my log burner. It’s definitely a good feature on the van.

So, I’ve got a little shelter that comes off the back doors here, a side door, and a few things down there. Usually, have the window open to let a bit of air in. I like this, but it’s just good enough — just a bit of ventilation.

This is the cab; the seats go forward when I’m in the back — just little hemp handles and a little fake plant. Charge everything just on my cigarette port; that’s my battery pack there that I’ve sort of had the whole time. I got a little D-board up here; if I get bored, I can sit back, but I just have to make sure I have my feet down, because obviously, I sit like this, shooting darts like at my foot, basically.

Yeah, you could play it from out here as well, actually. This is just a storage net; a lot of people have a hard bit in there, but I just feel like a net is a lot lighter. I’m always trying to keep the weight down.

So, I mean, when I first bought the van, I had like a list of things to get, and then after like 6 months of living in the van, I figured the last things on the list were like the things I didn’t really need, and I’d been making do with like a little battery pack that cost me 30 quid, and I charge it just while I’m driving around, so I use this as like an everyday vehicle as well. So, everything’s pretty much charged; I mean, I’m only powering a tablet, lights, my phone, and my clippers, and, you know, it does me like the same. I’ve had the same battery pack the whole time. If I needed to get solar panels or extra power, then I would have, but I mean, I just make do; I don’t need it.

Everything I buy for the van I try to lose something so I’m not constantly adding weight to the van. Everything in this van I use on a weekly basis and if I don’t, it goes.

So, this is Nelly, she’s been everywhere with me and I think she loves like the freedom of having the van, she has a different garden to run in every night, yeah. I mean, I couldn’t be full-time in a van this small with anything other than a dog, so yeah, she’s definitely the best companion.

My favorite thing is definitely the freedom of not being like in the same place. If I don’t like something, I can just move. It’s hard to say what the worst is; it’s probably just like, I don’t know, the toilet situation can be a bit annoying, but I mean, you get so used to it, and I still wouldn’t pay rent to have a nice toilet.

Yeah, I mean, go for wild toilets, I don’t know, use public toilets a bit more than what I’d like to be honest. I do prefer going outside to using a public toilet or a garage; I feel like all bathrooms are dirty after going outside all the time, you know? So yeah, so I do have like a little shovel that I use but it’s not always like the nicest thing climbing out your van with a toilet roll and a shovel in your hand, you know? So yeah, it can be a bit; you got to be discreet, definitely.

Alright, so here’s my kitchen; it’s really simple. It’s just chipboard, and then I have another storage net at the back here, little storage pots. These are little egg carton pellet pots I’ve just screwed up from underneath. I did have a bottom drawer, but I ended up burning it. I needed some dry kindling wood. Just a normal camping stove there, but in the night I usually cook off the log burner off the hot plate, so I only really use that in the morning for a coffee. Obviously, I don’t cook anything that goes in an oven, but I still cook things like beans, stir-fries, pasta, and fry-ups, which are really simple.

Just a little extension on the kitchen; it’s just a bit of wood with a little bit of velcro that just sticks on there.

This is my bed; these are just caravan pillows that I had in my caravan before I lived here. I just have, like, simple boxes under here, so I’ve always tried to keep this space free. I get a lot of condensation under here, so I need, like, air. I can’t just keep packing stuff in there. So, having the log burner is like having dry heat; any sort of condensation that forms is just gone, like after a couple of minutes of having the burner going. Yeah, it does go into a double bed as well. There’s a bit of wood underneath that slides across to here, and the backrest goes down. It’s probably not actually a double, but I sleep fine in there. Nelly sleeps in bed with me, as she always has done. Yeah, definitely warm enough; it has a log burner. It never takes me long to get it going. It doesn’t kick out heat all night, but if I’m working, my usual routine is like, I usually wake up in the morning, lean over, turn the engine on, make a coffee, and then, you know, the van’s warm so I can get dressed, get ready for work, and then the engine’s warmed up and I’ll drive off.

I haven’t have a lot of clothes, but I’ll say that’s probably one of the things I struggle with as well. Well, not struggle with, but sometimes if I need to find something in a hurry and it’s at the back of here, I end up just messing all my clothes up, you know? So that’s one thing I do struggle with: keeping my clothes not creased. I have like two bags on two like bags for lives under here, just filled with food. Have some stuff off here; I usually keep stuff cool down there. I don’t have a fridge. I mean, when I got the double bed out, I cut these holes out here, so when the double bed’s out, I can still take this up, reach down there, and get snacks and stuff. So I’ve got my little ax here; that’s just on an old belt. I’m always chopping wood. I got a little tablet, and I’m always, you know, I still binge-watch stuff on Netflix, have unlimited data on my phone hotspot, and play games on it as well. I mean, it’s my home, so I’m doing what normal people do in their house, just in a van, you know? Yeah, cook dinner; make the dog food.

So, this is my log burner. I found this gas bottle in a skip at work, found the other bits of metal, and my Dad’s friend just welded it up for me, and I fitted it myself. Fitted this twin wo system just so it doesn’t, yeah, it’s just a little bit safer with this bit on there. You know, I have burned my arm on it a few times but I think if you just be careful, it’s sort of alright.

This is my shower, which is really simple. I did go for a few chargeable ones in the beginning but this is just seems to be like reliable. I mean, it’s pretty powerful. It’s quite powerful. I’ve had it quite a while, like the handle snapped on it and I’ve just got like a little band on it with a little button. It’s good enough. When it’s nice, I shower outside, I heat up the water on the log burner so yeah, still have a nice hot shower. I don’t have a big water tank ’cause I don’t have a sink or taps, but I’ve got like a big bottle down there that I’ll fill up if I’m going a long distance. I try to drink bottled water.

Is it easy to stay clean like this? Oh yeah, definitely. I’m always trying to keep extra clean ’cause, you know, I just don’t like getting into my bed dirty and yeah, always giving the dog like a wash before she gets in and stuff. When I’m working, I still shower every day—yyou know, when I’m away every other day with my shower. I wouldn’t really go for a bigger van, though, because, like I said, I become like a bit of a minimalist and don’t need much more. I feel like if I had a bigger van, there’d be more insurance. I’d have to work like a minimum of like a week every, you know what I mean? At the moment, it doesn’t matter if I don’t go to work next week because, you know, I’m comfortable. I’ve got food; I’ve got everything I need. Or have I got a bigger van? I feel like it would just be more money, you know? Like a full tank in this van, I think it’s like £66 or something and I can get anywhere in the country on that. It’s cheap. I wouldn’t want to pay much more and you’re limited; the bigger the van, the more limited you are to spots. I mean, I’m always going to have this van. I feel like this Van’s my home now; I’ve lived in it for so long. I sort of crave this freedom; I sort of want to go one step further now and start doing a lot of wild camping during the summer and then just staying in the van through the winter, you know? Maybe put the van into storage in this country and go over to Europe and do some backpacking. I feel like in 10 years I sort of see myself just roaming somewhere with a bag on my back and living off the land. Completely out of the rat race, not relying on money is like my main goal: to not be dependent on money or having to earn money. I feel like people forget that we lived without money for like thousands of years you know and it’s just like an illusion. Money’s printed, you know, like money is just like print out of nowhere so why are we all going to work? The earth provides, you know, like we’ve domesticated ourselves as animals, and now we feel like this is the way to live, to have a house and to have a career. Feel like people That’s why people are struggling with their mental health ’cause we’re not doing anything we’re supposed to be doing. You know, we’re just living under artificial light and eating stuff that’s not good for you You and I just think all these things you know they would like to cause problems. I feel like people should definitely give alternative living to go before doing what they’ve been brought up to do ’cause it is a lot of money and if you get a mortgage and you’re tied to that one spot for 20 30 years, it’s a big commitment and 20 30 years of your life is a lot. I hope you enjoyed the van If you want to follow me, I’m MicroCamper 996 on Instagram, and thanks for watching, yeah.