The cost of returning to van life: My honest budget

A question I get asked all the time is, when are you getting out back in the van? And honestly, I wish I had a simple answer. Because if it was just purely about what I wanted, I'd be back out there now. But wanting something and being able to afford something are two very, very different things. So today I'm figuring out something that I haven't actually really wanted to look at. I've kind of been avoiding it. How much money do I need before I can actually return to van life? When can I give up fostering? And more importantly, am I anywhere close? So I finished renovating the house. Or as I keep saying, almost finished. There's loads of little extra bits that need doing to kind of finalise the house completely. But once it was done, I realised how much kind of debt that had landed me in. Not just, I don't mean my mortgage. I don't really classify mortgages as debt. I know it is, but not just that. It was like finishing paying off my builder and various things like that. And I knew that I had to return to fostering to rebuild financially. And whilst I constantly dream about getting back out in the van and not having these responsibilities, the reality is that I can't just drive away tomorrow. This house at the moment, me and my sister, I own the house jointly with my sister. We put £1,500 a month into our joint bank account to pay off everything for the house, as well as some of the renovation debt. Once the renovation debt is done with, it will be about £1,100 we will have to put in each month. But for now, it's £1,500 every month. I can't sell the house. It's, for one, it's not finished yet. And that's not a simple, quick answer either. Is it selling the house? But my sister lives in the house. I own it. I part-own it with her. My son lives in the house. So that means that what I do now has to be sustainable for being able to pay this mortgage every month. I have to find £1,500 every month to pay for this house. For months, since I got back into the house, I've been thinking, when I've saved enough, when I'm in a better position, when the time is right. But I've just sort of realised something that they're not plans, they're dreams, they're wishes. And personally, I need a target. I need a number. I need something real. Because if I don't know what I'm aiming for in terms of how much I need to earn without fostering, then how am I going to understand if I'm anywhere near it or what I need to do to get there if I don't even have a number? Let's work it out. So first things first, renovation debt. I still have £5,000 that I need to pay off for renovation debt. Thankfully, that's halved. So actually, I only have £2,500 that I need to pay off. And that is kind of like priority number one. And that is why both me and my sister are putting in that X amount of money into our joint account every month. To get that just paid off and done with. I hate debt. I can't return to van life if I have financial stress hanging over my head. I just can't. Then I need an emergency fund. I had built up a really good emergency fund. Before these house renovations, I had built up £20,000 of an emergency fund. That all went on the house. It's all gone. And I want to build that back up again. That can be a slow steady thing. It doesn't have to look like pouring thousands in over the next couple of months. It can just be a slow and steady throw some money into an emergency fund. Which I would say like £200 a month that I need to put into an emergency fund. I hate the idea of like things going wrong. Like van life of something breaking down in the van. Like this van's going for its NOT tomorrow. Maybe there's something massively wrong with it. And it's going to cost me hundreds and hundreds of pounds more than I thought. I am someone who likes to have an emergency fund. That likes to have money set aside for those things in life that go wrong. So I don't have to deal with that emotional and financial stress. So we're at £1,500 for the house. £200 to put into an emergency fund. £1,700 so far. So that leads to my monthly income. Right now the majority of my monthly income comes from fostering. I have little bits and bobs online. But the majority comes from, the vast vast majority comes from fostering. Which is why I had to return back to the house and foster. And why I had to quit van life anyway. So I need to build up my monthly income that isn't related to fostering. What I don't want to do is head out in the van and then realise that I can't financially do it. I need to come back and I need to foster for another six months or you know whatever. I would need to create it that I don't need to rely on fostering. I want freedom, like real freedom. And freedom doesn't come if you always feel financially burdened. I have this house, I can't do anything about that right now. So I have to find the money to pay for this house whilst I go in the van. And so that is why I've been putting so so much energy into building another income. Some of you may know that I recently started a food, like a budget food channel. And it crazily got monetised really quite quickly. I mean don't get me wrong, it's still tiny. Like literally it got monetised I think three days ago as I'm recording this video. And obviously that is nowhere near replacing a full-time income or my fostering income. But it's a start. And I'm hoping that day by day and week by week it's going to continue to grow. And it's going to help me get closer to a life that I want. Because the dream isn't van life. The dream is a life that supports van life. And enables me to do van life and have that freedom whenever I want. Without consistently worrying about money. I've always said that my previous thought was that I would be at home and foster for a while. And then go out van life for a little bit. And then come back and foster. But because I financially needed to. And I just don't know. I don't want to be only be able to do van life. Because the fostering that I come home to that supports that. I don't want to do it like that. I need to be able to support van life as a full-time thing if I choose to do it that way. It may be that I don't want to do it full-time all the time. Yeah I think I probably will. But you know I need an income that I can do on the road. So how much do I need to earn every month that isn't a part of fostering? I need £1,500 for the house. £200 for an emergency fund. I recently did a video about how much the last two years in my van have cost me. So I'm going to say. I'm going to bump that up slightly from what it was in that video. I'm going to say I need £600 to live in my van every month. So that together is £2,300. I need £2,300 earnings online income. I don't want to put negativity out into the world but that seems unsurmountable. Insurmountable. Whatever the word is at the moment. £2,300 every single month so that I don't need to rely on fostering. Let me show you what I'm currently earning. What I've currently earned in the last three days. That is a long, long way away from what I need. But I've now got the number. I've now got an actual goal to work towards to try to put things in place to get that income. That doesn't rely on me being in the house and fostering. I'm glad that I figured that out. I think that is going to help me immensely moving forward. Like so much of me just wants this tomorrow. We're all impatient. We want something. We want it. We want it now kind of thing. I want to just pack up this van. I mean it's packed. I could just go now. I could let the keys there. I could just go. I mean I can't. I can't obviously. I've got... I can't. I'm tempted. I just do. I just want to get in and just drive and just start again. But I know I've got to do this right. I've got to be patient. I've got to work. My days are just crazy right now from six o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night. Between fostering, looking after children and doing everything that I'm doing to try to build this. I am so busy but I don't care. It is so worth it to me. Like if I get this right every minute of waking up early before the kids go up. Sitting making these videos in the evening once they're in bed. It will all be just so so worth it and I know that I have to just push on and do it. Work hard and get it done. Sometimes at multiple points during most days to be honest my brain feels like it's going to explode with all the things that I need to do to try to make this a reality. But I just know that I can't give up. I just know that I just have to keep on going and keep on going. Because I just need to build this life and I will build this life. And now I have a number in mind of what I need. I can really focus in on getting to that number and getting back into van life. Whether it's van life full-time or whether it's just that I don't need to foster. I don't need to be at home. It's the choice. I talk about it all the time on videos. It's not that freedom. It's about having the choices. Right now I have no choices. I have to be at home with the foster children all the time. And like I don't mean to be disparaging and I hope it doesn't come across that way. Fostering is a wonderful thing. And I have massively enjoyed it over the years that I have done it. And I've always worked with children and I love children. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do. But I know that that's not who I am in terms of the life that I want to lead. So yeah. Here is to as quickly as possible get into what did I say now? £2,300 every month income that's not from fostering. That I can do on the road. I suppose it doesn't have to be like my food YouTube channel. There could be many ways of doing it. Thank you so much for watching. Subscribe if you're new to see if I ever get there. I will. I will get there. But yeah, thank you for watching and I will see you in the next one. Bye.