Now, my own professional background is entirely office based administrative type roles - accounts, finance, auditing, and then into analytics - I won't bore you with specific roles and job titles, but you get the idea. This was never a line of work that I got into through choice, I just sort of fell into it early on because I'm good at maths and speak in numbers, but it was never what I ever really wanted to do - I was just good at it, the money was pretty good, and it paid the bills and afforded a comfortable lifestyle. But it is also one of the many reasons (a major reason) that I quit that life and transitioned into being a nomadic vagabond - I was never happy in that line of work, or working in the typical environment which those roles are based in - I'm far too much of a scruffy, semi-feral, weathered outdoorsman to ever look like I belong chained to a desk or sat in another soul-destroying meeting room, but as I'm sure many of you can attest to, it's very easy to become trapped in a career you never wanted to pay for the lifestyle you've made for yourself, but I wanted out. We didn't evolve as a species to work 40+ hours a week, 48 weeks a year, for 50 years, just hoping to last long enough to retire (if, IF you make it that long), and die - we were never meant to live like this, that's not life, and I wanted a very different lifestyle for myself, so I quit it all.
So there I am, Day 1, wondering what the hell I'm going to do next. Now while I was building my van outside my house, it drew a lot of attention from passers-by whom would often stop and chat, and quite often some of these people - upon seeing that I wasn't bad at chucking bits of wood together - would ask me to do handyman type jobs at their houses for a bit of pocket money. My first few weeks of my newly chosen lifestyle were funded by doing this - picking up odd jobs here and there, and working for a local landlord as his maintenance man for the half a dozen houses or so which he rents out. Soon after through a chance meeting, I became the "Property Maintenance Engineer" for a letting agency chain in my local area and suddenly had 650 houses to look after, mostly quick-fixes and patch-up jobs, which quickly became a full time job - so I did this for a short while, but I didn't choose this lifestyle and slash my living costs to a fraction, just to work full time for another corporate entity lining someone elses pockets at the top end, so this didn't last long for me and coincided with another chance meeting and job offer - so I quit this too.
I'd seen a post on one of the off-grid Facebook groups I'm on - a chap quite local was looking for a helping hand with a house renovation, in exchange for parkup space and pay - so already having a little bit of experience "on the tools" under my belt and generally being quite handy and happy to get mucky, I replied to the post and went along to meet the fella and started working for him immediately - "two weeks work" he said. This was an awesome opportunity to learn a few things, use tools I'd never used before, and try my hand at new jobs, and Mat and I bonded very quickly. This 'two weeks' became 5 months in the end, and we are actually very close friends now - MyMateMat will undoubtedly feature in my posts in the future, in fact I'm currently parked up on his land as I write this! By April the house was completed and on the market, Mat and his family had moved into an apartment nearby and were preparing for their own transition into VanLife (albeit in something much grander than my tatty old panel van) and I was still helping him out with bits and pieces but on a favour exchange basis rather than work - Mat helped me out with a few things too including fitting the gas system in my van. Then Lockdown hit. Hard. So Mat took some part time work on to help out with his finances, and I headed off to keep my head down for a bit.
While the country was in Lockdown, I'd seen yet another post on Facebook, from a lady who owned a little home-grown company which specialised in equestrian ground work - removing ragwart from horse grazing land. She was looking for workers willing to travel and dig up weeds. So I dropped her a message and we had a good chat, I liked the sound of the work arrangement, and it was a good opportunity to get paid for travelling all over the UK - so I spent my summer driving around, parking up in some really beautiful areas of the country, and making friends with horses. I'd typically work a couple of days a week and take the rest of the week off to go wandering or visiting friends in the area. It was physically hard work, sometimes in unpleasant weather, and occasionally for even less pleasant clients - but mostly it was enjoyable, stress free work in scenic locations, for fair pay - and very much suited my lifestyle! I really enjoyed this gig, and will definitely return next summer - this could be a cool little seasonal job for me which I can return to year-on-year. But I've wrapped up for this year, the weather is very much on the turn now and I had to return to Yorkshire for my MOT and do some work on the van.
While back here in my hometown, one of the landlords that I do bits and pieces for got in touch to ask if I was available for some work needed on one of his rentals, and also to tell me he'd bought a seaside property which needed a bit of work and asked if I'd be up for the job, so Ive now got a bit of winter work lined up, similar to last year! I'm also giving MyMateMat a helping hand as a final push before he sets off in his motorhome.
This brings me up to today, so I'm going to wrap this post up. As I currently write this, I now have more money saved up than I did when I started this almost a year ago, I've worked a few different jobs, tried my hand at a few different things, lined up more work for the immediate future and the longer term into next year, I've travelled around a lot, and made a few new friends. If I could go back to Day 1 and give myself (and anyone else reading) some advice and golden rules on working on the road they'd simply be:
• Don't worry about it; life has a funny way of throwing up opportunies when they're most needed.
• Keep your ear to the ground; keep connected, make contacts, use what's freely available to you, look out for these opportunities when they come up, and word of mouth goes a long way.
• If you're good at something, never do it for free; capitalise on your skillsets, charge for what you're good at - often your greatest skillset will be your enthusiasm to work, try new things, and learn - but remember that there's more to life than money. Negotiate on perks versus cash - parkup space, electricity, water, use of facilities, meals etc can all be forms of pay, as can favours and a helping hand in return, and these can be invaluable when needed the most. But never work thanklessly.
Who knows where I'll write from next or what I'll be doing for work! Bye for now 🙂
