I have taken the decision to live in my car at least for the next 6 months while I clear my credit card debts and save for a deposit. I am going to be writing about my experiences each week and hopefully, master the art of car living by the end!
In December 2016 I found out my marriage was over and we decided that I would leave our home on January 1st. Simple I thought, I will grab myself a bedsit while I get myself together. Unfortunately, this was not feasible after working out my budget I was going to be left with £50 a month to spend on food for myself and my 3 children that were going to be staying with me 3 days a week while my (ex) wife worked her night shifts. This simple solution was now turning into an unaffordable dream.
I went back to discuss my situation with my (ex) wife who luckily things are amicable with. She said that I am more than welcome to stay there with our children while she was at work. Brilliant I now had somewhere to sleep for 3 nights of the week. Just the small issue of the other 4 nights. I have had plenty of offers to stay on people's sofas but this wasn't for me. I was feeling low after the breakup of my marriage and just needed some me time to get myself together.
The first night with nowhere to live was fast approaching and I was running out of ideas so thought ok I will spend tonight in my car. I have got a decent sleeping back and warm clothes so knew I could keep myself warm. I grabbed my sleeping bag and said goodbye to my children for the night. My first port of call was the supermarket, I needed some water for the night, a toothbrush and toothpaste. With some essentials, i needed to find somewhere to park for the night that was relatively quiet and near to some public toilets. I lived in a small seaside town with my wife and with it being the middle of winter this usually bustling town is fairly quiet. I parked up on the seafront, where there was plenty of parking and some public toilets a stone throw away. I pushed the front seats of my car forward as far as they would go, lowered the rear seats and laid my sleeping bag out from the back seats into the boot of my car. Perfect, sleeping diagonally I had just enough room to fully stretch out. I put on my thermal socks and got changed into my thermal lined tracksuit, put on a wooly hat (they gave it getting down to -1°C) and snuggled down into my sleeping bag. I had already thought about my entertainment and had downloaded a couple of Star Trek episodes on Netflix, I got my phone out and started to watch my first episode. By the end of the episode, I was sweating like mad. I used to go night fishing quite regularly and had bought a very good sleeping bag. I took off my tracksuit and left my socks and wooly hat on and decided to try and get some sleep. I managed to get 8 hours of broken sleep which was more than I had anticipated but hadn't realized just how hard the back of the seats were and woke up about 6 times in pain. That's easy to solve on my next visit to the supermarket I will grab a duvet to lay out in the back to offer me some protection.
My first night was by no means perfect but a lot easier than I had expected. I have got along way to go yet and my immediate issues that I need to fix are a way of cooking and boiling water and way of showering while living on the road. I will let you know where I am with that in my next post.