A nomadic mother-of-two, who gave birth to her first child in a converted van and her second in a houseboat, is now avoiding the cost-of-living crisis by house-sitting for free. Spiritual artist Zoe Foster, 42, ditched renting to live off-grid with her high school sweetheart Matt, now a 43-year-old team leader.
While households throughout the country will be worrying about rising bills this autumn and winter, that won’t be a concern for Zoe and Matt, who discovered house-sitting this year. Zoe cited not having to worry about bills, with the agreement being that you “look after their property in return for accommodation”, as one of the reasons for taking up this lifestyle.
The now-married couple, who were tired of a long commute and itching for more adventure, opted to ditch their £300-a-month three-bedroom Northumberland bungalow 15 years ago. Instead, they moved into a £700 converted white van, which they stayed in for the next four years.
It was here where Zoe gave birth to their first child - a son - in 2009. By the time she fell pregnant with their second child - a daughter now aged 11 - the couple were on the search for somewhere with more space.
Their youngest was eventually born in a narrowboat, before they moved again to a wooden cabin. The young family finally settled in a rented property in Devon in 2013, where they stayed for almost a decade while their children, who did not wish to be named, were growing up.
With soaring bills starting to be felt, the couple were keen to return to their nomadic life when their tenancy ended in autumn last year, as they looked to avoid rapidly increasing costs. After moving into an Airbnb, they spent two-and-a-half months in a tent just outside Exeter.
Eventually, they settled on house-sitting properties for free, with the pair currently looking after a cottage in Dartmoor. Zoe said: “I am an adventurer at heart, and for so long I wasn’t happy.
“Living nomadically is so freeing and I love not having bills constantly falling through the letterbox. Right now, everything is so uncertain with rent and the cost of living, so I’d much rather take control of what I can do and I am so grateful for that.”
Zoe met Matt at secondary school when they were just 14, with the mum-of-two revealing how they became desperate for change during their time living in Northumberland. With Zoe commuting to work as an academic publisher in Oxfordshire, and Matt travelling to London as an IT consultant, she added: “We were in our mid-20s and we thought, ‘This can’t be all life is, just work and commuting?'”
The opportunity arose when their rented property tenancy ended in April 2008. Zoe continued: “I was given the book How To Live Off-Grid by Nick Rosen for Christmas and I had devoured it.
“I knew it was crazy but we had nothing to lose, and Matt agreed.” Ditching her work to set up a jewellery business, the pair found the £700 white van and spent a further £1,200 to convert it and paint it green.
The couple revelled in their new-found freedom, “We loved that you could park up anywhere you wanted and instantly move on,” she added. “Everything about it was freeing and exciting.
“It was exactly what we wanted. We felt comfortable and safe and that feeling of belonging in our home meant I could fully relax and do what I needed to do.”
On living with a small baby in the van, she added: “You forget that you don’t really need all the stuff you think you do – we had a baby hammock above our bed and I breastfed so we didn’t need to worry about sterilisation. We made it work!”
However, Zoe knew they needed more space once she became pregnant with their second child. Not wanting to return to renting, they instead decided to look at boats, saying: “We found a company who would build a brand new narrowboat for us for £17,000, which we moved into in the summer of 2010 in North Wales.”
“We had the same doula as our first birth and I felt just as comfortable giving birth on the boat.” After a year passed, the couple soon decided they needed something more stable for the kids, putting a pause on their nomadic life, via a Cornish cabin within a small co-housing community where they stayed for another year.
Their longest stint came after finding a two-bedroom home in Devon in 2013, where they resided for eight years, eventually taking their next leap last autumn. “We always knew we would go back to it because we loved that freedom and the weight lifted from not being tied down to things like bills,” Zoe said.
“We found a beautiful Airbnb in Crediton, Devon, which we stayed in for the winter, and then stayed in a few different properties over the next few months. Then in summer, we found this amazing campsite just outside of Exeter, which we stayed in for two-and-a-half months.”
While the campsite fees matched what they would have paid in rent, other household bills were avoided and they loved living outdoors. She continued: “It was just so wonderful being out in nature all the time.
“There were shower blocks but I ended up washing outside most of the time because it was so refreshing. We had fire pits and toasted marshmallows and played games at night.”
The family moved onto their house-sitting venture at the end of summer, using the website House Sitters UK. She said: “We found a house in Devon where they had a cat, chickens, a tortoise and guinea pigs and the kids loved it.
“The agreement is you look after their property and animals in return for accommodation, so everything is included, so you don’t worry about bills – it’s amazing.” Looking to the future, Zoe does not know which home is next on the cards, but is excited for new experiences.
“The dream is to have a piece of land for ourselves one day that we can use,” she said. “Home is wherever we are – there are so many opportunities beyond the structures that are offered to us.”
