Nomadic mum who gave birth in a converted van and narrowboat escapes cost-of-living crisis by house-sitting for free

A nomadic mother of two who ditched renting to live off-grid with her high school sweetheart, giving birth to their first child in a converted van and second child in a houseboat, is now escaping the cost-of-living crisis by house-sitting for free.

Tired of a long commute and itching for more adventure, spiritual artist Zoe Foster, 42, and her husband, team leader Matt Foster, 43, decided to ditch their £300-a-month three-bedroom Northumberland bungalow in 2007 for a £700 converted white van – which they stayed in for the next four years.

Living in a narrowboat – where their youngest was born – and then a wooden cabin, the family eventually settled in a rented property in Devon in 2013 and stayed there for almost a decade while their children, who they do not wish to name, were young.

However, when their tenancy ended in autumn last year the couple were desperate to return to the nomadic life and keen to avoid rapidly increasing bills – moving into an Airbnb before spending two-and-a-half months in a tent just outside Exeter.

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 – who met Matt at secondary school when they were 14 – said they became desperate for change while living in Northumberland in 2007, when she was commuting to her work as an academic publisher in Oxfordshire and he was travelling to London as an IT consultant.

She said: “We were in our mid-20s and we thought, ‘This can’t be all life is, just work and commuting?'”

She said: “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.”

“We had a good kitchen area, a compost loo and lots of drawers, a wardrobe and a foldaway desk for me to work at,” she said.

Generally staying around the Shropshire area for Matt’s work as an IT consultant, the couple revelled in their new freedom.

She said: “We loved that you could park up anywhere you wanted and instantly move on. Everything about it was freeing and exciting.”

Zoe gave birth to her son in the van in 2009.

She said: “I woke up in the night to go to the toilet and contractions started and he was born just three hours later.

She added: “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.

But when Zoe became pregnant with their second child, they knew they needed more space.

“We were adamant we wouldn’t go back to renting so we decided to look at boats,” she said.

“We had the same doula as our first birth and I felt just as comfortable giving birth on the boat.”

After a year however, the couple knew they needed something more stable for the children and upped sticks for their next adventure in a cabin in Cornwall within a small co-housing community – where they stayed for another year.

“We had young children and they were starting to go to nursery and we needed some stability,” she said.

“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.”

“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,” Zoe said.

“Then in summer, we found this amazing campsite just outside of Exeter, which we stayed in for two-and-a-half months.”

“It was just so wonderful being out in nature all the time,” she said.

“There were shower blocks but I ended up washing outside most of the time because it was so refreshing.

Once the summer ended, the family moved on to house-sitting, 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.

Zoe does not know which home is on the cards next, but she is excited for the future.

She said: “The dream is to have a piece of land for ourselves one day that we can use.

“Home is wherever we are – there are so many opportunities beyond the structures that are offered to us.”