As anybody who has volunteered to go tenting with toddler kids will know the expertise can throw up its challenges.
Nevertheless, this wasn’t the case for one British couple, who took the plunge and lived in a tent for a complete 12 months with their six-month-old child H and three-year-old toddler E after affected by monetary points and cash worries.
Jen and Sim Benson revealed they don't have any regrets about their determination to camp for 12 months as a result of financial scenario.
At first of 2014, Jen’s fixed-term job working as a researcher ended, that means they had been left counting on simply her husband Sim’s wage from his charity job, report Mirror On-line.
“We had extreme monetary issue,” says Jen, 42. “Round 5 months after my job completed, H was born, nonetheless I wasn’t provided maternity pay and I couldn’t go and get a brand new position as I had a new child.
“It was a extremely tough scenario. Our revenue was halved however our outgoings didn’t scale back.
“We began counting on bank cards and the money owed had been growing as we may solely actually afford the minimal funds, and we had been struggling to pay our £800 a month lease.
“We began probably going into social housing or having to file for insolvency.”
Jen says she additionally began affected by loneliness as a result of being at house alone all day whereas Sim, 38, was making an attempt to work all hours to make ends meet.
Then, the household took a tenting journey to the Peak District for 2 weeks. This gave them an opportunity to reconnect with one another, however on the final day Jen says she started to really feel a way of dread on the considered returning house.
“I felt the primary tinglings of a thought that made my coronary heart race - what if we didn’t want to return? We may stay, work and play collectively on far much less cash, on our personal phrases,” says Jen.
“Sim and I assumed why not do one thing optimistic and proactive as a substitute of letting our issues destroy us. We usually camped for 2, three, even 4 weeks at a time, so we thought, ‘would it not actually be so completely different to easily stick with it?’.”
In November 2014, Sim gave up his job, they bought a few of their possessions and put their remaining belongings in Sim’s dad and mom’ home, traded of their ‘wise’ household automobile for a Mitsubishi pick-up truck that might be higher suited to countryside terrain and headed out into the wild, spending their first few days in a campsite within the South Downs.
They purchased a six-metre bell tent in a sale, slicing a small opening in it so they might use a wood-burner to maintain them heat all through the winter months.
Tenting price Jen and Sim simply £10 an evening, which massively diminished their outgoings, and dwelling in a tent meant they didn’t should pay council tax or gas payments.
Whereas child H was too younger to know, Jen was upfront with E, telling her that they had been going to stay in a tent.
“She was fairly enthusiastic about that,” recollects Jen. “She liked our tenting journeys. Children are so adaptable and so they aren’t set of their methods like adults.
“The kids all the time had one thing to do within the tent. We had an enormous field of books and toys for them and so they had their dad round much more.
“It was actually vital to us to place the youngsters first and ensure they had been completely satisfied and wholesome, and so they simply appeared to thrive on that lifestyle which was actually reassuring for us.”
However whereas the household rapidly received used to their new life, they suffered a serious blow a month in whereas pitched in a campsite on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast - when an enormous storm utterly destroyed their bell tent.
Jen recollects: “Fortunately, we weren’t in it on the time, as we had seen how the wind was selecting up so we had determined to go and shelter on the native pub for the night.
“After we returned, the 2 important poles that saved it up had utterly snapped aside. It was actually onerous to cope with because it was so quickly after we had moved in.”
Fortunately, a bell tent firm provided them a smaller, four-metre one without spending a dime, and Jen and Sim additionally had a backpacking tent which they used as a separate bed room after they may pitch two.
The household moved across the UK, travelling to areas together with the Peak District, Welsh Border and the New Forest.
That they had a number of strangers serving to them too. “Over the summer time holidays, we had been fortunate sufficient to get a pitch in a discipline without spending a dime in return for doing the gardening for any person who was away throughout that point, it was actually useful,” says Jen.
“We additionally had café house owners give us free meals. Sim and I had been fortunate as a result of we labored in outside outlets so we had a number of tenting gear and heat stuff.”
An increasing number of persons are going through monetary issues with the continuing price of dwelling disaster - however Jen says whereas she has no regrets about her option to stay along with her household in a tent for a 12 months, she doesn’t assume that is one thing everyone ought to do.
“Sim and I are skilled campers,” says Jen. “I don’t assume it’s one thing that any household ought to contemplate having to do, and wouldn’t suggest it to everyone. Nevertheless, it gave us the respiratory area financially that we wanted on the time.”
Round 18 months after they completed their 12 months of tenting Jen and Sim had been in a position to lease a brand new house, and now stay close to Bathtub, the place they work as freelance writers and photographers.
Jen has now turned her household’s expertise right into a e book. Referred to as The Wild Yr , it particulars all of the highs and lows of their 12 months dwelling as nomads travelling across the UK countryside.
“Because it occurred, lots of people have requested Sim and I concerning the journey we’d had,” says Jen.
“It appeared to ring a bell with individuals. I additionally hope the e book provides individuals going through the challenges at present that we had a little bit of hope and the flexibility to speak about monetary difficulties extra brazenly, as a result of it's such a taboo topic.
“I had no regrets about our determination, and I knew Sim felt the identical - fairly the other because it had given us a lot: experiences, free, time collectively, time to construct again up from once we’d hit all-time low.”
The Wild Yr by Jen Benson is revealed by Aurum Press and out now for £16.99.
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