There are a lot of times when we discuss the idea of the difference between living and surviving or living and existing, and it's about trying to make us see what's important in our lives. Some people are tied into a fight for existence, because it's all that they can afford to do. Some people say it is their own faults, some people say it's a fact of life and others still will say it is the society we live in. And then we start talking about the cost of living crisis.
The cost of living crisis isn't a cost of living issue, it's a cost of existing. Having a room over your head isn't about living, it's a basic survival need. Having electricity and gas and water, whether that's for cooking, warming you're space, drinking, washing yourself or washing your clothes, whatever, that's not about living, it's a simple existence. We need to eat, we need to wash, we need somewhere safe to sleep. Every time there is good news that seems to 'steady the ship' like the government budget giving people a little more money a month if they pay National Insurance, you get an announcement from something like the water company where they are putting the prices up despite the fact that they are failing in their duties to do even basic environmental clean up from things that they have done wrong.
Why am I talking about all of this doom and gloom? Because this, and the National Housing Crisis we are also experiencing are being perpetuated because of a few different things that could probably be changed pretty easily.
Firstly, there are homes in the UK that are only available if you have cash to buy them and not if you need to take a mortgage and that's because mortgage companies will not lend on homes under a certain square footage. I don't know what the reason for this is, other than the potential that it could limit the saleability of the property later, but particularly at the moment where there is big interest in things like tiny houses and van life, it seems crazy that you can only look to own one of those homes if you have fifty or sixty thousand pounds in the bank, or more, plus legal fees and moving expenses, plus anything you need to kit out your studio or tiny home or whatever you want to call it to work for you and to be to your taste. There are less issues in the rental market in terms of size - if someone will pay to live there, you can rent it. There are some issues when it comes to number of people for the size of a place and fire safety regulations in order to evacuate a building, but these two things basically make these properties available only to landlords who charge the earth for them.
Additionally, when people are interested in things like van life, the cost of buying a van (especially a ready converted one) maintaining it, let alone insuring it! can feel like a drop in the ocean compared to finding places to park it. There is a growing community online assisting in finding free parking spaces, and particularly Scotland are becoming more accommodating allowing for such places in touristy areas where they know there will be demand for them, but it's still not easy, and it's still the sort of thing where places to clean your composting or chemical toilet are not readily available facilities, and there aren't places like Walmart from the USA where it is possible to fill the large vats people use for water onboard, so even that can be a challenge. It's not insurmountable, but it makes this sort of life more difficult than it needs to be. There are similar issues for people living on narrow boats as well.
Whilst people can use narrow boats and campers as a cheaper alternative to a second home with the added benefit of being able to move it to anywhere you want - within reason - there are people who have found a way to make it work as a cheaper way of existing (providing the fundamental things they need to survive) or even as a way of life. I would love to be able to live in a wan and travel, but with my job being what it is and particularly the political decisions around spending more time in the office than at home, it's not feasible, because I would need to spend so much time in one city, and this is in spite of the fact I can do my job completely successfully with a laptop and a decent internet connection which I can get from almost anywhere.
This isn't just a moan about me and what I want and what I can't have in my life, even if it sounds like it. I guess it's me saying I believe that the rules of law, and mortgages and insurance and so many other things are contributing to the fact that most people are in survival mode and we're basically saving to have a life in the future, or to live whilst we're on holiday, on annual leave or for the weekends, and we put it off so much I'm not sure we ever even really remember to do it. People talk about life being what happens whilst you're busy making your excuses, and to some extent that can really be true, and it's why it's important to squeeze as much life into the time you have as you can. If I knew how to change things to make it possible to get a loan like a mortgage on a camper van, I would change it. If I knew how to make changes so that people could get a mortgage on a tiny home so that they could have somewhere to live that was affordable, believe me, I would, and if it helped more people to break out of the rent cycle, where rent takes up over a third of a lot of people's incomes, I really would, but it's not something within my personal gift.
No comments:
Post a Comment