Dipping my toes into van life to see my kids more?
I came out of a 10-year marriage early last year, ended up in serious debt, lost work, had to sell my house and came very close to becoming homeless.
I’ve partly recovered now, but my current contract is ending soon and I’m terrified of ending up in that position again.
While I’ve still got money coming in, I want to put around £5k–£7k into a small van and basic build. Not for luxury, but as a safety net if things go wrong again.
I work remotely, and it would also let me stay closer to my kids so I can help with school mornings, as I currently live over an hour away.
I know nothing about vans. Driven some rentals before. I am looking at a Vauxhall Vivaro and am good with DIY having done lots of stuff to my house before selling it. A Vivaro is quite small and I know but it would only be for me to sleep over night in and a pull away couch/bed to work in on my laptop. In the future, if I like it. I will probably build a bigger van to house my kids too but the requirement now is just for me and can have 2 of them up front when driving.
My main questions are...
1 - Can I do this on my budget?
2 - When buying a van what should I look out for?
I have found some vans online between 2k-3k but they are 100k miles and in cars that's quite high. Not sure if normal for a van?