A day in the life of a single mum living in a caravan due to cost of living.

I'm not exactly sure who or what I’d picture, if I was told to imagine a single mum living in a caravan due to cost of living… But I definitely would not have picked myself as the image.

And yet, here we are. 

It sounds like a sad story but it started as a brave and exciting one! Then it got very depressing and now… it’s complicated.

I'd describe motherhood as joyous, despite the exhaustion, until my son learned to walk and talk. From that moment, I'd describe motherhood as a complex daily extreme sport, testing patience, endurance, stamina and the ultimate limits of one's mental capacity. I am very, very tired. I miss his naps. 

Parenting is challenging but achievable, as long as you're not also trying to work, housekeep, and have an adult life. Then it's chaos.

So how did we end up living in a caravan park?

I was exhausted, working four days a week as a teacher, growing a social media account and starting a new business, travelling every five weeks with friends and family…

And paying rent. Then rent went up. And so did electricity. Gas. The cost of BERRIES. And my son's safe food, of course, is a yoghurt pouch that costs $2.20 a serving.

Now, I have to be fair to my landlord — he was apologetic about the rent going up; he didn't put it at market value (though he could have!) and the price was beyond reasonable. But. It all added up.

At the time, we travelled about once a month for 3-30 days and paying rent for someone else to stay in my rental, cat-sitting for months a year, seemed bonkers. So I had the (not so) genius idea that we'd move into a motorhome, I'd be able to work less and still save money for a deposit. I reduced my work days to two, bought a motorhome and off we set. 

We got about 10 metres down the road when the problems began. 

As it turns out, living in a fairly un-flash motorhome (because that's all I could afford) as a solo mum with a three-year-old was really, really challenging. It felt like my son followed me around, looking opportunistically for things to break, mess with, mess up, mess around with and… you get the idea. It was just like at home — only more intensely jammed into a small space. 

Watch: What it's like to rent right now. Post continues after video.

I couldn't get on top of life admin as the motorhome became a constant problem to be fixed (the hot water, the stove, the gas, the mattress…) and after just two months, in the thick of an enormous storm that gave me sea-sickness in the night as if we were in a rocking cruise ship, I sold the motorhome. 

And suddenly, overnight, we became… homeless. 

No worries, I thought. We'll rent again! 

That's when the real rental crisis hit me in the face. Every property inspection had up to 100 potential applicants. And here I was on a single, small income with a child and a cat. Applying for and being rejected on a daily basis is humiliating and time consuming. I spend, on average, two hours a day house hunting, or planning alternative living arrangements — could we house sit with a cat? Longer commute? Rehome my fur-baby? 

Initially, we lived with my mum. The perfect solution perhaps if she wasn't 82, with a dog who doesn't like my cat, and a house not designed with kids in mind.  

And that's how we came to live in a caravan. It's a rental. And we're in a (beautiful) caravan park. 

On one hand, it's perfect: there's a restaurant, café, playground and beach at our doorstep. Almost literally. I can see all of these things out my caravan window as I type. Most days, my son rides his trike around the park gleefully, pats a bunch of dogs, ventures to the playground only metres away with new friends, runs on the beach — idyllic, right? The sort of village vibe I dreamed of, and we're living. 

On the other hand, we have no fixed address (so enrolling my son into kindy for next year was 'fun') and we can only stay here for 28 days before we need to pack up and move to a new location as per regulations. So I spend about two hours a day brainstorming, researching and then talking myself in and out of our potential next home. 

I spend another two hours being told I'm playing incorrectly — "that's not how Paw Patrol goes!", "You're doing it wrong!", "Play it MY WAY!", "Go faster!", "Slow down!". 

At least three hours revolves around food (and I’m barely cooking) — my son primarily lives on nuggets, rice cakes and yoghurt. But that doesn't stop him from asking for a banana, cut very specifically, which he will only eat two mouthfuls of before saying it’s "yucky". And let’s not discuss berries…

Listen: The Mothers Groups Helping With Cost Of Living. Post continues after podcast.

Then there’s the TIDYING. For Mother’s Day, my son told his childcare educator that my favourite thing to do was "tidy" then he drew me a picture of it on a card. What he actually drew was a bunch of circles, somewhat reminiscent of a whirlwind. And that’s actually how tidying feels these days so he was spot on! 

I am gobsmacked, daily, by how much mess and mayhem one three-year-old is capable of creating. My car constantly looks like something out of a horror film, even though I said, hilariously, that I'd never let my child eat in the car. Crumbs seem to follow me around. And despite outsourcing the bulk of my laundry these days, I still find myself organising the wardrobe, changing the sheets and towels, and generally fussing about with materials far often than I’d like. Let’s clock up another four hours for tidying and cleaning each day.

Throw in the two hours it takes to get my son from brushing his teeth to asleep and you've got yourself a day in the life of a solo mum by choice living in a caravan park. 

Somehow, I squeeze work into the mix (because all mums are superheroes and their superpower is turning 24 hours into 48 hours worth of activity and effort) but I miss every deadline, am late for everything, and am absolutely not giving my A-game in that arena right now. 

You might be thinking that it would be easy to solve the cost of living crisis like this: stop travelling, go find a dump to rent, stop buying berries or taking my son to play cafes … and turn off the heater.

But I'm not ready to give in to the cost of living crisis just yet. I want my cake and to eat it too. And perhaps some will see this is a sign that millennials like me are spoiled… and maybe they're right. If I could consult a crystal ball and see how my parenting will turn out, I'd jump at the chance. But for now…

I'm a mum, not a fortune teller or an economist. I’m not planning for the future of the country — I'm focused on giving my son a fulfilling childhood of fun, health, education and happiness. A childhood he won’t need therapy to recover from in 20 years. 

But, if my current daily routine is anything to go by, I’ll continue to be in therapy for at least the next two decades. And then, I hope, I'll be back in the caravan parks as an empty nester, NOT tidying relentlessly… and reflecting on the time we lived in a caravan because finding a rental property as a single mum on a low income with a cat… was quite literally impossible for a while. 

And if you’re thinking — well, that’s just one mum's story… think again. Grey nomads aside — many of my (beautiful, amazing, employed) caravan neighbours are here for the same reasons as us…

Feature Image: Instagram @solo_mum_survival.