Aww, what a heart warming tale of two people (and their adorable rescue pupper!) escaping the big bad city and now living in the countryside.
Look guys, if you are miserable and feel like you're trapped in London, just buy a plot of land in Devon for £78.5k and live in a van!
How do you afford all of that? Well nothing but grit and:
"Back in 2018, Ben and his father had brought an invesment flat in KINGSBRIDGE (Edit: Initially misread as Knightsbridge) which was rented out"
Oh…right
by supersayingoku
26 comments
_Francesca has retrained as a yoga teacher, while Ben has become a life coach specialising in coaching men._
I suspect they will be settling in Totnes soon, where they’ll be munching on tofu, while reading the Guardian newspaper.
Given the relative prices of houses in London and Devon, I’d like to see a lot more articles about couples desperate to escape the isolation and drudgery of Devon for exciting London.
Tired of being poor? Well, why not try being rich?!
All stories like these, the “how we managed to…” lifestyle / property / place to live / etc, read down far enough and there is always parents’ money involved. Always. Every time.
“He has also founded Invested Friends (coachben.me), a men-only group to promote male friendship and combat loneliness, a concept he would like to see rolled out across the country”
Yeah this entire article is just naked marketing. Boke.
In the billionaire owned Standard? I’m shocked!
Why don’t poor people just buy more money?
Classic advertorial for being rich in the Standard. It doesn’t even pretend to be a newspaper now, just a meaningless blur of ‘kick them out’ racism and deranged ‘isn’t being wealthy fabulous?’ non-stories. A ghastly rag, owned by one cunt and edited by another.
Nice idea if you can afford it. It’s also sadly not legal to buy a plot of land and park a van on it to live in full-time, otherwise everyone would be at it.
See now your first mistake was reading the London Evening Standard.
Sad to think how it used to be a decent metropolitan newspaper thirty years ago.
Look i support all your comments but why do they look like they’ve been photoshopped into the van?
I swear it said Kingsbridge not Knightsbridge.
I don’t understand why so many people chose to live like poor people and live in these tiny flats. Just ask your parents for the money to buy a house.
>During the height of the pandemic Ben Stafford-Davies was out on his daily walk when he spotted the woman who would become his wife practicing yoga in the park.
>He strolled over and their relationship began with an unpromising opening line: “Do you stretch here often?”
This article works better if you believe that it’s intentionally trying to make you hate Ben
Every. Single. Time.
“How I Achieved My Dream Lifestyle!”
1. Drift into a rather dreary and quotidian petit bourgeois fantasy
2. Rich mummy and daddy pay for it to be real
Sell one bedroom flat in London…buy detached cottage with land in Devon and live off the change. Helps if your parents bought you the London flat when you were doing “the London thing” straight after university.
It’s so stupid. All poor people need to do is have more money. It’s not that difficult.
It’s the classic “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” story, where the boots were a gift and the straps are a trust fund. So the one simple trick is just having family money to buy an investment property. Not exactly a relatable life hack for most people.
I mean it’s possible to eventually raise that amount from working. I’m not that far off.
Yet buying even a studio flat in London seems impossible, and even renting here is starting to seem impossible.
If I could drive, I’d totally do the commuter belt thing at this stage if I could buy cash. I’d have basically no expenses so I could afford the train ticket even though it’s probably going to be £1000/month.
So if I can buy somewhere commutable too London for <=100k I’d jump at the opportunity.
But I don’t think that even exists
Oh thats Kingsbridge in Devon too.. I feel like theyre living in the flat in the week, and vanlife at weekends.
Is the van down by the river by any chance?
No 🧡
Don’t forget the news article is probably a mutual connection reporting it, etc etc.
I really hate shit like that. It seems like you know have to be rich and privileged to even live in a fucking van when people have done this for years because they are poor, homeless or travellers. I didn’t even know it was possible to gentrify caravan living
Yeah, that’s just what Devon needs…more Londoners buying up property, estate agent greed pushing up housing prices, making it impossible for locals. Since Brexit has all but put a stop to people moving to Europe, national migration is just going to increase. To start, the govmnt. need to come down hard on 2nd home owners; either give them up or get heavily taxed. Priority to buy/rent on ‘all’ housing should be given to ppl. with local connections and graded according to needs (similar to council housing). Govmnt. set up a national fixed affordable rate estate agent with local councils, repossessing abandoned/defaulted/unoccupied buildings with renovation grants for first time buyers that can only be sold onto other first timers.
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