UK wedding photographer couple live together in a van which costs little more than £1k a month

A couple have HALVED their living costs by upping sticks and moving into a van - travelling the country for £1k a month.

Wedding photographers Heidi Elliot, 22, and Julian Nevin, 31, drive up and down the country to jobs, never having to splash out on accommodation.

They say they earn £26,000 - the equivalent to the average UK salary - over a wedding season, which they then use to fund travel in the winter months.

Heidi, from Guildford, and Julian, from Epsom, moved in the 2018 Mercedes Sprinter in May 2021.

They bought the vehicle for £25,000 and spent a further £8,000 refurbishing it - and say it now costs just £1,250 to live in.

Julian said: “We live in the van so we can travel where we want when we want. We don’t really budget; we’re just doing it for our love of freedom.

“Living in the van remotely full-time allows us to travel to weddings more easily as our main work is weddings all over the UK.”

The couple say they spend £625 each per month, totalling £1250, and that they would be spending at least £1000 more per month to rent a two-bed in Surrey - as well as fuel costs and hotels for when they travel up and down the country to weddings.

With the funds they save, they use some money to treat themselves to the occasional takeaway or a stay at a campsite where they can use water and electric hook-ups unrestricted.

The couple met in 2019 when they were both working for an international school photography company and had both been assigned to the same project in Singapore.

Lockdown struck shortly after they had both returned from Asia and they found themselves living in the UK with Heidi’s family.

They both knew that van life was something they had always wanted to do in the future and lockdown provided the perfect opportunity.

It took around a year to complete the van while they both worked to fund the conversion, with Heidi taking on a role as a cleaner and Julian as a courier.

Now, they live with their two dogs – Jack Russel’s Milly and Mabel – and spend two days a week working on their projects and finishing up edits on wedding photoshoots.