A woman has revealed how she’s saving £500 a month on bills – after ditching her flat and moving into a 48ft houseboat.
Lucy Barwick, 28, grew tired of paying £1,600 a month for the three-bedroom flat she shared with her ex-partner in Bedminster, Bristol, and they decided to do something drastic.
The wholesale operator explained that she was seeking a practical living solution that could comfortably accommodate herself, her former partner and her cat, Mr Biscuits.
She took out a loan to buy a dark green and white houseboat – costing more than £100,000, and she moved into the accommodation in May 2024 with her ex-partner in the Bristol Marina.
After the couple separated, Lucy chose to keep the boat, explaining that it was ‘affordable enough’ for her to continue living on her own.
Despite Lucy’s love for life on the boat, she has faced some practical challenges- including enduring freezing weather, learning how to empty the toilet, and regularly refilling the water supply.
Lucy mentioned that she has significantly reduced her expenses, noting that she previously spent £1,100 on bills and rent, and her former partner paid the equivalent.
Whereas now, living on the boat, her costs are only £600, for the mooring, which includes water, private car park, toilet block and electricity.
Lucy said: ‘I can still afford to live here on my own whereas I couldn’t afford to live by myself in a flat.
‘The community is so nice, I know all of my neighbours and financially I am better off here then if I had bought a flat because here I can fully pay my loan off in a couple of years and there’s no 30-year mortgage.
‘I wasn’t a boat person as such but it is really liveable and manageable – I love it, it is my home.
‘The location is really good as well. If I was looking for a flat in this area, it would be potentially smaller than the boat and it would be at least £2,000, I couldn’t get my head around that.’
Lucy explained that when she first moved into her three-bedroom flat, she was paying £1,200 – already at the upper limit of her budget. Within three years, however, the rent increased to £1,600.
Lucy added: ‘We were looking to buy in the Bedminster area thinking there is no way we can afford a BS1.
‘We were looking at flats that were £300,000 and they were so uninspiring – some of them didn’t even have windows.
‘We saw this boat on Rightmove so we thought if it would be a viable option for us and it worked out.
‘The narrowboat was ready to live in just had to repair the walls and add our furniture in.
‘We had to get rid of quite a lot of stuff. We were moving from a three-bedroom flat into a one-bed boat.
‘It made us re-access what we actually need. We accumulated stuff over the three years.’
And despite moving on to a boat 48ft long and 12ft wide Lucy says it is not ‘much different’ from living in a flat.
She said: ‘For the first three months I was waiting for it all to hit me and think ‘what have we done’.
‘But actually whenever I have people over they say how much it feels like a flat.
‘I always say that we can do much more on the boat than we could with the flat because we have got an outside space – the roof is basically our garden.
‘We can have people over for barbeques and things, which wasn’t an option previously.’
However, living on a boat isn’t without its challenges, and Lucy pointed out the importance of staying on top of maintenance, as issues like rust can cause significant damage.
She also noted that she’s had to adjust to the impact of changing weather conditions, which are more noticeable when living on a boat.
Lucy explained: ‘In the summer it’s quite nice because it is generally quite cool because of the water.
‘In the winter it can get cold overnight, it can get really chilly outside, when the temperature drops in the morning you can really feel it.
‘Emptying the toilet is a weekly task, you have to get used to it, especially in the winter. I have always managed to do that when the weather is not too bad.
‘There have been times I have forgotten to refill the water tank and then the shower starts flustering and that’s not great.’
Lucy admitted that she hasn’t yet learned how to operate the boat or even started the engine.
However, she added that it’s something she plans to do in the near future.
‘It sounds like a great idea being able to take your home away, but for me when we moved on we moved on thinking this is relatively static.
‘I just love my boat life,’ Lucy concluded.
Previously, a thrifty woman who swapped her flat for life on a narrowboat revealed how she now pays just £350 a month.
Shannon Lane, 28, originally from Buckinghamshire, grew tired of spending £950 a month to rent her shared London flat, so she chucked it in to live on a boat – and best of all, she pays no electricity fees.
While living at her former abode, she saw her bills soar to £1,100 per month for just a room and utilities. And when her landlord increased the rent from £950 a month to £1,020 and suggested adding one more tenant, she knew enough was enough.
Upon searching for a resolution, Shannon’s curiosity was piqued when she spotted a narrowboat for sale while walking along London’s canals.
The chance encounter was a dream come true for the freelance producer. She immediately ‘fell in love’ with the property, and with the help of a loan purchased it for £24,000.
She explained: ‘I was living in a flat in Clapton, and my rent was around £950 a month for one room. The landlord wanted to raise that price by around £70 and put somebody else into the flat.
‘They wanted to build a fake wall and get someone else in the dining room and make it a windowless bedroom, which I’m pretty sure is illegal.
‘I was just basically done with renting. So I took out a loan and bought the boat on the spur of the moment.
‘I was actually walking down the canal and saw the boat I currently live on. It had a “For Sale” sign on it, so I looked around and fell in love.’
After making the big swap, Shannon now boasts a monthly saving of £1,200 a month.
Breaking down her costs, Shannon says she pays £300 a month for the cost of the boat loan, and £20 a month in winter for coal and wood heating.
She doesn’t pay for electricity because she has solar panels, while she pays for gas on an as-needed basis.
Her insurance sets her back £100 a year, while the license fee costs £800 a year.
