Day One

 My day one blog for Holiday Heim has to be my WHY?

Why start a blog? Why give up a successful career to run a holiday business? Why holiday letting changed my life? 

So, I’ll take you back to 2018.

I decided to make a big life change, to end my marriage - to walk away from 17years of being in a relationship with the father of my three amazing children. 

Why?

Well, the short answer is we grew apart. As many do after the children grow up you kind of look at each other and decide what, if anything you now have in common…. 

I’ll do another blog on this, but it was a very traumatic ( but right ) decision and one which in hindsight I wasn’t at all prepared for. 

Anyway, the divorce was what lead me to Air bnb, I had to move out of our family home as I couldn’t afford to live there and move into a flat I owned with my Mum, which was more affordable. 

My financial situation was critical, I couldn’t afford to make ends meet, I had two houses ( which I now rented out )  and this flat which sounds fantastic but not when you can’t afford to pay for them and things need repairing and replacing, my divorce was costing a fortune and I had a significant amount of debt.. 

I was desperate and my Cousin said to me ‘ why don’t you Air bnb your flat ‘

I said 

‘absolutely not !’

But, I thought about it, my kids went to their Dads a week for a week and mine for a week, so 50% of the time I could make extra money. 

So, I took a week off work and set about removing layers of wood chip wallpaper! Within the week I’d got the flat fully ready and all our personal possessions condensed down to the garage space and the small bedroom. 

I listed the three bedroom flat as a two bedroom holiday let and locked the third bedroom off.

I started to make money, money for nothing really… 

It was quite stressful at times as I also worked full time as a branch manager for Skipton Building Society and had to get up at 5am to strip the beds and do the clean before setting off for work.. there were times when my children were at their Dads and I just wanted to go home, but I couldn’t as it was rented out, so I’d stay with family, friends or at work. I pretty much lived out of my car for what seemed like forever, but it was about 18months.

After this time the extra money from Airbnb had paid of my debts, paid for my divorce and I was in a position where I could start planning on moving back to my family home. 

I was proud of myself, the hard work and sacrifice felt like it was paying off. 

On the day I moved back into the home I bought for my children I felt it was worth it. I felt serviced accommodation was my calling, I felt like I was meant to go through that period of time to lead me to the path I have now made my career. 

Call me crazy but I just knew in my heart of hearts that the universe was trying to tell me something.

It’s not been a straight path from then to now, there have been many of a disappointing moments and failed attempts, I’m still not sure I’ve made it but it certainly feels closer than ever….