Lawyers Weekly Australia reports on Phoebe Macdougall who manages to live out of a van and be a lawyer. It’s all presented as choice lifestyle but read between the lines and it’s another story on how Sydney is becoming increasingly unaffordable even for young professionals.
LW Aus reports..
For the last two years, Phoebe Macdougall has lived in a van, spending her time on the various headlands of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. It has, she said, done wonders for her wellness, making her a better legal professional.
Speaking recently on The Lawyers Weekly Show, Ms Macdougall – who last year won the Legal Support Professional of the Year category at the Australian Law Awards – said that “van life” wasn’t necessarily something she planned for, but that it happened organically.
“Before I worked in law I was a tour guide. My life was, literally, living on buses and traveling around the world and showing people all these amazing places. So, when I came back to Australia, I just wasn’t really ready to let go of that lifestyle fully. I don’t like being stuck in one place,” said Ms Macdougall, who recently graduated from law school and currently works as a legal support office for NSW Public Defenders Office.
“And, also, the rental market in Sydney is just ridiculous. Plus, you don’t make a lot of money early on in your career. So, for me it just made sense. Like, I’ll live in this van, I’ll build it, it’ll be a hobby. I’ll get to wake up next to a new beach every day and still hold onto that kind of adventurous side of the life that I had before I enter the corporate world.”
This isn’t to say that she didn’t explore a more conventional route at first, she added, pointing out that she owned an apartment in Sydney prior to purchasing her van, which she has christened “Bubba”.
“Everyone around me was buying, and I thought, ‘Maybe I’m supposed to do this too’. So, I got a ridiculous loan and decided to try and buy an apartment. And then I was just miserable, because I had no money to do anything for myself. I was just paying bills non-stop,” she outlined.
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