Woman earns £7,600 a month by living on her driveway instead of in her house

People absolutely love seeing inside alternative homes that aren’t a typical house - remember the woman who lives in a shed?

Well, TikTok users have been given a special tour of the home of a woman who lives in a trailer on her driveway.

Alexi McKinley, 26, from Washington, US, says she makes up to £7,600 a month by relocating from her house to a trailer and it all started around three years ago.

In January 2020, Alexi took maternity leave when working as a corporate sales manager for a Marriott hotel while her husband was self-employed and had his own construction and tractor-services company.

The couple found it difficult to scale back to get some extra cash so they came up with quite a unique idea and all they had to do was move out of their home and into a mini home on wheels a few feet away.

TikTok/@aleximckinley

Alexi’s cousin told her about a family in Alaska who made £38,000 after listing their own place on Airbnb and it turned out to be a lightbulb moment.

After chatting with her cousin about renting out their house, Alexi and her husband thought it would be a good venture to help pay their mortgage.

They spend two weeks every month living in a trailer while charging customers between £360 and £480 a night to rent their property via Airbnb and VRBO.

“We thought that sounded like crazy money, and we were in desperate need of income,” Alexi told Business Insider. “It was the middle of the pandemic and the future was very uncertain. Our goal was to pay our mortgage every month with Airbnb.”

It didn’t take long before they secured their first bookings.

After posting photos of their home, it took only 48 hours to get two back-to-back bookings which covered that month’s mortgage.

TikTok/@aleximckinley

Alexi, who is also a blogger and posts about acne, said in their first year of renting, they nearly completely replaced her former salary of £36,000.

The 2018 32-foot MPG travel trailer has two bedrooms and a ‘tiny’ bathroom. The couple bought it from Craigslist for £18,000 with a loan from their grandparents.

The trailer may be smaller than their home but it houses the entire family; Alexi, her husband and their two children.

At the end of her TikTok trailer tour, Alexi gushed: “It’s not for everybody, but we love it.”

Topics: Life, Real Life, TikTok

Gregory Robinson

Gregory is a journalist working for Tyla. After graduating with a master's degree in journalism, he has worked for both print and online publications and is particularly interested in TV, (pop) music and lifestyle. He loves Madonna, teen dramas from the '90s and prefers tea over coffee.