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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The empty nesters making a mint on their children moving out
Have you used a spare room in your home for a side hustle? We'd like to hear from you. Email money@ When her two eldest daughters left home to go to university, it didn't take long for Louise Mardon to make use of the extra space. For the past 18 months, she's rented out her children's bedrooms to brands including Amazon and Lumie, as spaces to take product photos. The now-spare rooms have also been used as hair and makeup spaces for photography happening elsewhere in the house, and as somewhere to store clothes being worn by models. Mardon, 51, lives in a five-bedroom, mid-century house in Cambridgeshire with her youngest daughter Eliza and husband Tom. 'The shoots started when the older two had left home and I worked them around my youngest (now 18). I couldn't have done it with the other two living at home as well,' she says. For Mardon, not only does hosting photoshoots from her home help to bring in some extra money, it also served as a distraction when her home got much emptier. 'If you're used to having a house filled with noise, to get some more bodies in, it's really good,' she says. Mardon previously worked as a hedge fund recruiter in London but when the pandemic hit, she decided against returning to commuting. She spent the next few years renovating her home, but only considered using it as a location house after talking to an interior designer friend, who had done the same. 'My friend, who's now my business partner, suggested I make the house into a shoot location, and I said: 'Why would anyone want a house in the middle of nowhere?', but I opened up my space,' she explains. She's now paid between £800 and £2,000 a day, either arranged through agencies or direct via her website, and secures bookings every couple of months. 'It's proved to be very lucrative,' she says. 'Shoot lengths vary from one day through to a week.' While some people may have qualms about letting whole teams of people roam around their home, Madron hasn't had any issues. 'One of the best things is that the shoot people are so lovely and respectful. Anything that is moved goes back. It's like the fairies have come,' she says. 'I tend to be here [when shoots take place], but you don't have to be. I give them a call sheet with things like the WiFi code, and I also provide biscuits and cold drinks.' Mardon's daughters may have gone to university, but they still use their old rooms occasionally. '[They] don't mind having people here in the slightest. Their rooms are left tidy and they get excited about it… On the whole, it's been a really positive experience,' she says. Only one shoot has pushed things a little too far for them: 'There were photos of people in their beds, pretending to wake up, which they found 'funny weird',' she says. 'The flip side is that, if we did Airbnb, there would be people in their beds all the time!' Despite the enjoyment Mardon derives from hosting shoots, she admits to having mixed feelings about her children leaving home: 'I'm excited for them and it's a new chapter, a new book really, but I love it when they come home.' She's now expanding her empty nest side hustle into a whole new business. The Shoot Academy, which she's launched with interior designer friend, Suzie Tipple, helps people set up similar ventures. 'I now teach other people how to do this,' she says. 'The course goes through how to get insurance, how much to charge, how to market your home, everything.' And, according to Mardon, any home is suitable. 'The reason people hire a home is that they want the authenticity you don't get from a studio. Our house is neutral, and the rooms are a nice size but, in terms of house type, anything goes. 'You can have avocado bathrooms, odd features, brutalist architecture, anything… It's about knowing the unique selling points of your house – it might be the location or a certain feature,' she says. 'It's a popular side hustle with women of my kind of demographic, who want something to fit around their lifestyle.' Mardon is certainly not the only one with a spare room ripe for a new purpose. Nearly 10 million homes in England had at least two unused bedrooms, according to the latest English Housing Survey – many of which will be the result of children leaving the family home. While many people will choose to downsize to a smaller property when this happens, the common issue of 'boomerang children' returning home is on the rise. Since 2006, the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds who live in their parents' home has risen from 13pc to 18pc in 2024, according to research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). As a result, many parents hold on to larger homes for longer. 'We're not keeping your room as a shrine' When Lisa Baptiste found herself with a spare room after her eldest son moved out, she transformed the space into a craft room. 'I've got one side dedicated to textiles and the other side is mixed media, with a Cricut machine, easel and a table,' she says. She sells crochet creations, flower brooches, cardigans and watercolours at Christmas craft fairs, on her Etsy page and at local markets. Baptiste, who is 60 and lives in St Albans, has two sons, the eldest is 30 and left home three years ago to travel the world as a scuba diving instructor. Her youngest son is 26 and plans to move out next year. Getting the extra space finally gave her the opportunity to expand her long-held hobby. 'I painted for 20 years as it was part of my therapy. People always liked my work so I thought I'd see if I could grow it. When my son left, I did,' she says. While transforming her son's room has been emotionally and financially rewarding, there was some initial resistance from him. 'I explained: 'Yes, it's been your bedroom, but you've left home and, even though you don't have your own home yet, we're not keeping it as a shrine',' she says. She offered to either sell his possessions, giving him the money, or pack everything away until he wanted it back. 'He wasn't happy with his Lego being moved,' she explains. 'The Millennium Falcon got broken up and put into boxes. I couldn't do it until I'd had a FaceTime [call] with him and gone through how it would be dismantled and put back into the original box.' The Lego safely stored away, she then went to Ikea and bought some Kallax shelves, which she filled with baskets of yarn. 'I have a stash that would make the haberdashery at John Lewis look underwhelming,' she says. Baptiste previously ran a profitable pet care business but when it took off, the newfound success took its toll, with her working seven days a week. 'I want [the crafting] to be a side hustle; I've run my own business, and… it's all-consuming,' she says. Instead, she plans to just work when she wants to. 'Side hustles are a fantastic opportunity to dip your toe in without having to give up on other things. It keeps the brain active.' Baptiste estimates her business brings in around £250 a month, but she's also an after-school art teacher and uses her craft room to test out creative ideas for the children. 'The side hustle has always been about healing and wellbeing, rather than making a fortune… The way I sell it to my husband is that it pays for my nails, hair, coffee and girl day trips out, and I don't have to ask him for this money,' she says. Like Mardon, she would also recommend making the most of an empty nest – particularly because of the mental health benefits. 'It's a big change having your children leave home. Doing this gave me focus and kept me occupied,' she says. 'It took my mind off the loss of him, the banter and the fun times… That hobby you've been doing, take it to another level – turn that hobby into a business.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
The empty nesters making a mint on their children moving out
Have you used a spare room in your home for a side hustle? We'd like to hear from you. Email money@ When her two eldest daughters left home to go to university, it didn't take long for Louise Mardon to make use of the extra space. For the past 18 months, she's rented out her children's bedrooms to brands including Amazon and Lumie, as spaces to take product photos. The now-spare rooms have also been used as hair and makeup spaces for photography happening elsewhere in the house, and as somewhere to store clothes being worn by models. Mardon, 51, lives in a five-bedroom, mid-century house in Cambridgeshire with her youngest daughter Eliza and husband Tom. 'The shoots started when the older two had left home and I worked them around my youngest (now 18). I couldn't have done it with the other two living at home as well,' she says. For Mardon, not only does hosting photoshoots from her home help to bring in some extra money, it also served as a distraction when her home got much emptier. 'If you're used to having a house filled with noise, to get some more bodies in, it's really good,' she says. Mardon previously worked as a hedge fund recruiter in London but when the pandemic hit, she decided against returning to commuting. She spent the next few years renovating her home, but only considered using it as a location house after talking to an interior designer friend, who had done the same. 'My friend, who's now my business partner, suggested I make the house into a shoot location, and I said: 'Why would anyone want a house in the middle of nowhere?', but I opened up my space,' she explains. She's now paid between £800 and £2,000 a day, either arranged through agencies or direct via her website, and secures bookings every couple of months. 'It's proved to be very lucrative,' she says. 'Shoot lengths vary from one day through to a week.' While some people may have qualms about letting whole teams of people roam around their home, Madron hasn't had any issues. 'One of the best things is that the shoot people are so lovely and respectful. Anything that is moved goes back. It's like the fairies have come,' she says. 'I tend to be here [when shoots take place], but you don't have to be. I give them a call sheet with things like the WiFi code, and I also provide biscuits and cold drinks.' Mardon's daughters may have gone to university, but they still use their old rooms occasionally. '[They] don't mind having people here in the slightest. Their rooms are left tidy and they get excited about it… On the whole, it's been a really positive experience,' she says. Only one shoot has pushed things a little too far for them: 'There were photos of people in their beds, pretending to wake up, which they found 'funny weird',' she says. 'The flip side is that, if we did Airbnb, there would be people in their beds all the time!' Despite the enjoyment Mardon derives from hosting shoots, she admits to having mixed feelings about her children leaving home: 'I'm excited for them and it's a new chapter, a new book really, but I love it when they come home.' She's now expanding her empty nest side hustle into a whole new business. The Shoot Academy, which she's launched with interior designer friend, Suzie Tipple, helps people set up similar ventures. 'I now teach other people how to do this,' she says. 'The course goes through how to get insurance, how much to charge, how to market your home, everything.' And, according to Mardon, any home is suitable. 'The reason people hire a home is that they want the authenticity you don't get from a studio. Our house is neutral, and the rooms are a nice size but, in terms of house type, anything goes. 'You can have avocado bathrooms, odd features, brutalist architecture, anything… It's about knowing the unique selling points of your house – it might be the location or a certain feature,' she says. 'It's a popular side hustle with women of my kind of demographic, who want something to fit around their lifestyle.' Mardon is certainly not the only one with a spare room ripe for a new purpose. Nearly 10 million homes in England had at least two unused bedrooms, according to the latest English Housing Survey – many of which will be the result of children leaving the family home. While many people will choose to downsize to a smaller property when this happens, the common issue of 'boomerang children' returning home is on the rise. Since 2006, the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds who live in their parents' home has risen from 13pc to 18pc in 2024, according to research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). As a result, many parents hold on to larger homes for longer. 'We're not keeping your room as a shrine' When Lisa Baptiste found herself with a spare room after her eldest son moved out, she transformed the space into a craft room. 'I've got one side dedicated to textiles and the other side is mixed media, with a Cricut machine, easel and a table,' she says. She sells crochet creations, flower brooches, cardigans and watercolours at Christmas craft fairs, on her Etsy page and at local markets. Baptiste, who is 60 and lives in St Albans, has two sons, the eldest is 30 and left home three years ago to travel the world as a scuba diving instructor. Her youngest son is 26 and plans to move out next year. Getting the extra space finally gave her the opportunity to expand her long-held hobby. 'I painted for 20 years as it was part of my therapy. People always liked my work so I thought I'd see if I could grow it. When my son left, I did,' she says. While transforming her son's room has been emotionally and financially rewarding, there was some initial resistance from him. 'I explained: 'Yes, it's been your bedroom, but you've left home and, even though you don't have your own home yet, we're not keeping it as a shrine',' she says. She offered to either sell his possessions, giving him the money, or pack everything away until he wanted it back. 'He wasn't happy with his Lego being moved,' she explains. 'The Millennium Falcon got broken up and put into boxes. I couldn't do it until I'd had a FaceTime [call] with him and gone through how it would be dismantled and put back into the original box.' The Lego safely stored away, she then went to Ikea and bought some Kallax shelves, which she filled with baskets of yarn. 'I have a stash that would make the haberdashery at John Lewis look underwhelming,' she says. Baptiste previously ran a profitable pet care business but when it took off, the newfound success took its toll, with her working seven days a week. 'I want [the crafting] to be a side hustle; I've run my own business, and… it's all-consuming,' she says. Instead, she plans to just work when she wants to. 'Side hustles are a fantastic opportunity to dip your toe in without having to give up on other things. It keeps the brain active.' Baptiste estimates her business brings in around £250 a month, but she's also an after-school art teacher and uses her craft room to test out creative ideas for the children. 'The side hustle has always been about healing and wellbeing, rather than making a fortune… The way I sell it to my husband is that it pays for my nails, hair, coffee and girl day trips out, and I don't have to ask him for this money,' she says. Like Mardon, she would also recommend making the most of an empty nest – particularly because of the mental health benefits. 'It's a big change having your children leave home. Doing this gave me focus and kept me occupied,' she says. 'It took my mind off the loss of him, the banter and the fun times… That hobby you've been doing, take it to another level – turn that hobby into a business.'
The Independent
21-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Five science-backed sleep tips to supercharge your fitness efforts
Sleep is arguably the most overlooked tenet of health and fitness there is. It also tends to be the one people are most reluctant to take steps to improve. Those on a health kick will happily compare workout plans, diets, supplements and shiny new recovery tools, pouring time and money into each category. Then they go home, watch TV into the early hours and wonder why they don't feel so good. Yet experts agree that your time between the sheets could be the key to unlocking untold benefits. 'It's free, but not everyone uses it,' Coros athlete and Scotland's first four-time Olympian Eilish McColgan tells me. 'It's probably the thing that's neglected the most, but it should be a key focus – that is when your body recovers.' 'Sleep is a massive thing for me, but it's something I neglected for a long time,' fellow Olympian, Red Bull athlete and BMX supremo Kieran Reilly adds. 'I thought it wasn't a big deal, and if I focused on everything else it would be fine. But [since fine-tuning my approach in 2022] the difference in my energy levels, recovery and performance has been massive.' The problem is, elite athletes don't live the same lives as the majority of people. For the rest of the world, sleep can't always be a priority, and the fabled (though scientifically dubious) eight hours per night reads more like fiction than aspiration. For those in this camp, for whom improving sleep quantity isn't an option, upping their sleep quality might be enough to enjoy some of the impressive benefits of an optimised kip – improved appetite regulation, focus, mood and immune function, to name a few. This is something the UK's best-known trainer, Joe Wicks, found as a father of four with frequent interruptions to his nightly resting efforts. 'The first thing to really prioritise, and I think a lot of people will resonate with this, is getting your sleep right,' he says. 'When you're sleeping well, the food and exercise side of things comes a little bit easier.' He said two changes have proved transformative to this; improving his sleep regularity, and investing in a Lumie alarm clock so he can leave his phone downstairs when bedtime rolls around. 'The truth is, if you remove the phone from your bedroom, you're way less likely to doom-scroll, to wake up in the night and check your phone or to lay in bed for an extra hour in the morning – it is the most important thing you can do,' he says. If you're in the market for some sleep tips to supercharge whatever slumber you are able to snag, read on. We've spoken to experts and raided the research to find the best actionable advice for doing just that. Sleep regularity As Wicks mentions, sleep regularity is key. This simply means attempting to establish consistent times at which you fall asleep and wake up. In fact, sleep regularity is now believed to be almost as important as sleep duration for our long-term health, with a 2023 consensus statement published in the Sleep Health journal highlighting its role in 'health, safety and performance'. However, the statement also concludes that 'when insufficient sleep is obtained during the week or work days, weekend or non-work day, catch-up sleep may be beneficial'. The reason sleep regularity is so important is because of your circadian rhythm – an intrinsic 24-hour body clock plugged into every cell and system in the body. Disrupting this rhythm with irregular sleep throws the body off balance, playing havoc with our internal systems and contributing to an increased risk of conditions such as fatigue, depression and heart disease. Be careful with food and caffeine timings Don't consume caffeine in the eight hours before you plan to sleep, and avoid eating at least two hours before heading to bed, The Sleep Scientist founder Dr Sophie Bostock advises. Caffeine's stimulatory effects are widely known, and most people will be able to work out why swerving it ahead of bedtime is a good idea. With food, Dr Bostock says eating sends signals to our body that it still has a job to do – namely, digesting – so it will struggle to access deep sleep in the hours afterward. Moderate phone use It was previously believed that exposure to bright light from phone screens before bed was derailing your slumber. While this probably doesn't help, recent research suggests it doesn't play as significant a role as many once thought. However, your phone is still standing between you and a solid night's kip. A 2024 theoretical review proposed that other tech-linked factors are also at play – its phrasing of 'bedtime procrastination' may strike uncomfortably close to home for some. 'Bright light and arousal do not seem to matter as much as how we manage our screen time in the evening,' it states. 'For some individuals and families, removing technology from bedrooms overnight could be a helpful way to prevent any possible impacts of technology use on sleep. However, restricting devices may not suit everyone, or for some families this could be difficult to implement. 'Technology is here to stay, and a harm minimisation approach is warranted – technology can be in the bedroom, but to avoid a negative impact on sleep it should not disturb you during the night [or be put on flight mode]. It should not be used later than the intended bedtime, and it should be used for less engaging activities like TV watching [before your set bedtime].' Use light to your advantage While phone light may not be as important as first thought, light in general remains vital for regulating your sleep. Consistent signalling is key to keeping your body operating smoothly, and for time-signalling, these signals are called zeitgebers or time-givers. Natural light, Dr Bostock says, is the most powerful zeitgeber at our disposal. For this reason, it's important to expose yourself to plenty of natural light shortly after waking wherever possible. Working in a well-lit area during the day will also help. Contrastingly, in the two hours before bed, turn down the lights in your home. This advice comes from a list of tips given to participants in a 2020 sleep study published in The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, with a view to improving their sleep. Further featured advice includes the three points above, as well as keeping your bedroom quiet and cool, doing calm and positive activities before bed, 'trying to get so much sleep that you do not need an alarm clock to wake up', and learning a relaxation technique. This brings us nicely to our final point. This can be anything from meditation to journaling. You might even benefit from drafting up a quick action plan for the next day or a simple to-do list, Dr Bostock says. It's all about giving yourself a sense of control, she advises. 'Reflect on each thought, express it so it's not just churning around in your head, then move on.'
