Jack Goodwin is 34 years old, British, and currently homeless in the sense that he does not own a house. He does, however, own a stack of plane tickets, hotel confirmations, and match passes that stretch all the way to a potential World Cup final in New Jersey on July 19.
Goodwin spent his entire £40,000 house deposit on a father-son trip to follow the Three Lions through the 2026 World Cup. Every pre-booked game. Every flight. Every hotel night. The whole thing.
“I saved up for a house and I blew my whole house deposit taking me and my dad out here,” Goodwin told The Independent. “It was very expensive.” And then he added the part that probably sums up the whole thing: he considers himself “extremely lucky” to be doing it.
Dad, the World Cup, and a deposit that’s gone
The math here is pretty simple. A house deposit in the UK — especially in the south of England where Goodwin is from — can take years to scrape together. Forty thousand pounds is a serious chunk of change. It’s also roughly the cost of a full World Cup campaign for two people when you factor in last-minute flights, dynamic hotel pricing, and the general chaos of following a team through multiple cities and time zones.
Goodwin and his father are tracking Thomas Tuchel’s squad, which means they’re locked into a schedule that could go anywhere. England has the talent to make a deep run, and Goodwin has essentially bet his housing future that they will. If England crashes out early, he’ll have spent a fortune on a short trip. If they go all the way, he’ll have been there for every minute.
He’s not the only fan making this kind of bet. The 2026 World Cup is the first with 48 teams and the first hosted across three countries — the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. That means longer trips, more logistics, and way higher costs for the fans who want to follow their team start to finish.
The real cost of being there
It’s easy to call this irresponsible. A house is an investment. A World Cup trip is a memory. But Goodwin sounds like he already knows the trade-off and made his peace with it. He didn’t frame this as a mistake. He framed it as a choice, a deliberate one.
“I blew my whole house deposit taking me and my dad out here,” he said again, almost like he was testing how it sounded out loud. It sounded fine to him.
There’s something honest about that. Most people would quietly regret spending that kind of money on a vacation, even one as big as a World Cup. But Goodwin seems to understand that the timeline on watching a tournament with your dad is shorter than the timeline on buying a house. You can always save again. You can’t get back a World Cup campaign with your father when you’re both healthy and excited and able to go.
Whether England wins or loses, Goodwin will come home with no house and a lot of stories. For him, right now, that’s enough.
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