Tag: tent

Is Tiny House Living For You?

Is Tiny House living For You?

There are many factors in knowing whether tiny house living is for you.

These are two personal lists of pros and cons after almost 3 years of tiny house living.

Pros:
Extra money each week.
No stressing over paying bills.
Flexibility of starting new business ventures.
Flexibility of traveling with my husband while he works away.
Flexibility of choosing new scenery as often as we want.
Bringing animals with you on trips.
The ability to leave with everything in the case of a hurricane.
The cool factor.

Cons:
Clutters very easily.
Constantly gets dusty.
Constantly cleaning.
Limited space for extra junk. ( actually may be a good thing)
Have to rearrange things before travel.
Not as much privacy.
In the case of having a Skoolie… if the engine breaks that will be a real issue of not having the money to fix it.

My experience comes from living in a 20 foot camper to now living in a 37 foot Skoolie.

Having financial freedom is worth it for me.
Having the freedom for me and my husband to leave the mundane 9-5 is a blessing. I have my own business as of now gabbysnaturalcreations.com . Even though it is slow we still can easily live off of my husband’s $600 to $1200 weekly pay check. But we have no credit cards and own everything that we have out right. Hopefully within the next year my husband can have his own business venture.

Our Skoolie The Ark.

Quit your 9-5 in 3 to 5 Years

What do you think of when you picture a Skoolie? You would maybe think it would be an awesome project to work on to go on some awesome vacations during the summer. Maybe to just be a free spirit with no plans and no care in the world. What if I told you it can be your ticket to a debt free lifestyle, retirement in three to five years. No rent, no mortgage, no utilities within the next 5 years.

MORTGAGE AND RENT

In the US the average mortgage on a home is right over $1500 a month. The average rent for an apartment is around $1000 a month. Which many times will put people in positions where their lives revolves around working until they reach retirement age.

STARTUP OF A SKOOLIE

An affordable Skoolie will cost you anywhere from $8,000 to $30,000. A small loan can be an option that will cost you a fraction of the payment you would have on a house note or rent. Which if you choose wisely you can pay off the note very quickly. Buying out right or building a Skoolie yourself will be the best option costing you nothing monthly in the long run.

ABILITY TO SAVE FOR LAND

If you go the loan option in owning a Skoolie your Skoolie is payed for within the next year or two so you now have up to $1500 in extra cash that would have gone to your rent or mortgage payments. That is up to $15,000 a year of extra cash total after paying rent on a lot of land while living in your Skoolie. In one to three years that is $15,000 to $45,000 saved up to buy a piece of land out right in cash. So no mortgage on a house or land. Within 1 to 3 years.

NO MORE UTILITY BILLS

After paying for your Skoolie and land, the next step is saving up for solar equipment and a water well. These things may run you around $10,000 or less depending if you go the DIY route. Solar equipment and a well can be purchased within the year in cash since you will have an extra $18,000 a year that you aren’t having to pay on a mortgage or rent.

FREEDOM

We can go so deep down into this rabbit hole. You can produce your own food and never pay for food again. You can literally set yourself up to not pay another costly major bill again in your life within the next 5 years. Its possible, there are limitless options in living a mobile life. You can stay put or you can be able to afford to travel the world. You can have true security knowing that everything you have can be payed for. Happy traveling ❤

How To Choose Your School Bus Home. Should You Build Your Skoolie?

School busses come in many different forms. There are long ones, short ones, flat nose, stubby nose and dog nose. There are handicap busses with taller ceilings that can get up to 6’4. There are some that sit right over 5 and a half feet. The options are limitless. Believe it or not you can even do a roof raise and have a ceiling that is over 10 feet tall! You may think to yourself “.I don’t know how to build a school bus home.” I will l just let you know. There are options. Where there’s a will there’s a way!

BUILD YOUR OWN SKOOLIE

The Skoolie movement only became popular a few years ago but there are many YouTube videos with great resources out there. You will have to do some searching and planning. You will need saws, grinders, drills, screws staple guns and much more. You can buy these things and still have a nice bus built for $10,000 or less. I know this to be true from experience.

The kitchen in our Skoolie The Ark. (Almost finished)

GET A CONTRACTOR

There are people out there that build Skoolies for a living. They do beautiful work that can be worth it for people that don’t have the time or ability to build their own Skoolie. You can get your bus custom built with your own layout. If you go this route you are going to come out of pocket alot more. The Skoolies can range from $30,000 to $80,000 depending on the contractor and the cost of materials.

BUYING A USED ALREADY CONVERTED SKOOLIE

If you dont have the most money to spend and also don’t have the time to build your own Schoolie this is a great option for you. These already done Skoolies can cost anywhere from $60,000 to as little as $10,000. People build them and end up moving on to a different home or no longer want to travel and sell their already built Skoolies.

PARTIALLY BUILT SKOOLIES

There are many unfinished Skoolies for sale that are cheaper in price. Some have roof raises, some are almost done and some have just been gutted out. These are great to purchase because the grunt of a Skoolie build is removing the seats. If that’s done already you should consider yourself lucky.

RESOURCES

The best resource for looking into getting a Skoolie at any stage would be Facebook groups. People are always sharing their progress and asking questions at all stages. Get plugged into a few Facebook groups and start your journey to Skoolie living today!

Why A Skoolie?

Hi my name is Gabby and My husband’s name is Ramsey. We have two dogs, a mini pig and 16 chickens and we are proud owners of a 1997, 37 footer Thomas Vista that we live in fulltime. You may wonder to yourself. “Why would someone live in a School Bus ment for transportation of children when there are plenty of houses and apartments to live in?” Well I will discuss the reasons we left our rent home in Lafayette, Louisiana to live a mobile life.

MORE FAMILY TIME

You are probably thinking “yes of course you are in a smaller space so obviously you will have to spend more time together. The answer is yes but that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about my husband coming home to me every night. He travels often but we don’t have to spend those weeks apart anymore because we bring our home with us.

LESS LIVING EXPENSES

When we were renting at our old home we we paying close to $800 a month plus electricity, water and gas. Which was about $1000 every month. Living in our Skoolie only costs us on average $350 a month to rent a piece of land which includes all of our utilities. We only pay about a third of what we use to and the great thing is that we always have a place to lay our heads that we own out right.

SECURITY

As a woman I want security to feel safe and taken care of. I’ve rented at different places but I’ve never felt the security that I feel now that I have a place to lay my head that is payed for out right. A bank can’t take my home away from me for any reason and that makes me feel secure.

FLEXIBILITY AND OPTIONS

Have bad neighbors? Move to the other side of the yard or Just move to another city. Hurricane is coming? Just drive somewhere else and pickup your friends on the way out. Need to make a quick move to a new job? Just leave and don’t worry about renting a U Haul because you have everything already. We have done many of these ourselves and we love the flexibility of our Mobile home.

FREEDOM

Building a Skoolie is one of the most freeing things we have done. Unlike some other tiny homes. Busses are ment to move and carry weight they are ment to travel distances. They can take us on exciting adventures to different places all without worrying about paying high hotel prices and leaving our beloved pets at home. They were made for missionaries and ministers that are constantly on the road. Also musicians and public speakers. Children and spouses won’t be left behind any longer. They are made for family vacations and visits. Didn’t book the hotel in time? Just pull up to the nearest RV park or search for lots for rent on Facebook. We travel with my husband’s work. Every couple of months we move to a new city. We aren’t limited in our freedom to go.

BOUJEE ON A BUDGET.

There are so many things that I could say about living in a Skoolie. There are limitless options on designing your own bus. Buy that expensive floor. Get those cool wall panels. Get those light fixtures that you always wanted because the price of your Skoolie will be only a fraction of the cost of a regular home.

If you haven’t been convinced yet to convert over to the Skoolie life I’m going to have to ask you to check your temperature. There is a limitless life out there waiting for you and your Skoolie to explore.