Bus Reno – 1
In 2014 we bought a bus, renovated it and then lived in it for nearly 3 years. I have re-created this Bus Reno series from a previous website I closed.
There comes a time in every parents life when the financial weight of the kids is lifted. For those that did the right thing the glory days are supposedly ahead. Although I seriously doubt that many sleep easy at night in this time of economic upheaval. For some, like me, who upon reflection, could have perhaps done things a little differently, the future is perhaps no quite so rosy.
Due to reasons that are not necessary to go into I turned 50 and found we had no tangible assets. Having rented for the last 8 years we had a business loan and a car loan – that was it. Oh and stuff. Lots of stuff!
Our daughter no longer needed our financial support. Four years at TAFE and University saw her with a Bachelors in Graphic Design and full time employment. Our work there was done. Time for Baby Bird to fly the coop. Shoo Baby Bird, Shoo.
We no longer needed a 4 bedroom house and all the upkeep that goes along with it. We were so sick of the renting game. I’m pretty sure that if we tried hard enough we could have bought a house but frankly at my age I don’t want to be saddled with that kind of debt. I’m excepting of the fact that I will be working for many years to come. That’s fine but it would be nice to be able to live cheaper so we didn’t have to work so hard. Time for us to downsize.
We had been toying with the idea of a mobile home as I had often mentioned that I would like to drive around Australia. But the idea of living and working for the next few loan paying years in a little mobile camper van did not have my serious attention.
One day we dropped into a semi-retirement village just for a looksee and the bloke there says ‘I have a bus for sale’. A bus we thinks. A little light goes on and I get a happy feeling. A bus could be fun we thinks.
We went home, discussed it, discussed it some more then went back the next day and bought the bus.
Just a standard bus on the outside. Maybe I’ll paint it. I know I’d like too but I suppose it remains to be seen whether I get around to it. Would be fun to live in a crazy bus – i’m kinda crazy – on the inside at least.
Lol, I suppose most would think on the outside too if I live in a bus. But It’s actually kind of liberating.
Well our bus doesn’t look like this anymore. It took us 5 months to get it to a livable stage and we have been living ‘on board’ now for 5 months. It’s still fun. We haven’t experienced any real nasty weather systems yet. I suppose that might be a bit of a test but so far we’re quite content in our little home and we’ve halved our living costs.
After living in rentals for so long it is really nice to say ‘Darling, I would like a hook right there please’.
