We bought a school bus!
Life these days is full of stress and anxiety. Working a 9 to 5 job, trying to make ends meet, raising a family, while also meeting the demands of society could easily cause a mental and emotional breakdown for anyone. It’s tough! But does it really have to be that way? What if I told you there are alternatives to falling in line with the status quo?
Last year my husband and I were helping my sister-in-law find a van to drive and dwell in while spending the summer traveling abroad. We ended up accidentally discovering a post on Craigslist advertising a school bus for sale. Of course we were intrigued and read the listing, which suggested turning it into a “Skoolie.”
What is a skoolie?
So now you may be asking yourself, what in the heck is a Skoolie? At least, that’s what we initially thought! Or perhaps you’ve already heard of them. Either way, it is a school bus that has been converted into a tiny house on wheels.
We were already interested in the idea of building a tiny home for our family and living a more minimalistic life, but for whatever reason the thought of converting a bus and being able to easily move our home where ever we pleased just clicked. Within a week of stumbling across that Craigslist ad, we became official school bus owners.
However, being the rookies that we were, we quickly realized after purchasing our first bus that we had made a major mistake. We were so excited about our new endeavor that we overlooked several very important details regarding the condition of the bus.
The next thing we knew, we owned a bus that needed about $10,000 in repairs. So much for gaining that financial freedom right?
So before we gave up on everything, we decided to try and sell it to make back at least what we bought it for. Sure enough, we found a buyer that wanted it only for the engine and was willing to pay our full asking price.
With this money back in hand, we took to govdeals.com to check out some of there online auctions and sure enough there was a whole busload of buses! (You see what I did there? Heh.)
Coincidentally, the one that we had our eyes on happened to be an hour away from Pineville, Missouri which is where some friends of ours that we frequently visit live.
And so began our journey!
Long story short, we won the auction, went down to visit our friends and pick up the bus, and found it to be in amazing condition. It was perfect. We drove it 9 hours back home to South Dakota and it purred the whole way! And so began our mission of converting our school bus into a Skoolie! You can watch our journey to pick up the new bus below.
