How Building A Skoolie Ruined Our Life. (Clickbaity title, I know.)

This isn’t a story about how our life fell apart the moment we bought our bus, so sorry about the clickbaity title. This is actually a self-realization story about how our life has changed since we took on the challenge of converting our bus, downsizing our possessions and are searching for new life experiences.

We’re not allowed to be lazy anymore.

Typically, pre bus we would come home after a long day at work and would take a nap, or make some food and play video games. Maybe scroll FB, Twitter, Pinterest… Whatever social media distraction we could find and waste hours of our time on. Some days we were called to do yard work, or make repairs to the house, or just clean up the mess we had made the night before, but we didn’t do it with any further purpose.

Now our routine has changed. After a hard days work we now come home with a list of things to do. Measure this, Cut that, Stain these, Mount that, Build this, Fix that… The list continues to dwindle and expand at the same rate. Our afternoons are spent working on the bus; or if we’re not working on the bus we’re working on the house we have for sale, if not that then we are finding things to list on FB marketplace and Craigslist, puling out things to sell at a yard sale, or throwing out things we don’t want and can’t sell.

Our weekends are more working on the bus, trying to get as much done as we can in between the constant trips to the hardware stores and the looming work week ahead. Everything we do is in regards to our choice, our determination, to build this bus and leave the State of Florida this year.

We aren’t allowed to waste money anymore…

Before the bus we spent money on frivolous things; things we didn’t NEED; things that have now sat unused and unopened since we got them. We spent money going on trips to Disney (one of our favorite places). We spent money on seeing movies we really didn’t like. We spent money on going out to eat A LOT… this is still one we’re trying to get over.

We dug ourselves into unsustainable debt and are now clawing our way out. We have taken to downsizing our possessions and get rid of everything we don’t either want to take on the bus or what we want to take to a new home when we get there. We had hard revelations that we had a cat we didn’t feel was a good fit for us anymore. We found a beautiful family for her and she is now loved more than we could have done in our circumstances.

We have had to, and still are, going through our house and seeing all the mistakes we have made in the last 15 years of being the consumer without conscience that we’ve come recently to despise. We had to learn that these things, these cheap metal and cheaper plastic THINGS all over our house are not making us happy at all and what we crave are the experiences we have never had.

Building this new tiny home on wheels hasn’t ruined our lives, it just ruined the old life that we were so used to. This experience has brought out so much in each of us. It has forced us to learn. It has forced us to be uncomfortable. It has forced us to work harder than we have in years. And it has forced us to reevaluate everything in our lives and what we want out of the years we have left.

So again, sorry about the clickbaity title, I just hope some of these thoughts resonate with others and maybe help others feel that they aren’t the only one’s going through all the mental and physical hurdles that surround a life changing event such as this.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve had similar feelings.

What was the hardest thing to left go of? How hard was it to find yourself standing in the middle of a house so full of stuff but so damn empty?

Sloth High Five.