You tube Fulltimers getting squeezed
Apparently the folks who jumped on the full time bandwagon, van dwelling as well as schoolie conversions are getting squeezed. vanlife I haven't really looked at any of the videos recently, this arti...
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My niece's daughter just got into the whole "Skoolie" thing. She and her boyfriend think they're going to save money over paying rent. They bought a good sized school bus and now they're fixing it up. Problem is, they're in Massachusetts. (Well...that's a problem for A LOT of reasons, but I'll stick to the weather related ones for now! LOL) Yup, winter is coming. There are very few campgrounds that are open during the winter, there are some cities & towns which don't even allow you to keep an RV on your property and many more that won't allow you to live in such a vehicle. I've winter camped in our RV several times. And our rig has dual pane windows and OK insulation. Their bus has neither. I can tell you it took A LOT of propane and electricity to keep the interior livable and water flowing, especially as the temps dipped into the single. Sadly, I suspect they are destined to be another couple who pumped gobs of money into such a project with grandiose dreams only to lose it all in the end. I hope not, for their sake. I guess time will tell.
I believe another reason it's so easy to sway today's youngster into ideas of this type is that the vast majority of students who graduate from high school in the U.S. have never taken a home economics course of any type. They don't have a clue of how to budget properly, how to prepare for the proverbial "rainy day", or even how to save so they're not living paycheck to paycheck. None of that is taught.
It makes them very vulnerable to the sales tactics of "It only costs you $xx dollars per month. You can afford another $xx dollars/month, can't you?" That's the way everything is sold now, with the final cost barely mentioned.
I'm not making excuses for them, but it is easy to see why it's not too hard to sway these youngsters into shaky deals.
As an aside, I went to this website: Finished Skoolies for Sale and can't believe the asking prices for most of the units for sale. In my opinion, they're not very attractive and even the cheapest of commercial RVs look better. I think many of them look like excursion buses you'd see in some South African nature show. LOL Regardless of how nice you make it look on the inside, from the outside, it looks like a school bus! Obviously, there's more to it than just looks. But still...if you buy one of these conversions, you have NO IDEA how anything was wired, plumbed, constructed and if it was done with any regards at all to safety. Let alone the engine and drivetrain components. It's just a wild shot in the dark.
Well, hopefully this will be a short-lived fad as folks realize that this is NOT a cheaper way to live for the vast majority of us.
~Rick
I believe another reason it's so easy to sway today's youngster into ideas of this type is that the vast majority of students who graduate from high school in the U.S. have never taken a home economics course of any type. They don't have a clue of how to budget properly, how to prepare for the proverbial "rainy day", or even how to save so they're not living paycheck to paycheck. None of that is taught.
It makes them very vulnerable to the sales tactics of "It only costs you $xx dollars per month. You can afford another $xx dollars/month, can't you?" That's the way everything is sold now, with the final cost barely mentioned.
I'm not making excuses for them, but it is easy to see why it's not too hard to sway these youngsters into shaky deals.
As an aside, I went to this website: Finished Skoolies for Sale and can't believe the asking prices for most of the units for sale. In my opinion, they're not very attractive and even the cheapest of commercial RVs look better. I think many of them look like excursion buses you'd see in some South African nature show. LOL Regardless of how nice you make it look on the inside, from the outside, it looks like a school bus! Obviously, there's more to it than just looks. But still...if you buy one of these conversions, you have NO IDEA how anything was wired, plumbed, constructed and if it was done with any regards at all to safety. Let alone the engine and drivetrain components. It's just a wild shot in the dark.
Well, hopefully this will be a short-lived fad as folks realize that this is NOT a cheaper way to live for the vast majority of us.
~Rick
