"How did you afford to do this?" "Somebody used their dad's money." "You must be incredibly rich." These are all comments I regularly get on social media (read through TikTok and you'll quickly see). While I can see why people may think that, it is an incredibly wrong assumption! Before I bought the bus, I read that it would take anywhere between $15,000-$40,000 for a full conversion. As a full-time grad student, I obviously didn't have that money laying around, and had no financial help from my family. I spent night after night breaking down the costs of materials, taking inventory of what I could buy used, and what I already owned that I could repurpose. I was fortunate to be living at home on some property where I could park the bus, and had access to most of the tools I would need for the process. After crunching the numbers, I had a few scholarships that went above my tuition costs, and after cashing those in, along with all of my savings, I came up with a grand total of $10K. When you're confined to a strict budget, it's crazy what you can do! I spent a month looking for the right bus for a cheap price, and finally found one on Facebook Marketplace for $3,000 that had under 120K miles on it. I was stoked! After bringing it home, I quickly realized $7K was not as much as it sounded like, so I ended up finding scrap pallets and furniture to cut apart to frame out the interior of the bus. I did have to buy some lumber for the framing, but almost everything else (besides insulation and the electrical system) was either repurposed or bought for a considerably discounted price. I would always share the story of my project to the kind people who sold me items off Facebook Marketplace, and several times people ended up giving me the items for free and wished me luck on my adventure! By the time I neared the end of the project, my social media following had taken off to the point that companies started sending me free stuff to help with the build, so that was another essential part of staying within my budget. Overall, I have no idea if it would be possible to complete a conversion like the Roamer Bus for under $7k, but I'd love to hear if you can manage it!
