Have you ever felt that spending all that money on rent is a lost cause? This can be quite the dilemma because for some people, paying rent is much more convenient than actually owning. Owning your own home comes with a lot of expenses, and this is regardless of where you live. Different countries and different states have their own set of contributions that we all must pay.
For other people, owning a home is well worth it. For them, having the peace of mind that they have their own home and that they won’t be having to keep moving from time to time outweighs all the disadvantages anyone can think of. Having their own home also means having something they can leave their kids when the time comes.
But that doesn’t mean that owning a home comes any cheap. The costs for homeowners have been increasing each year. If you have a home in a nice neighborhood, you will be able to see it increase its value every year, but not all the people are in that case. Now, some people have started to get creative in order to keep themselves debt-free, but with the peace of mind that having your own home gives you.
One of these couples is Adam and Nikki. They are a young couple from the UK. One day, they finally got tired of spending most of their income in paying rent. They talked about it and agreed that there must be another way around the home-owning issue. So, without too much thinking about it, they purchased a used Ford Transit Luton Box van for $4,500 on eBay. Then, they spent one year converting it into a mobile home, spending in total another $6,600 on the conversion process.
Looking back, Adam says that the whole project could probably have been done more cost-effectively. But what kept them from saving more money was the fact that Nikki had never even picked up a drill before and Adam had only been involved in a few DIY projects. So, embarking on such a project was a first for both, and it would prove to be an ambitious one as well.
If you were to see their van, you would not figure out that it’s actually where they live. It looks like one of those moving vans, all-white paint, and all the works. When you lift the back door, a little porch is revealed. Then, a door is what leads you to the fully-insulated central living quarters. The couple did the insulating themselves which helped them save quite a lot. Their home is fully loaded with a full-size bed, kitchen, toilet/shower, living room and heater. Click on the video to see what the finished project looks like!