Life can get expensive for family with two little children.
And Brian and Starla Sullivan were sick of living traditional living.
When they added up the energy they put into it, they found it wasn’t worth it. The Sullivans lived more than an hour away from Brian’s job. Brian would have to work overtime just to make ends meet.
He would also spend about 3 hours a day traveling.
Starla says she and her two boys, Charlie, who was 3 at the time, and Henry who was 2 at the time, barely got to see Brian.
In addition, the rent they paid for their apartment was way too high.
They were just scraping by with the money they had left over after paying the rent and other bills.
The Sullivans were tired of sacrificing so much time and money.
So they decided to do something drastic. After watching some YouTube videos, they decided they were going to live on a bus in Renton, Washington.
They ending up buying a school bus for $2,800 from a school bus company.
After that, they spent $30,000 to renovate that bus into a livable home for a couple and their two young children.
“We’re ridiculous people and this is a ridiculous lifestyle. And it just works,” Starla told Barcroft TV.
Starla says their home has everything they need.
“I wanted to feel like I was living in a tiny house and not a vehicle,” Starla said.
They have two sofas that pull out into a full-sized bed.
There is also an area where the kids have bigger beds for when they get older and an area they can share to themselves.
They have a fully functional kitchen with an oven and microwave combo as well as a sink.
There is also a little fireplace to keep warm. They didn’t skim on the washer either, it’s full-sized.
There is a compost toilet and a shower with a metal tub that the kids can fit in.
The Sullivans say they are probably spending about one-third of what they used to when they were renting.
Now they spend $500 a month to rent the land to park their bus on as opposed to $1,500 a month for the apartment.
Utilities are also down by about one third.
They use the excess money to pay off their debt and student loads, eat food they want, and to go the places they want to.
But living in a bus isn’t that easy. They’ve encountered some problems along the way.
Their pipes froze, they had no running water, they ran out of propane in the middle of the night and had no head, and they also lost electricity.
But Starla says they wouldn’t give up tiny living.
She thinks the bus will be just fine as the boys grow up. Even if they do move out of the bus, she says they’ll never go back to traditional living.
The family has lovingly nicknamed their 40-foot-long solar-powered bus, which took about a year to convert, “Big Bertha.”
Brian says tiny living has given them a lot.
“Freedom with our money, our time and our location. [..] The most important thing in life is people, and spending the most time with our family and children was a huge priority,” he told TreeHugger.
“We were not about to sacrifice our family time to work multiple jobs, paying for a lifestyle we didn’t want. [..] Less space, less stuff, less time cleaning, less stress. More time to enjoy life and our children.”
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