Tbh this is quite modest as van conversion builds i,ve seen go, other than the van itself and the rooftop tent, everything else can be made by hand relatively cheaply, or sourced cheaply like the sink
As someone who’s around the same age and lived in a sailboat for a few years, it’s insane to me how much people spend on these things just to sleep in parking lots and poop in a bucket.
If you’re living in it like it’s a home then it’s definitely not that much money. 150k is well below the price of a house. Furthermore, after investing all that labor and time into this van, you’d be able to sell it for a profit. Doing something like this is very attainable for a middle class person it just requires dedication, energy, and focus, which are things most of the complainers here lack in addition to generational wealth
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
I get that you're a pampered, special daddies boy with a trust fund and daddies credit card - but have some self-awareness or do a LICK of research before spouting off such awful, selfish, uncaring nonesense.
Maybe question who our economy is actually serving if the majority of the population can't afford to literally participate in the market and be in their community by enjoying some leisure time in a coffee shop.
Well done, you've just discovered the Cost of Living Index. Your coworkers would be able to live significantly better on their current wage in the other 80% of the world than they do in the US.
They would be able to save money if they just lived at the same standard of living as other countries.
No need to have an apartment twice the size of other countries, financing much more expensive cars instead of a basic one. Eating out constantly versus occasionally.
Truth is Americans just consume way more than other countries causing themselves to be paycheck to paycheck and not a lack of wages or high prices.
They would be able to save money if they just lived at the same standard of living as other countries.
Not even just other countries. As someone raised by grandparents, a ton of the "rich boomer" rhetoric in the U.S. is from youth who were raised middle class and are just mad that they can't live that lifestyle as adults. They only feel poor because Instagram shows them how rich people live. So they don't realize the fact that most of the old generation saved money because they will only eat canned beans and 3 other meals on rotation, or how "vacation" was a drive to the next town over to see our cousins. You aren't hearing from actual poor people in threads like these cause they've already been doing this shit for ages.
It's a huge elephant in the room when discussing this topic.
Or they could just not be idiots and stop spending theit money in stupid ways. I get that some people in the US literally can't save anything, but this is not true for them they are just bad with money.
You have no ability to have empathy or see life through the eyes of other people.
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
Please educate yourself before spouting such vile nonesense please.
You are horrible, and have no ability to have empathy or see life through the eyes of other people.
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
Please educate yourself before spouting such vile nonesense please.
No, from statistics. Median living space is 78% bigger than even the U.K. for an American. Add in air conditioning, more expensive cars when a cheaper one suffices. Eating out a lot more regularly.
Yeah the reason american homes are bigger isn't rocket science buddy, but if you'd like to find out in an easy way go punch a wall in a american home and then try that out in the uk.
from there go get you hand treated in the american healthcare system vs the uk and see how that works out.
Might not be statistics, but the results would certainly be interesting.
Homes being made from timber doesn’t explain them being almost twice as big on average. Why wouldn’t they make a home the same size as in Europe and just have a cheaper home overall? Because they’re used to a lot of unnecessary luxuries as a baseline lifestyle.
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
Please educate yourself before spouting such vile nonesense please.
Most of those people also spend $1k on a vacation they can't afford pretty easily... Or new clothes they can't afford... Or a new phone they can't afford... Point being is most of it is self inflicted
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
I get that you're a pampered, special daddies boy with a trust fund and daddies credit card - but have some self-awareness or do a LICK of research before spouting off such awful, selfish, uncaring nonesense.
I love it when people assume I'm a rich kid, far better than the reality lol. My family is from bum fuck poor Appalachia in WV, just means we know what is worth spending on and what isn't, and 9 times out of 10 it isn't worth it
I would be surprised if they had up to $2k in the bank. Such a nice video too that shows amazing work, ingenuity and passion. And of course, redditors have to shit on it.
Insufferable assholes, really! I’m truly impressed by what they did, let alone with 2 kids. And they complain about generational wealth. Pure hatred and jealousy.
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
I get that you're a pampered, special daddies boy with a trust fund and daddies credit card - but have some self-awareness or do a LICK of research before spouting off such awful, selfish, uncaring nonesense.
Exactly, not once did I think about the money involved, it was just a cool video. Most Redditors have their emotions rotted out by envy and jealousy. I cannot imagine how sad their lives are made through their own fault because they look at the world through a lens of hate and distaste.
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
I get that you're a pampered, special daddies boy with a trust fund and daddies credit card - but have some self-awareness or do a LICK of research before spouting off such awful, selfish, uncaring nonesense.
Here is a fact: the no.1 reason for families declaring bankrupcy in the states is medical bills. Just think about that for a second? How on earth is that a choice?
I get that you're a pampered, special daddies boy with a trust fund and daddies credit card - but have some self-awareness or do a LICK of research before spouting off such awful, selfish, uncaring nonesense.
Lmao if you knew anything about me, just a little bit about me behind the screen, you would laugh hard at that your second paragraph. I know I’m dying of laughter
Yeah man you're totally right everyone can be slanging out 200k van builds they are just eating too much avocado toast. The fact wealth inequ6is the worst it's ever even is just a coincidence to the sentiment.
My favorite thing in the world is when people make broad sweeping generalizations about the people on Reddit while.they themselves are also commenting on Reddit.
What makes you so much better than everyone else, mate?
I lived in a motor home for a few years. If I had to do it over again, I'd either get a sprinter van, or a Class B, or a 5th wheel. This van would be more versatile than a motor home.
There were several times I needed help from a mechanic. You can't just go to a regular mechanic anymore, because they don't have a lift that can lift the motorhome. Or they'd flat out refuse to even look at it when I called them. Even when I'd tell them "I need help with xyz, it's a 350 small block chevy engine, can you take a look and see if it needs to be lifted at all?" Nope, it's an RV, won't touch it.
There were many times I needed to drive into a city to purchase something. Parking a 24' motorhome in a busy city is very difficult to find a space, whereas if I had a cargo van or a truck separate from my 5th wheel, it would have been a piece of cake to pop into town, get supplies, and get back on the road. This caused me to avoid cities altogether for the most part. I got a nice stack of tickets for even parking the motorhome on some neighborhood streets while I visited friends, for the sake of being an RV parked on a public road (Burlington, Vermont: I'm not paying your tickets, you can keep them).
There are some roads I wanted to access that I just plain couldn't drive to. This one is more personal, but I spent a few months base jumping in Moab, UT and there are some trails that I had no problem driving a small car to, but the motorhome just wasn't going to make it. And it's not like I could turn the motorhome around on the trail / road, nope, I had to back that bitch up with very limited sight. It was a nightmare.
Family of three. We go everywhere. Slept in it in downtown areas parked in the street. Every time I see the bigger rigs at campgrounds they have so much stuff. Stuff they have to set up and tear down. We rarely stay at campgrounds but if we do it’s a one minute plug in. Up and gone just as quickly. We can go places the bigger rigs can’t. Like down the narrow winding road to the site on the 200ft cliff overlooking the Atlantic in Newfoundland. It’s just a van and people don’t give it a second look. Pull over in a neighborhood for the night and sleep. No biggie. Our kid is seven and been to 47 states. Because it’s not a hassle to set up and tear down we don’t have to commit to one place for a few days to justify the set up and tear down time. Lastly, it’s not a bad daily driver if you need it to be.
You find most mechanical tools at like 15-70 bucks nowadays, if you look a bit around for cheap options. I understood spending 1k to have a cool collection of everything a van builder could dream of, but 10k, come on.
I had a friend who got into this tiny home thing with her boyfriend when we finished our studies. And another one recently, on his own first then got his girlfriend in with him. These are people/students with very little money I can tell you that, nothing from their parents and just little jobs that pay poorly here and there.
These particular people obviously have a pretty nice van, not entry level crappy second hand vans like my friends, but people here still vastly overestimate the price of the handiworks part. Probably subconsciously looking for an excuse to justify not doing some cool creation of their own.
Its not just the 70k-80k that they spent on it. Its all the time and energy they were able to. Us peasants can't afford the time off to set up such a van and then afford the time off to travel in it
The tent is really cool though. Most sleeping areas I've seen in house vans are located inside the cabin interior, for stealth or security reasons, but this is clearly meant to be a dedicated camping van, and it is built well for that purpose, with the tent giving you both more space to do things down in the main cabin, and also a nice tent like sleeping area above.
There's also no indication of time in the video. Did they invest their money in to this over a few years or have all the money immediately available to do it all in a short time?
And then let's not forget about debt. They didn't have to have all that money available in cash today. They could be in significant debt now and hoping to repay it with the money saved by using this for vacations. (Or, unlikely but, perhaps they're terrible with money and won't ever pay off the debt.)
You're ignoring the equipment used to make this van. All of that woodwork takes expensive machinery to cut like that. The garage they're working with is pristine and high end too.
You can make a ghetto version of that van for cheap, but at that level, everything around it is expensive too.
The equipment wouldn't actually be too expensive, especially if you marked out all your cuts and only rented what you needed for that time frame.
For example a skill saw, all you really need for the wood cuts, can be bought for $150 on the cheaper end.
You're explaining the "ghetto version" of the van that I mentioned.. Those wood panels are cut using a CNC router table with some CAD. The moment you see this panel, it's obvious - https://imgur.com/PHEGx28.
The amount of custom cuts needed for the entire project means you couldn't reasonably rent a machine for this either. Then they probably used a 3D scanner to get the interior van profile too.
Lots of expensive, non-typical equipment went into making this van.
Using a "skill" saw would lead to TONS of things not aligning, requiring tons of tweaking and wood putty and you'll end up with a ghetto build.
23.5k
u/Genetic_Heretic 16h ago
It’s good to have generational wealth so that you can do this quirky fun stuff!