Where did anyone related to the video say that they were “saving money and living on the road”? They massively modded a van to turn it into camper. That’s it. Chill with the salt it’s exhausting to see people comment this shit on every single video that implies any level of wealth above destitute. Be mad at the actual uber-rich.
Yeah apparently the couple does this professionally. I don’t know what i expect when i came into the comments but holy fuck it definitely wasn’t half the comments crying about these unbelievably rich people who can afford to modify a van.
I mean anyone can make either of 2 arguments here. 1) they have so much money they can afford to spend without discretion, or 2) this is a poor financial decision and they will suffer the consequences down the road
Personally, I think they're just living their life. Rich or otherwise, they are pursuing happiness. People are so jaded and love letting the internet know.
But seemingly lost their minds here over some comments.
When people do this, the implication is that they are living “cheap” and “off the grid”.
But the type of families that are FORCED to live frugally could not, if their life depended on it, pay the amount of money it would cost to get this setup and live this “cheap” care free life….
This is well off (this term is an umbrella term) enough to the point where they can drop 200k without a care in the world.
It’s performative/LARP’ing for well off people who try to make a career in this niche influencer market…
You could pay $150k for a brand new pre-built camper van.
For a brand new barebones cargo van, maybe 60k (80k if you want high-roof w/AWD). And maybe another 25k in materials to mod it if you're doing all the work yourself. That's about comparable to what this couple did. They likely paid far less than that since they do this all the time.
You could easily find a van that's 5 years old for 30k or less and do all the work with reasonable materials and get all in under 50k. Very easily.
Someone else said it’d be $75k, someone else said $100k new. I’m not saying it’s not expensive, but it’s not like they bought a yacht. Plenty of people spend upwards of $100k on a car/van, but people are seething about their wealth as if they’re showing off something upwards of half a mil or something.
I live in Poland and near my place there's this small company where they do this sort of modifications. It costs around $10-20k to modify a van. Maybe not to the same really high standard that was shown in the video, but it definetly is cheaper than buying RV and makes me want to save up to get one as well. Of course you need to account the price of the vehicle but used one will be a lot cheaper.
Anyway, looking at this video I can see it wasn't their first rodeo. People with the right skills and their own company do make a lot of cash. I just paid $10k to a guy that renovated my house. Three week job and he is now doing another renovation for someone else. And I know he won't pay taxes as I handed it to him in cash :>
Maybe that kind of money is nothing special in the US, but in Poland this is plenty. You need to be top IT specialist to even get close to the amount of money the self-employed tiler-plumber-electrician makes. Unless you want to be a doctor it doesn't even makes sense anymore to go to university if money is what you are after. I'm a manager in a gamedev company and sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be better off continuing my wood working hobby I had years ago and becoming a carpenter.
I guess because this trend started as a alternative, less expensive way to live without having to buy a home, and its transformed into another way to still show off wealth.
Youre correct, but people who do this kind of thing treat it as a whole lifestyle. It's more than just comfy camping.
Originally van life was shown as an alternative to owning a house. A cheaper, mobile alternative. More often than not these days, you have people who have a surplus of money doing it, just to show off " their van life ". Especially when the van or school bus or whatever they use, is so over the top, it's got more to it than your average house.
It's hardly cheaper than a house because at the end of the day you still have a house and the van basically disintegrates into nothing after 10 to 20 years.
That's immaterial when it was never practical to live in a van long term anyway. It's something you might do for a few years before going back to having a house or apartment. So you're arguing over nothing.
It’s like $85,000 on the higher end for this and if they made all the wood components from scratch it could be like $70,000. Every other car on the road costs that much
??? The MSRP on that van is 50k+. Conversion kits start around 45k. So on the low end you're talking 95k. Idk how you think the high end is 85k unless you're just making shit up lol. It's not uncommon for sprinter vans (that's what this is a MB sprinter camper conversion) to be 200k+.
Edit: The longer high roof variant of the sprinter is actually like 62k MSRP, you can get one used for probably 40-50k depending on mileage. Considering the van in the video looks like a recent higher end model van it wouldn't surprise me if it were 65-75k.
We bought one to go camping. Son is 7 and has been to 47 states. Campgrounds aren’t really our thing so we try to find places to boondock. It’s nice to open the slider and be parked on a 200 ft cliff in Newfoundland overlooking the Atlantic.
I suppose people might have different definitions of camping.
All by people who have never spent more than 30 seconds looking at outrageous prices in their nearest metro area. There's nothing more annoying than a reddit nerd refusing to realize they don't know what they're talking about.
I can't tell you the amount of Ford F150 ultimate platinum enormous genitals versions I see around where I live and its far from a high end neighborhood. Plenty of people have no problem spending 100k on a truck with9yearsoffinancing
Oh I wasn’t saying you were seething, sorry, just that this comment section’s jimmies are unreasonably rustled. I completely agree most couldn’t afford it, at least not without several years of saving, myself included.
Maybe if you get lucky, but checking online you're about $5-10k low or 20k miles too low. I guess you're probably not wrong saying you can get one, but you can win the lottery too. You won't but it can happen.
You may have to look around for more than 30 seconds on a quick google search to find a decent deal. It took me months to find the old sprinter I turned into an RV that worked with my budget.
Car prices, both used and new, are currently rising. AI firms are demanding so many chips at such a high price that it's literally cutting into other markets that rely on those chips... like auto manufacturers for instance. Between that the after effects of covid fucking up the used car market the longer you wait, the higher prices go, the less likely you're going to find a deal like that. Like I said, someone somewhere will probably get a deal like that, but average Joe Shmoe won't.
It's all just so exhausting.
Keep being a failure, and remember: none of this is because of your lack of effort; you're just a permanent victim of circumstance.
Edit: The bozo blocked me because they knew they were being a dumbass lol. So I'll just post my response here... The leap in your thinking is wider than the grand canyon. I'm talking about prices of a vehicle being slightly higher than someone on here claimed and that they are rising. Suddenly you've jumped to I'm a failure and perpetual victim... Oh buddy.
People have legitimate complaints about the state of the world — or their country in particular — and you don’t have to interpret it as them blaming the people in the video for those legitimate problems. And when you take “blame the people in the video for the shitty state of things” out of the equation, then it becomes extra stupid to point out that the uber-wealthy are the only people for whom displeased commentary is warranted. In fact, for people who can think more than one layer deep, it’s entirely reasonable to see that these people complaining about the rarity of generational wealth are complaining about the actions of the uber-wealthy despite the fact that the uber-wealthy aren’t featured in this video.
It’s really, really not that complex. Learn to see from other people’s perspectives, or failing that, ask questions rather than just jumping to accusatory shit.
To those that make less than the poverty line, seeing someone spend twice as much on a “cool thing” usually doesn’t resonate well. This couple isn’t going to actually live in the van. They may use it a few times or sell it, which they can do, it’s their money, but you can’t really be surprised when people have an opinion and share it online.
I'm not surprised by it, it's just permeated every square inch of every subreddit and it's fundamentally misplaced, purely reflexive anger. These people are not the enemy. They are the goal. Like I said in another comment, this isn't "fucking over your large workforce to gas up the stock price" wealth, it's just "living comfortably and being able to pursue your hobbies" wealth. It's not a million dollar diamond-encrusted supercar, it's a van with an MSRP of $53k-78k that they modded themselves. What the hell is so offensive about that?
And nobody here seems to know that financing a vehicle exists - they could've put down $15k at purchase and plan to pay it off in 5-10 years. And as you correctly guessed, they're very likely going to sell it, as this is their actual business. When did people flipping a damn car become something to get angry about?
Reddit is fucking insufferable more and more each day, not sure how much more I can take. I keep thinking it can't get much worse but everything I read is out of touch seething and pissing and moaning. Why do we have people seething over what some minimum wage guy can finance with bad decisions?
Honestly, because circlejerk upvotes. Go into any thread even tangentially related to money (like as tangential as a thread about modding a damn van), mention “generational wealth”, “late stage capitalism”, or “k-shaped economy” and you’ll be drowning in upvotes immediately
From Kelley Blue Book: MSRP for 2026 models ranges from $53,125 to $78,125, with national avg purchase price ranges lower than the MSRPs across the board.
Like god damn, if you're pissed about something at least double check that you're pissed about reality.
Yeah apparently it's their actual business, not even a side gig. I've always wanted to learn the crafts required to do this kind of stuff, seems super interesting and apparently profitable on top of that.
It’s a Mercedes van. Bare bones is 75-85k. The topper tent is 4k. Inside the van is easily 20k for everything in it. The only thing is the labor. You can by this van already decked out for 135k based on features.
MSRP for sprinters is $53k-78k. Regardless, I'm not sure what your point is. Yall keep throwing random numbers at me as if it refutes the fact that plenty of people spend $100k+ on a car, and they rarely do it out of pocket because financing is a thing. Do you think all of the contractors driving around in their fully loaded F-150s just walked into the dealership and dropped $100k on the spot?
It's a Mercedes sprinter cargo van with a High roof and extended wheel base. Not sure if diesel or not. Basically you're looking at 70-75k. Maybe 60k used.
Maybe if you build it yourself and already have the tools, space, and time. But if you're buying something like this, you're looking at around $75k–$100k even for something more pedestrian like these https://rafttiger.com/vans-for-sale . The example in this video is more on the ballpark of 150k to 275k https://outsidevan.com/vans-for-sale/
That’s what it’s worth after they mod it, not before. It’s called added value and it’s how the people in this video make a living because it is literally their business.
I'm gonna explain more slowly: the van retails for MSRP $53,000-$78,000. They mod the van, and it's now worth more. They sell the van and make money. Their business is doing that. They advertise the business with videos because that's how you find customers. People come and buy the van. They buy another one, rinse and repeat.
I and I'm gonna say it slowly to you, it's literally their business to show off things normal people can't afford. You’ve gotta understand why that can come across as a little annoying or out of touch to a lot of people. Especially in this format, where it's not remotely apparent that you're watching an advertisement.
I agree on the guerilla advertising point, sorry about being an asshole. A few people in this thread are getting on my nerves and I took it out on you.
I understand why it can come across as a bit out of touch, but the knee-jerk reaction to bitch about how rich these people are is absurd. When the hell did a regular ass small business become something for this many people to get so immediately angry about? We know literally nothing about them other than that they have a (seemingly) successful business flipping vans, and the vast majority of the people commenting don't even know that. They might be buried in medical or student loan debt and this is how they're digging themselves out. They might only sell two of these a year. They might have always wanted this one thing and saved up for the last five years to be able to afford it. On top of that, it is a genuinely impressive DIY video. The craftsmanship involved and the final product is really cool, and it's not nearly so egregiously luxurious that the video comes across as rubbing it in anyone's face.
The outrage here is misplaced anger at the uber-wealthy. Seeing a modded van shouldn't have this kind of reaction and these people are not the enemy.
No worries. I think it's great that they are able to do this. I'm in the process of building my own van too, but it's more of a necessity and not gonna be nearly as nice (because I need to move and have a lot of dogs). But people who actually need to live in their vehicles are facing much harsher economic realities, which is part of the reason for some of the negativity.
But I think the main outrage is directed to the whole lifestyle-influencer trend in general, it's basically advertising dressed up as an attainable lifestyle, when in reality it's mostly accessible to the wealthy who don't need to work or influencers whose lifestyle is itself part of the business.
Yeah, lifestyle influencers, and influencers in general, piss me off to no end. They’re gross and a major part of the reason why I’m on so few social media platforms. Not seeing them nearly as much as people who are on Insta or TikTok is probably a decent part of why I didn’t have the same reaction as many people in this thread. Social media is a genuine cancer on society and imo it’s one of the major contributors to where we’re at right now.
That’s cool about you working on the van though, I hope it goes well! Have you ever done anything like it before? Or are you just learning as you go?
1) You don’t know shit about me, so, again, piss off.
2) It literally isn’t. This is people running a small business. Be mad about something that matters, like how Roe v Wade was overturned, or how they’re trying to end birthright citizenship, or how they’re actively eroding our ability to vote this very second.
So are boats, muscle cars, RVs, golf memberships, fancy pickup trucks, etc.. Many adults like expensive toys to enjoy their hobbies whether they can afford them or not.
Again, where are you getting these prices from lmao. A brand new sprinter van isn’t even costing 70k and if you wanted to do this there would be no reason for you to get a brand new one off the lot, and then in no universe is anything they did there even close to 75k worth of material. Unless you are charging like 50k labor minimum lmao
That’s buying it though, the original comment was about modifying it yourself which would cut out tens of thousands, also that can seems bigger but that might just be the pictures
https://www.edmunds.com/mercedes-benz/sprinter/
The van they start with is a clearly a stripped base model. This “75” grand number you keep trying to use is the top price range. That van costs 50
It probably cost under 100k to build themselves. And what’s your point? 100s of thousands of RVs are sold each year in the us. They are not all people with generational wealth. Some people just like to enjoy the money they work for.
Yeah 150-180k if you hired someone to modify it, which they didn’t. Too many jealous woe is me losers in here, you could do this yourself with 20-30k, probably less if you find a deal on the van
Not sure on material cost, but you can get a moderately used unmodified van like that for ~25k. I'd guess if it's all your own labor, the material costs for upgrade wouldn't bring total cost nearly that high, but still like brand new M3 range of cost or more, surely.
Still wildly expensive enough that it's a huge amount for a luxury item. Maybe if you have a fully remote job and are legitimately living out of it, it's slightly more practical. That said, my household income is a quite high percentile, and we didn't even put that much down for our house.
We also ultimately don't even have close to that much to spend outright on anything without raiding retirement accounts, so I don't know who has the ability to drop $70-100k on a fancy modified van without it being wildly irresponsible at best
idk why you're downvoted it's completely true. plus, these guys apparently build these for a living. they're making an income making vans into campers which is apparently a product with demand. literally nothing wrong with that. redditors are so brain rotten jfc
Mercedes-Benz Vans +1
So a 170 EXT High Roof AWD is realistically around $75,000-ish MSRP, potentially $80k+ depending on configuration. Mercedes also charges $2,295 destination on top of the stated MSRP. "
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u/Fermit 15h ago
Where did anyone related to the video say that they were “saving money and living on the road”? They massively modded a van to turn it into camper. That’s it. Chill with the salt it’s exhausting to see people comment this shit on every single video that implies any level of wealth above destitute. Be mad at the actual uber-rich.