Maybe it's our age, but I thought exactly the same thing. I wish them well all the same.

Hey Ken! Thanks for the comment and honestly, I should do a whole video about this. I know a lot of people have asked us the same question. I’m going to do my best to give you a proper answer because you are the first person to not flat out accuse us of just coming from money. I’ll try and cover each piece in its own section: Wedding: Being transparent we were actually pretty blessed to not have to fund our whole wedding. We were pretty frugal with our wedding as well. The total cost was probably around 13k. We funded about $2500 out of our pocket, my parents probably put in around $2000 and Dani’s parents paid the remaining $8500. Average cost for a wedding in VA is about $33k for perspective. Right after our wedding we had about $12k between the two of us. We had been saving up for several years before we were married. Education: For me I went to community college for 3 years or so. I did do FAFSA and got some money for that but most of it I was paying for a semester at a time out of the money I was making at Starbucks. I had around 10k in loans from that when we got married. I knew once we were married and we were still in school it was going to get really expensive. That was when I found out that if you work as a full-time employee at our local university you could get your tuition (and your spouse’s) covered. I applied to probably 10 positions without hearing back from anyone. Finally, I found they had an in-person career event and by the grace of God managed to get a job as a real time analyst. This was really hard as I was working 7:30-5 pm every day and doing school full time. My wife and I did this for the first year we were married, and it was really tough on our relationship. Skoolie: My wife and I like to stay pretty frugal. We don’t take vacations really and we were living in one of the cheapest apartments we could find. We had been married and living together for around a year and a half by the time we decided to do the skoolie. We had only grown our savings to around 15k by the time we started the bus because we did still have a lot of school expenses like books. From there we put every spare penny that we had towards building the bus. Also, while it may seem like we didn’t get much used for the bus we were looking for deals nearly every night we weren’t working on the bus. The total for the bus when it was finished was around 22k. about $12k of that came from savings and roughly $10k we saved over the course of the year we were working on it. Here is a bit of the breakdown of the major stuff (also it’s been a few years so this is not a complete itemized breakdown). Bus: $3200 TIRES FOR BUS: $2500 (I was really shocked by this one) Fridge: $200 used Cubic Mini $450 new Other things for wood stove: $400 new Natures Head Composting: $950 new Stove: $75 used Washer/Dryer Combo: Free from friend Alternator for bus: $300 new New bus batteries: $350 new Bed: Free used Tank and pump setup: $500 new Sink and faucet: $50 used Ikea Cabinets: $275 used Solar panels: $1000 surplus/used Charge controller: $600 refurbished Inverter: $700 new Breaker box and breakers: free from friend Shower kit: $110 new Misc Plumbing: $600 new Misc Electrical: $700 new Renting space to work on the bus inside for 3 months: $1500 Flooring: $200 surplus Tesla Battery Module $1200 That is a little over $15k of the total but shows where we spent most our money. Also, you are certainly correct that I am not a professional at any of this and there is a lot I would do different if I did it again (starting with not using a bus). I really didn’t care though. It wasn’t about doing it perfect. It worked for what we wanted at the time. And for your last question we didn’t make it long on the bus. We found out shortly after we finished the bus that my wife was pregnant. While we were comfortable with that lifestyle for ourselves we put aside our dream to make sure that our daughter would have a safe and comfortable life. Turns out this was a good call because my wife ended up having some nasty complications with her pregnancy and we were happy to have our family to help during that time. We didn’t end up taking out loans or maxing cards for the bus. We were very careful and lived wayyy under our means. I don’t think we went out to eat almost at all during our time building the bus. Hope that was helpful and thanks for the great question!

Thanks for not taking my question the wrong way. I have a horrible time explaining my self and my questions and 99.999% of the time ppl take my questions the wrong way and think im rude or offensive. And i thank you for taking the time for the detailed answer Congratulations on the baby Sry the bus didnt work out for u. Im a 33yr old single guy with no kids living in my stationary bus full time trying to build it out as i go. Im coming on the back end of 2yrs. And its been a ruff ride. I complete understand why you would walk away from ur bus I have horrible credit so i dont have any CC, i also went to college for culinary arts with over 10yrs experience and just this year switched professions back to construction because of the corona virus. Its taken almost 2 years to gather all the materials ( water tanks, stove, refrigerator,.....*most from scrap rvs) and next spring ill transition from a futon and folding table to an actual bed and real countertops and finish the build portion of my schoolie. You mentioned that if you could do it again that u would not use a bus as a platform.... Why is that? Any particular reason why? If i could go back i wish i would have gotten a smaller bus instead of a 40' Did you end up keeping ur schoolie or did u sell it?

I just got in mine and it did the exact same thing

You’re meant to lay in them at a 45 degree angle. Don’t lay in it with the hammock’s shape, you could get hurt.

I'm 11 months late to the comment but that is really good to know. I tried to find some guides online on what people are doing for this but had a really hard time finding it.

I'm looking into the Mini Cub as well. Some reviewers suggest mixing some coal in with the wood to burn longer and to shut all the stove vents.

Jolee Zanes hi! I found a better mini stove for cheaper! I bought it and it’s beautiful. I will make a video about it! www.etsy.com/shop/NorthWoodsMan

Hi! You can find us on Facebook here and message us! m.facebook.com/TippyTrips/

veronica medina we are glad it was helpful!!!

Garrett Roberson ahh! This is so awesome! It has definitely challenged AND strengthened our marriage. Doing this together has been SO much work, but also so much fun!

Hey pam,I mean Negative Nancy...Lotsa sun in the winter months to charge your batteries enough to run that fake fireplace that keeps you warm all night every day?? I think that mini is a nice addition to what they also have.

Yes! We have been! We will post that video later on, probably when we are on the road!

@@TippyTrips cool

Tim S Yes! The weather has been awful for the past several months! Thank you so much!

Courtney Haley thank you so much! It is really coming along 🤩

Mark Wilson Thanks! We actually did go back and trim some off in a few places to give it some breathing room in some areas but we will see if it was enough. 😆

Tameria Russell Hi! We live in VA Beach! We worked on it for a month at the 757 Makerspace in Norfolk which is where this video was filmed. Then we were able to find someone that lives on a farm with extra property who rented out space to us! It was definitely tough finding a place to store and work on our bus! We put out a post on Facebook, and had lots of people offer their space!

djvorac That is a great idea! We hadn’t even thought about that. Thank you so much!

The Galaxy Dreaming Yes yes yes!!! We each have one bin full of shoes, but not sure where to put them!

Jamie Wilkinson Thank you! It has been crazy hard for me! But also very refreshing having less 🙌🏼

Killer Skoolie Thank you!!

Courtney Haley ahhh! Thank you! We are SO excited!!!

Chevy Blythe Girl! We love you so much! Thank you so so much for the encouragement 💕 We are so happy to have you a part of our lives even “behind the scenes”. I think you are the first person I (Dani) told when the Lord told me to do this! Amazing 🙌🏼

Hey Pamela, this is David. I just want to thank you for following along on our journey. It always is nice seeing comments and you bring a lot of really valuable insight to us, such as when you recommended that we build the bus for us and our comfort in our Q&A video. I am not sure where the idea that I give into my wife came from, but if you would like to share, please do. Dani and I very much lean on one another but when it comes to who leads our house it is certainly not me, it is God. I lead our house the way God leads us. A great example of how we live comes from 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful". God is all of these things. There are times when He is firm but He is also the God of amazing grace. I am not perfect, but as long as I keep God at the head of my life, I know He will mold me into the leader Dani needs. As for the one month prediction, we know life on the road will be challenging and there will be many unexpected hurdles along the way. But we also know that this is what God has called us to do and we are going to be trusting in Him and following His will daily.

@@TippyTrips Am I wrong?

Pamela Chadwell Yes ❤️

Yeah we are getting close to finishing the build but worry not there is still a lot of content to come! We are doing a solar video here shortly detailing our system and we will continue documenting our trip.

Yay!! I’m from YWC so it’s so cool to see these videos! ❤️

Jackie Norman Awww that’s so awesome! Thanks so much for following us. We will be doing even MORE exciting videos documenting our travels across the US!!

L L thanks so much! That’s so great to know! We do have so many different sizes. That was the hardest part!

L L Hi there! We are hoping to be done at the end of this month (February) and we are still planning out our route!

Cool cant wait to see the finished product and where yall go! :) good luck!

Thank you so much!

She Tip62 no need to do our research we actually both worked at Starbucks which is how we met. Not sure what you are referring regarding her being a god. She is a Siren from Greek mythology. Supposedly they lured men off of ships into the water. Starbucks used the logo as Starbucks is the first mate from Moby Dick and the siren is supposed to lead people in to get coffee. :)

Thank you!!!

Dry Creek Trading Ahhh! Thank you so much! We are trying our best to do things right!

Our space is filling up! We don't have much room in our closet!

Brittany Stephens yes! We will do that when we are finished so we can give an accurate number of what we’ve spent! We are keeping track of everything!

Thank you. Not many people do budget videos. That should get a lot of views.

Brittany Stephens that is so true. And if they do often it’s at the beginning and they don’t follow up on how much it actually cost. We have an (almost completely) itemized list with all of our costs that we will be sharing once we are done along with the video.

Cool thanks. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be amazing!