A testimony from Harmony of Creating My Kaleidoscope:
We’ve been trying to get out of debt for a long time. Every year our tax return went towards the credit cards, giving us a false sense of achievement… and it would never take long for the balances to climb back up again.
We were finally able to make real progress on our debt over the past couple of years thanks to a lot of hard work and a genuine change in our attitude towards money.
2017 was the first year we were able to use our tax return towards an investment, instead of just paying back money already spent, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. We had been planning to have one more child to add to our set of three. Neither one of our vehicles would carry the whole family after the newest addition, so we decided to use our tax return towards purchasing a used minivan.
It felt incredibly empowering that we were going to be able to buy another vehicle without needing any financing. Then, we got the surprise of a lifetime. Our final, fourth baby, was going to be number four and five!
We were shocked to find out that twins were on their way. The standard minivan no longer seemed like a practical choice and three-row vehicles were too expensive for us to buy, at least with cash.
We were at a loss, searching through listings on Craigslist every night and very close to conceding that we would have to resort to a car loan. That was, until we starting thinking outside of the box and came up with an idea: our new family vehicle could be a used school bus!
We had just happened to see a used school bus for sale and ended up learning about a whole community of people who transform them into campers and RV’s. If they could do that with an old bus, why couldn’t we use one to cart our big family around town? We would be able to fit the whole family, plus friends, strollers, wagons, coolers, sports equipment, and all sorts of other things.
We started doing research on whether buying a short school bus would be a feasible option. The DMV informed us that we would not need a commercial driver’s license and told us about the registration requirements. Our insurance company gave us some reasonable quotes. Mr. Smith spent a bunch of time on “Schoolie” forums and watching YouTube videos to learn about what to look for when choosing our bus.
We decided to look for a short bus with a 7.3 Liter diesel engine, because it should get better gas mileage and last longer. We looked in locations that don’t use salt in the winter. It also needed to have seat belts that would work with the car seats.
There are quite a few dealers who specialize in school buses across the United States. However, we found that most of their vehicles had at least 200,000 or 300,000 miles on them. We’re hopeful that our bus will last at least that long, but we wanted to start off with less miles on the engine. We ended up focusing on Craigslist postings across the eastern half of the United States. There are a surprising amount of buses for sale out there, but not so many that met all of our requirements.
Our time line was a bit troublesome. We had to wait until we had our tax refund, but we were unsure exactly when the twins would arrive. It became clear that some travel would be involved to get a bus that met all of our criteria, and there was no way that Mr. Smith was going to leave me home by myself with three young children and newborn twins. We found one bus in Virginia, but it sold before we had our tax refund. We were pretty worried that our plan wasn’t going to work.
Then, we found our bus down in Tennessee. We had many phone conversations with the seller (who happened to be a small used car lot) to get answers to all of our questions and obtain lots of pictures of the bus. We did some research on the seller, sent a cashier’s check as a deposit, and had it added to our insurance policy. Mr. Smith flew down to Tennessee with a second cashier’s check with him for the remainder of the price of the bus and drove it back home. The seller provided him with a temporary dealer’s plate, but we did learn that you can purchase temporary plates from the DMV for a pretty small charge.
We now have a 20-passenger school bus in our driveway, completely paid for in cash. It is a 2003 Ford E-450, with a Powerstroke Turbo 7.3 Liter diesel engine and 136,000 miles. The bus cost us a total of $4,500, plus airfare, and tolls and gas to drive it back up North.
The bus needs a little bit of work before it can be driven around town. We removed the stop sign and “School Bus” decals. The main issue right now is that it cannot be yellow and we need to remove two bench seats (weight requirement) before it can be registered at the DMV. Mr. Smith has been working hard cleaning and sanding down the bus, and then he’ll start painting it. We were quoted a price of approximately $1,500 to have someone paint it for us. Fortunately, Mr. Smith was able to borrow a compressor and paint gun from a friend, so we can do it ourselves.
Our family, friends, and the neighbors think we’re a little strange. The kids are really excited. I’m looking forward to lots of adventures in the bus . . . and extremely thankful that our fun won’t be ruined by having to worry about making any loan payments.
Harmony Smith is a working mom of five who is fighting to pay off debt so she can escape from her 9-5 job and spend more time with her family. Harmony blogs about saving money, increasing her income with side hustles, DIY projects, and other adventures at Creating My Kaleidoscope.
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