The seeds of the idea of living small began years ago when my very first boss suggested I should buy a motorhome and the savings would allow me to save the money for a house.

I never took his advice, but it rattled around somewhere in the back of my mind until years later.

Around about 2013, I began to examine non-traditional ways of living. I was feeling trapped in the outer suburbs, every day dragging on and on – endlessly repeating the same old depressing 9-5 drudgery, sitting agitated in traffic for hours. Something had to change.

After relentlessly reading some of the original blogs about vanlife, stealth-camping and building stealth-campers I began the hunt for a vehicle. It took me a while to find something suitable as I’m too tall for most vans.

I saw an old step-van a few suburbs away in the Trading Post (newspaper) and that was it. It was suitably cheap and I put a deposit on it that morning before work. Long story short I got it home and it needed about $4K spent on it to get it roadworthy which was to be expected considering the price.

So I got the work done and slowly set about planning the interior which was a bare shell. I took a chair in there and dreamed and measured and sketched and researched and dreamed some more. 

Slowly I began gathering materials, continually remeasuring and replanning. Ended up my resolve wasn’t all it could have been.
I procrastinated for another 5-6 years, taking far too much notice of the various negativity coming from those around me about the whole idea.

To my credit I never fully gave up on it and continued to gather the various ingredients so that when the time did come I had most of what I needed.

I lost my job due to the long COVID lockdowns of 2020. This, compounded with other circumstances outside my control, turned things upside down and yanked my sense of security out from under me so abruptly it shook my world – even though I’d been half-heartedly preparing for that eventuality for a while.

I made the decision to knuckle down with the build to avoid having to re-enter the shared rental market, or even worse face homelessness. Turns out the timing couldn’t have been better and by the time the ‘ring-of-steel’ was lifted I was ready to leave. I never looked back and I now know it’s the best decision I ever made.

I could, and should have done better, ie. moved more decisively.
If I could humbly suggest, so should you!