Waste not want not

When living in a bus you have to be aware of water consumption and waste, as water supply is limited to tank size, and you have to be able to carry your waste (grey and black water as well as general rubbish) until you reach the next dump point. I've cut my water usage right down when washing up, and we don't unnecessarily wash clothes either. When living in a house I'd routinely do a load or two of washing every day, whereas now we usually have a laundry day once a week.

Power supply is another limited resource. We have a 1000 watts worth of solar panels on the roof, which maintains our fridge/freezer, lights, TVs, security surveillance system, phone chargers and fans, but for vacuuming or air conditioning we need to run the generator. Therefore we daily sweep the floors and vacuum once a week, and only use the air conditioning if it gets extremely hot in the bus. Where I used to spend a couple of hours for cleaning a four bedroom house, it only takes me a half an hour to do the same in the bus. I like!

As we mainly cook on gas, we favour quick and simple meals, so no more oven dishes that I used to cook especially in the cold climate of my home country. We do have an oven though, so if we ever feel like cinnamon buns or fresh bread, we can still enjoy these favourites too.

Storage space in the bus is also limited, so we don't buy anything unless we really need it . The children have a set amount of toys and lots of books, but they often play outdoors, and we use local libraries regularly for some variety in story books. We have a decent amount of storage for winter and summer clothes, but yet again only carry what we need. 

And the man cave (also known as "dad's garage" or storage at the back of the bus)? It is full of tools and materials that might come handy when maintenance on the bus is required, and as I've learnt already, we DO need to carry a long ladder to reach the solar panels and surveillance cameras at the height of 4.3 meters when repairs are required. 

We don't spend time on yard work either, since we don't have one. I sometimes think this is one of my husband's favourite things about living in a bus: no more lawn mowing! A little portable herb garden would perhaps be nice, but as none of us is a real green thumb, we can manage just fine as it is.

- M -

One of our power eaters, still manageable from the solar supply.

We try to limit the amount of toys - and have noticed less is indeed more.

We are happy to sacrifice some of our precious storage space to carry some of our most loved books on board.