When Lindzi Hargrave, 39, sold the two-bedroom house in Glenfield, Leicestershire, which she co-owned with her brother, she decided to use the equity to buy a new place to live. Unusually, that place was a double-decker bus.
“I’ve always been obsessed with buses,” she says. “The book bus came to schools when I was younger and, in my 20s, I wanted to get one.”
Having sold her terrace house for £210,000 and making around £40,000 in equity, Lindzi spent £18,000 on buying a bus in May 2023, having put down an initial deposit of a few thousand pounds.
“The bus had been used by the Met Police in London and been created for events and used in the recruitment process,” she says.
“When I received her, she was an empty shell with the seats in there still (but not attached) and there were just a few partitions.”
Now the bus has been renovated; the upstairs comprises a bedroom, bathroom, and desk area, with storage boxes that can be pushed together to make a bed for an adult or two smaller children’s beds.
Downstairs, there is a kitchen at the front and a living area at the back which doubles as a community space.
Renovating the bus cost £55,000 in total, which included getting a Class C licence, paying for theory and driving tests, and a health check, at a total cost of £2,000.
Putting in new electrics came to £10,000, £2,000 of which was for four solar panels and £1,000 was for a lithium battery to store the electricity they produced.
Other big expenses were a log-burning stove for £2,500, a composting toilet for £700 and a £700 fridge.
“Everything else was sourced from Gumtree, FreeCycle or Facebook Marketplace,” says Lindzi. “I didn’t want the bus to have a polished feel; I wanted to upcycle stuff, and I did that to the point where I didn’t want to see another paintbrush again!”
Lindzi says the value of the refurbished bus would be situational. “If I had to get rid and put her on the market, I might only get £35,000 to £40,000 but, if someone wanted her, I could imagine getting offered £60,000 or £70,000 to sell.”
There are significant on-going costs that come with living on a double decker. “The biggest expense is the car insurance which makes it equivalent to renting,” says Lindzi.
“Anything you might be saving from not paying council tax [mobile homes are exempt] goes on that.”
In her first year, the insurance was a whopping £5,500; while in the second, it’s dropped to £3,500.
“Even though I’ve got 20 years of no-claims as a car driver, you start from zero,” says Lindzi, who shaved her head to raise £1,000, which she put towards her second year of insurance.
“Had it stayed higher, it would have been a real struggle to carry on.” She’s hopeful that as she builds up her no-claims, this figure will keep going down.
Lindzi can park for free in laybys, but they don’t have waste disposal facilities. “You can save lots of money by not being in a campsite, but you still have to find out how you are going to get rid of your waste. Some campsites also won’t take me because [the bus is] so big,” she says.
“It makes me gutted that councils are reducing the spaces there are for nomadic people. I don’t pay council tax but if the council made a space for us, we would pay for it.”
Lindzi also pays car tax at £15 a month and spends £100 a month on food and water. In the winter, she parks up and saves money on diesel, but this comes to about £700 a month in the summer when she is driving around the country. In the winter, she also needs to budget £100 a week for heating the bus so this offsets most of the fuel saving.
“If you average it out, it’s not cheaper than living in the traditional way but my mental health is better. It works out as expensive as living on my own, renting in a house, but at least I don’t have to raise a deposit and I own the bus. It’s the same as keeping your head above water in a rental but I plan to make it my job,” says Lindzi.
Previously, a teacher in a behavioural unit supporting children with ADHD and autism, Lindzi now plans to travel the country’s festivals, offering up the bus as a safe space for people, where they can relax and learn about ADHD and neurodiversity.
She’s named the community project Bus Different. So far, the bus has been to Vanlife, Replica, Barefoot and The Watford Fringe festivals, where it’s been a welfare point or a display bus, showcasing an unusual build.
She’s travelled between West Sussex, Yorkshire and Wales – an impressive feat considering the maintenance issues along the way.
“Both last year and this year, there have been multiple things go wrong. In the lead-up to the festival season this year, the bus stopped running and I had a six-week nightmare,” says Lindzi.
A local garage finally diagnosed and fixed the problem, but the standard maintenance is £400 a year, with other, ad hoc issues adding an extra £1,000 annually. One new tyre, for example, costs £700.
Despite this, Lindzi wouldn’t cite cost as a major disadvantage of living on a bus. Instead, she says the worst thing is “having to empty the toilet as it’s not plumbed in.
“Everything you bring on to the bus, you physically have to take it off.” There are plenty of advantages too, including “feeling at one with your surroundings and the seasonal changes”.
“This morning, I’ve done yoga stretches in a field outside. I like having different views each day because I’m novelty driven,” Lindzi adds. She would recommend her lifestyle to others, but she says you really have to be passionate about it.
“I’d recommend it if it’s your dream. It’s not something to do half-heartedly; pure passion has kept me overcoming the obstacles.”
In the future, Lindzi would like to stay living on the double decker but get a second, one-storey bus that she would use for festivals. “Festival organisations have seen how popular the bus is,” she says. “And it’s a lovely lifestyle.”