A couple put aside their normal life to raise their children on the road in a converted school bus. Now, they have abandoned grueling 60-hour work weeks and bills to pay in favor of a nomadic lifestyle.

Jessica Rucha, 26, and Adam Cerre, 28, of Michigan, United States, bought a decommissioned bus for $2,400 in 2018 to escape rents forever. The couple rebuilt the bus with a $14,000 makeover using YouTube tutorials, then hit the road to live with their children.

The couple says that lifting the moorings and getting on a bus not only gave them stability, but also saved their marriage. In fact, they've added a new member to their family of four: their now two-year-old daughter.

How To Cook Broccolini https https://t.co/vhvIayOAtt https://t.co/lfhsDq4Z6N

— Kim Thu Jun 25 20:01:27 +0000 2020

The move allowed Adam to kick his addiction to alcoholism and financial problems. The couple assures that the family has never been as happy as now.

Regarding the education of the two older children, the couple made the decision to educate them themselves with language, literature and math lessons as well as information on each of the places they visit. “Every day we do classes and practice physical activity such as cycling, hiking and yoga. We learn about the states we find ourselves in as well as the plants that grow there. In addition, they help with cleaning and cooking,” says Jessica.

So far, they've explored twelve states, though they prefer to camp far from cities only when they have to shop two or three times a month. The rest of the time is spent in national parks following the good weather throughout the country.

To make ends meet, Jessica and Adam do photography work, sell T-shirts, interact on social media, and take the occasional remote job. Living a healthy lifestyle, the family gets by on just $1,000 a month more than anything else to pay for phone and fuel bills.

The move to move to a collective was not a project conceived in advance, but they did it because they were on the edge: “This was not part of a plan nor was it an easy decision, honestly we did it because we were hanging from a thread. Many call us crazy because they couldn't live like this without having a big closet or spending the day so close to family, but we don't care. We own our house and we have a new garden every week, sometimes every day,” says Jessica.

Jessica met Adam in 2011 and they lived together in Lexington, Michigan with their first two children, but in 2017 Adam started having problems with alcohol. “Adam was an alcoholic and he was on the brink. He started out innocently like anyone else. No one knows if he will become addicted or not."

This time coincided with the time when Adam moved from a fixed salary to a commission. “It was the worst period in our history. We didn't have enough credit to buy, we had two children to support and I didn't see that the path we were on was the right one,” Jessica revealed.

Sustainable Living

To help support the family, Jessica took a marketing job that she could do from home because she didn't want to leave the kids alone. “Adam was our breadwinner and she couldn't leave his job to go to rehab and honestly she didn't trust him to actually go to meetings so the school bus was our road to recovery. ”.

She came up with the idea because she read an article about a family that had spent a year traveling in an RV and realized that they spent significantly less than they did and lived much better. “We were struggling to pay rent on a dilapidated house. We lived on a farm and we didn't have running water,” Jessica recalls, adding: “At that time, we spent half the time camping because we couldn't wash clothes or dishes.”

Both Adam, now three years sober, and Jessica stopped drinking completely, quit their jobs, and bought their school bus in early 2018. To make ends meet, they moved in with a relative for a year while they fixed the vehicle to make it habitable. “We don't have the most expensive bus or the prettiest or most elegant, but it was made with love,” says Jessica.

Over time, they added solar panels, a compostable toilet, a refrigerator, a washing machine, and heaters. In January 2019, the couple's third daughter was born. To avoid expenses, they make their own cleaning products, soaps, and insect repellents.

Nearly three years after their last sedentary posting, the family of five has no plans to return to normalcy. "We feel blessed every day in every way to live like this and thank God for leading us through his beautiful creations."