Most people finish converting their van before they move into it.
I didn’t.
The original plan was simple enough. Buy the van, convert it, then move in once everything was finished.
Reality had other ideas.
The more I looked at my finances, the more I realised that time mattered. Every month I delayed was another month of rent, another month where less money was going towards my debt, and another month where I was putting off the change I knew I needed to make.
At some point I had a choice.
I could wait until everything was perfect.
Or I could start living the life I was working towards.
The van wasn’t finished.
It had sound deadening.
It had insulation.
It had ply-lined walls.
I’d already bought a power station, so I had electricity from day one. I’d also bought a portable diesel heater, which meant I had a plan for keeping warm once winter arrived.
The essentials were there.
Even the bed wasn’t really a bed.
For the first few months it consisted of two sofa cushions.
Not a custom mattress.
Not memory foam.
Just two sofa cushions that did the job.
Looking back, that probably sums up the whole van at the time. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was functional.
There were still jobs to do.
There were still ideas I wanted to try.
There were still plenty of things that needed improving.
But by mid-October 2025, I reached the point where I felt ready.
Or perhaps more accurately, ready enough.
The timing wasn’t ideal. Winter was approaching and the sensible option would probably have been to wait until everything was finished.
But I knew there would always be another reason to delay.
Another improvement to make.
Another item to buy.
Another weekend to spend preparing.
At some point you have to stop preparing and start doing.
So I moved in.
Not because the van was finished.
But because it was ready enough to begin the next chapter.
The first few weeks were a mixture of excitement and uncertainty.
I remember constantly noticing things that needed changing.
Some ideas worked brilliantly.
Others looked good in theory but made much less sense when I was actually living in the space.
That’s one of the things nobody really tells you about van conversions.
You don’t truly know whether something works until you use it every day.
Living in the van became part of the design process.
Instead of guessing what I might need, I was discovering what I actually needed.
Storage changed.
Layouts changed.
Small improvements were made whenever I had time.
The van slowly evolved around the way I lived.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that there is always another reason to wait.
Another improvement.
Another bit of preparation.
Another thing to buy.
If I’d decided the van needed to be completely finished before I moved in, I’d probably have found another job to do after that as well.
Moving in before the conversion was complete taught me an important lesson.
Progress is often more important than perfection.
The van didn’t need to be perfect.
It needed to work.
And it did.
There were moments where I questioned whether I had done the right thing.
Particularly during bad weather.
Particularly when something broke.
Particularly when I was tired after work and just wanted everything to be easy.
But there was also something incredibly satisfying about it.
Each improvement solved a real problem.
Each weekend I could see progress.
Each month I could see my debt reducing.
The van and the debt journey became linked.
One was making the other possible.
The unfinished van wasn’t a sign that I wasn’t ready.
It was a sign that I had stopped waiting for the perfect moment.
Over time the unfinished van became the van I live in today.
Not because I completed it all at once, but because I kept improving it bit by bit.
In many ways, that’s exactly how I’ve approached getting out of debt.
Not perfectly.
Not quickly.
Just consistently.
One improvement at a time.