How to make money as an uneducated 17 year old, homeless / vanlife

[Leo Nordin]

I have decided to leave school, build a van and live van life/homeless for reasons. (discussed in other threads) 

Here are to be listed entrepreneur ideas / ways of making money as an uneducated 17 year old, or someone living van life.

Examples are: Door to door business "specify", Ebay / china / craigslist buying and selling "specify products", taking care of pets / dog walks "how to" ETC... 

Part time jobs and how to apply for them also. 

17 year olds can't use credit cards and get work the same way as 18 year olds. But any ideas are wanted. Thank you! 

[JosephKnecht]

You should educate yourself and acquire marketable skills. 

The more skills you have, the more complex problems you can solve, and the more money you can earn.

Everybody can sell products on craigslist, but not everyone can fly rockets into space like Elon Musk. 

My suggestion: find something you want to learn about. Educate yourself and become an educated 18-year-old.  

[Average Investor]

I make a living selling physical products online and it is not something you cold easily do in a van. If you had a storage unit to pair with it, then it could be doable. Expenses would be low enough you could get by. If you plan on driving around much it would be harder, but you could do paper items. Making anything decent requires experience though. You will spend a good amount of time upfront losing money on bad buys and making poor distinctions. 

I enjoy it and it is starting to pay well, but most of of my background as allowed me to flourish with this business. I would recommend it as a side gig to supplement income. for a novice the amount of money you get will fluctuate pretty wildly sometimes. Knowing categories and when they sell best etc all makes a huge difference. 

You can actually find quite a bit of good stuff for free. Craigslist can be good if you are close to a big city in the free section. The prime season for item sourcing has just passed. Summer is great by far. 

You will need time and space to really bring anything decent. you will want the stability of a job and a good backing of income if you were to even consider going full time reselling.  

I am using this as a way to control my day and my time at this point. Plus it is pretty enjoyable. It is allowing me to really max out other areas of development and work on a life purpose. Don't get lost chasing a quick buck. 

[Elisabeth]

@Leo Nordin Are you good in any art? Any marketable hobby? Any foreign language? Any web design skills? 

If not, you may have to resort to manual labor... or maybe you can be employed as a waiter in a coffee shop ... and sure, there's always macdonalds. 

[Jo96]

You could go to wealthy affluent areas and pick up and sell the free items they Leave on the sides of their homes. There is an app called Nextdoor and they will actually update you when they are leaving stuff out in the “free” section. When I bought my house I completely furnished it with brand new monogamy  wood furniture and a couch and all the outdoor garden equipment I needed by going to the San Fransisco bay area with a truck and collecting all the free stuff. Some of the tables I got were worth 10k alone. I could easily see someone just collecting and selling the furniture on OfferUp. 

Edited October 7, 2020 by Jo96

[Thestarguitarist14]

Selling magazines door to door.

[Preety_India]

Wait till you get 18

Till then work in a shop. 

 

[Leo Nordin]

8 hours ago, Elisabeth said:

@Leo Nordin Are you good in any art? Any marketable hobby? Any foreign language? Any web design skills? 

If not, you may have to resort to manual labor... or maybe you can be employed as a waiter in a coffee shop ... and sure, there's always macdonalds. 

I have some electronics skills, I know a lot about batteries -how to source them and other stuff. Mostly ebike related, building custom ebikes may be an idea. Also I have knowledge in solar/wind power and bldc/dc motors / motor drivers. 

What kinds of manual labour? Paper boy? 

[Elisabeth]

4 hours ago, Leo Nordin said:

I have some electronics skills, I know a lot about batteries -how to source them and other stuff. Mostly ebike related, building custom ebikes may be an idea. Also I have knowledge in solar/wind power and bldc/dc motors / motor drivers. 

What kinds of manual labour? Paper boy? 

Whatever is available in your area. Can you get a regular work contract at 17 in your country? Perhaps it's possible to get employed in a bike shop, repairing and selling bikes under the supervision of someone older? Or maybe motorbikes or mown-lawers, whatever  Just using your positive relationship to technical stuff and building on top of it. 

[Shunyata]

Why don't you go to college?

[Leo Nordin]

2 hours ago, Shunyata said:

Why don't you go to college?

Awakening reasons, I will not discuss that here, please don't post more about it. This thread is not only for me but other youngsters seeking income too. 

[Yarco]

Good news, you can learn to do pretty much anything online with free Youtube tutorials and other resources nowadays.

What are you interested in? Learn how to make basic websites/blogs for people, learn basic photoshop/GIMP skills and sell logos and designs on Fiverr within a week, sign up for Textbroker and start writing articles for $0.01 per word. Lots of generic "virtual assistant" / data entry jobs on Upwork.

Do you play an instrument? Then offer basic music lessons via Skype/Zoom.

Speak a second language? Translate stuff

Longer-term (3+ months learning) - learn programming. Or SEO (search engine optimization) and then help local companies to rank higher in Google search results. Learn to make some basic mobile games and publish on the app store.

Cut grass in the summer, shovel snow in the winter. Walk people's dogs. Instacart / SkipTheDishes

Think about this concretely though:

• Where are you going to get internet access for hours a day to do your work?
• Where are you going to get the money to buy and customize a van to begin with?
• Do you have the skills and tools necessary to build a van? Where are you going to get them? How much extra will that cost?

Realistically you aren't going to accomplish this until you're 18 anyway, so don't worry about credit cards and work restrictions yet.

I really think you should consider all the points I made in your last thread which you just outright dismissed as well.

[Leo Nordin]

@Yarco Thank you for all the time you've spend posting on my threads. I'm sorry I never had the time to respond to all your points because there was just so much to explain in response. My apologies, I don't have the time right now, I'll be very busy for a while. Though I carefully read through all posts during my threads so rest assure, I am not trying to dismiss anything, I am grateful for your precious time. 

This goes for everyone who takes to time to help me and others, thank you all sincerely. 

[outlandish]

What @datamonster said. If it's not dead obvious to you right now what you need to do as an entrepreneur without school/college, it's unlikely that you'll stumble on the breakthrough idea while you're struggling with life living out of a van.

Just doing things like laundry, finding a toilet, a shower, getting drinking water, avoiding being robbed can be a challenge living like that.

[Leo Nordin]

@outlandish Good points there, to an AWAKENED being survival is an issue and should be handled as smoothly and efficiently as possible. This thread wasn't intended for this but here are some solutions (though a house would be much more convenient for the average man):

Shower = gym membership / lakes 

Laundry = portable washer/or hand washing. 

Peeing easy, pooping (in the wild or in a bag? Lol) we have lots of places everywhere with toilets here so not a big problem. But still a little hazzle, though pooping you don't do that often, so this is probably fine. 

Robbed = who cares I don't own close to nothing anyways. Gps tracking for expensive stuff. 

Water = Will not take much time to fill up somewhere anyways. 

I would say the most difficult task for me... might be not to leave the van hanging and always transport it with you. Also to make food and contribute to the world. The van isn't a limitless space for creation. 

All these points are to be considered if you become a dropout on the spiritual path everyone! It may not be as fancy as you have imagined! I also will not make the decision before I have tested it for a bit to be sure I can live like this. 

@datamonster True, what I seek is no high paying job only the minimal amount of work for survival, hazzles from living cheaply included as work for survival. So minimising both, if I could I would sleep on a motorcycle no tent or home that's how far you can go with this. Very good point though, we will live for a hundred years who knows, spending a little time to set a good fundation for your life is very important. I wouldn't ever advise anyone who hasn't awakened or is close to drop out because of reasons such as mine. Seeking enlightenment or whatever the ego had thought of that they don't know how to do. Then it would be a much wiser idea to first figure out how to be then how to live. Getting educated to work and save money to live on stocks dividends in india for the rest of your life would be a sacrifice worth 5years extra work for you who are new to spirituality. 

Be nice to the thread and don't question or argue me. Instead it would be nicer to spread your knowledge and points to other who may be reading this. You can point out why what I say maybe won't be the reality but don't talk in a conversation towards to me, try to give what you can to the audience, thank you❤️?

[Member]

Become a vlogger or start your own blog. I used to earn some bucks while sleeping... for years (because I'm lazy as fuck but you can do it better lol). Your english is better than mine, so it should work for you as well if you find a profitable niche

[Leo Nordin]

@Member I can't speak English well and it would take a lot of work filming myself and editing. It's not really my thing. Blogging also would take too much time, I'm Swedish my English is not so good even though I can write pretty well. 

But as general advice for other readers, thank you!?

Edited November 7, 2020 by Leo Nordin

[Leo Gura]

I knew a Buddhist monk who lived out of his van and traveled the country.

He worked as a roving massage therapist. He enjoyed his little life.

There are many creative ways to live.

[mmKay]

Work summer  / winter seasons as waiter full time depending where you live . Save up. Take time off work, take disemployment pay and other possible government help, etx .Repeat , all this while working on your bizz idea. ( this is just one perspective ) 

 

I"ve heard germany you can donate blood and plasma and jizz for some cash. Idk how it is where you live but make sure to stay hydrated and all that. 

You could also practice freeganism  x d

Most importantly, train your social skills. 

But first , let me introduce you this definition-

A "hobo" is a migratory worker or homeless vagabond (key is worker). Unlike a "tramp", who works only when forced to, and a "bum", who does not work at all.

You want to be the hobo in this case lol.

Anyways, you can literally talk to every single person you see and have a casual chit chat and inquire if there is any work you could do for them, for someone they know, get employed somewhere... Etc

Every - single - person. 

Don't let the imaginary boundry between " Friend and stranger hold you back from making every city your own home. 

Ill leave you with this insight:

Your net-worth is your network. Make connections, talk with people, meet up with people from online, etc. 

 

[Leo Nordin]

@mmKay ❤️thank you.