Why you may consider moving into a Vehicle 🚗 to Bootstrap your Life

[mmKay]

 

⤴️ Pretty good simple take. I'm currently on 6 months of vanlife and I have say it ties nicely with many concepts we talk about here.

Sharing this to start a discussion.

 

 

 

It's as cheap as it gets.

The only cheaper way to live is to house hack (  live in a flat with multiple rooms, rent them out and have their added individual  rent cover your rent  for the entire apartment. It is a possibility but I dont think I'd trade in my freedom and capacity for solitude for that. People can be a blessing and / or a curse.

 

It has the potential to get you off the rat race by giving you more time and freedom,  by lowering living expenses , to build yourself up. The breathing room you need to escape Wage Slavery. The time you need to build the infrastructure of your life. The fire under your ass to motivate you. Maybe it's what you need to love life again.

What is financial freedom? Earning more than you spend. To archive it you can either earn more or spend less.

If you are neck deep in expenses being passionate about how you make your income my seem like a pipedream. Start somewhere attainable.

 

It may be exactly what you need at this moment if you don't have family to take care of and are young and energetic. Or even if you are old, poor, crusty and disabled . It may help you to pay off debt. It may help you to narrow down what is important for you, both materialally and mentally. it may help you escape a toxic environment, move out of your parents place or a dysfunctional relationship.

It is a good way to massively expose yourself to new experiences. It is a good way to practice lifestyle minimalism. It is a good way to meet more people as you wear your house on your back like a turtle. It may get you laid. The hippy community loves camper vans. It may be just the kick in the ass you need to start living life already. The new phase or chapter of your life. This lifestyle will bitchslap maturity into your character. You will become more decisive.  You will develop people skills, mechanical skills, electrical skills, wood work skills, money management. You will sharpen your intuition. It will increase your empathy for poor and homeless people. 

You may want to give a try just for a week , a month or so more. No need to marry the lifestyle.

 

Now I want to say this isn't scalable for the entirety of society at large , but it is a realistic way FOR YOU to get more out of life with minimal time and effort

 

- With love, from the back of my windowless white van 😉

 

Note: Ofc there are countless drawbacks as well. Feel free to bring up any of these.

Let us know your thoughts.

Edited January 6 by mmKay

[Davino]

Oh, interesting. Thanks for sharing this possibility

[mmKay]

 

These are advanced mini builds. If I were to do mine over I would live in the empty unbuilt shell for a few months to get a feel of what I need where. It's infinitely more effective this way .

You can literally start with whatever vehicle you've got and minimal changes and minimal cash. You can remove the passager seat of any vehicle to make legit livable space.

 

Edited January 6 by mmKay

[mmKay]

You would think this lifestyle is even more common in poor countries maybe..

Nope! I searched the phrase" I live in my car" In over a dozen languages of underdeveloped countries and you get nothing. ( Or they are so poor that they don't have smartphones, internet access or even vehicles )

Probably because of the added safety issues, and the fact that actual housing must be dirty cheap, and these societies are big on families and living in group.

 

So consider vehicle life to be another first world luxury

 

Edited January 7 by mmKay

[Davino]

Have you tried this lifestyle?

Do you plan to do it soon?

[LoneWonderer]

https://youtube.com/@liveration?si=u2MNT7yyY5aRc1sT

Great yt channel you may want to check out related to everything you said and for those who want to learn more.

[Phil King]

Good thread. I have been heavily considering van life or living in a class C RV after I graduate and save up some money. After watching that video and from previous research, I think I would definitely go for van life because of the better mpg and the unreliability of RV's. I really want to road trip across the USA for a year or 2. 

What are your monthly expenses for your van life setup? How do you make money while on the road? I feel like I would either need to save up like a years worth of expenses or develop some sort of location independent income before I embark on this journey

[LoneWonderer]

I'm going to give you all an example of what I've personally been looking into for months now. I live in New Zealand and houses here are expensive AF. I don't really want to stay tied down to a mortgage for 20-30 years. Instead in 5 years I can simply buy and live in this campervan which has everything (including washing machine) for the same price that I'd be renting a room in a shared apartment:

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/caravans-motorhomes/caravans/more-than-24-ft/listing/4492087256

Next I can also buy and pay off in 1 year the following suv: 

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/hyundai/ix35/listing/4449347994

Now after 5 years I have a nomadic yet comfortable life on wheels I can take anywhere. If I invest in solar panels I now have electric for free. I work in nature conservation so I have terrain in the nature reserve to park my caravan. All this while earning the equivalent of 36,000$ a year after taxes and every year still having around 15000$ left over for savings and investing and also having enough money to buy food. Also this is just for people here in NZ this country is totally Van life friendly and this lifestyle is as easy to live as it comes with cheap and sometimes free camper places everywhere.

If you want of course it can be done and it's hard to see the disadvantages of it if you are looking for freedom and escaping the rat race. 

Ps: notice I'm not building the van if you DIY it it's probably even cheaper!  Also the salary I mention that I earn is USD but the adverts are in New Zealand dollars if you are interested just do the conversion.

Edited January 7 by LoneWonderer

[ZenSwift]

I DREAMED of VanLife. Never got it off the ground because Vans/ Cars in general are in such high demand. 

 

I still would like to do at least a year of it one day. The freedom and adventure alone would be phenomenal.  

 

At this point what's going to really enable me to do that is to make money online. 

Edited January 14 by ZenSwift

[mmKay]

On 14/1/2024 at 9:41 PM, ZenSwift said:

I DREAMED of VanLife. Never got it off the ground because Vans/ Cars in general are in such high demand. 

 

I still would like to do at least a year of it one day. The freedom and adventure alone would be phenomenal.  

 

At this point what's going to really enable me to do that is to make money online. 

You can try it for a week. No need to make a big deal of it

[Yimpa]

My vehicle is kinda my second home since I use it for my food delivery job. I get to meet a lot of interesting fellas and visit a lot of new and diverse locations.

Couldn’t live in it, though, since it’s a small car.

[mmKay]

bump, as I'm reconsidering this once again. My soul longs the adventure  been stuck in house life for last 7 months, time that I needed to re-ground myself

who's with me ?

( JK ) 

[puporing]

@mmKay I've been living in my van since spring this year. It's mostly not bad and if I really needed to I can find an Airbnb temporarily. Partly it is to save but also to use the money I have to pay visit to places where I live or use it in other ways that's fitting.

I will be going back inside for the late fall and winter and may repeat again next year.

Yes it doesn't have to cost much I think something like a caravan is the most economical way to go about it (compared to the larger commercial vans).

[Fountainbleu]

following.