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Living in a Van

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: Living in a Van

#61

Post by Cass »

timmaah wrote: post #52
rohin wrote: post #38

Author here. In the article I link to a 60 Minutes segment that follows around families in Florida that turn to living in their cars as a last resort. Worth checking out as it offers a very different perspective on the experience: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7389750n

Your article is a good one, but the tone towards RV's and living in campgrounds is oddly negative. >>An RV is basically a house on wheels and isn’t particularly inexpensive or minimalist. Our was pretty inexpensive, is more minimalist than most US based folks and will hold its value just like the camper vans you mention. >>If you pay to stay at a campsite, it’s most certainly legal, but then this lifestyle ceases to…

You can get a pretty decent apartment for $900 per month in most parts of the country.

Re: Living in a Van

#62

Post by tibbon »

tptacek wrote: post #36
patio11 wrote: post #15

This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live. If you want to save money, you can try what they actually do, which is move to a less desirable neighborhood and spend one third what you do on rent for an apartment. You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social securi…

It is interesting also to note that the ability to lead any kind of normal or predictable life in this fashion is itself a privilege. People in the software business can get away with wearing the same clothes, coming in wrinkled, missing the occasional shower, and, for that matter, getting in a little later after having to move the van in the middle of the night. Our field is extremely accommodating. Put yourself in…

I agree with you.

The one thing I can never figure out is why managers of some types of companies run them the way they do. Why couldn't a call center employee work with a headset from a van and wear whatever they please? There's all sorts of strange practices that some of these companies do. Never in a million years would I ask an employee to submit to a drug test before being employed for example- yet that's what things like call centers do.

I want my employees to be happy, because they are the people that make the company work. When I talk to a manager of a company like this - they act like I've never managed anything before and just 'dont get it'.

Re: Living in a Van

#63

Post by Cass »

larrys wrote: post #33
patio11 wrote: post #15

This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live. If you want to save money, you can try what they actually do, which is move to a less desirable neighborhood and spend one third what you do on rent for an apartment. You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social securi…

"is class disdain because I'm too well off to consider it or class disdain because when I wasn't well off we had too much pride to ever stoop to anything like that." Normally when you read stories about these outliers in life there is always a story behind it. I remember the case of the guy on the street corner who was discovered as having singing talent, made it to network news shows, was given some sort of leg up o…

So he's only playing his guitar because it's conveniently located in the same room, and you're only getting exercise because you have to walk to your printer sometimes. Setting up your living space so your surroundings encourage you to do things you feel you should be doing more seems like a sensible decision on both your parts.

Re: Living in a Van

#64

Post by phil »

This is common in the kayaking/climbing community.

Every paddler I know living out of a van gets an old Toyota Previa. Why? They're cheap, fuel-efficient, readily available, easy to gut the back, and deal with dirt roads fairly well.

Re: Living in a Van

#65

Post by sbochins »

patio11 wrote: post #15

This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live. If you want to save money, you can try what they actually do, which is move to a less desirable neighborhood and spend one third what you do on rent for an apartment. You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social securi…

I heard other people calling this lower class tourism, that doesn't really seem to be the case though. It seems like a perfectly reasonable way to live for a single guy w/ a day job or someone trying to build a company. I'm not single, but if I were I would like to try something similar. Right now, I'm renting out my entire condo. I would like to rent out everything besides the garage and just live in there.

The reason? I don't like to have too many things, I feel it complicates my life. I'm fine w/ a working internet connection and a comfy bed. I don't understand why I am abusing white privilege or engaging in lower class tourism by simplifying my life.

I think there is a big problem w/ wealth distribution in this country. But, I think most of that can be blamed on our political system that basically gives the most benefits to the people who pay politicians the most to vote for bills they support and can bills they disdain. Also we have a banking system with absurd incentives that ensures rich bankers are payed by the government each time they gamble away all the nation's capital on insane investments or ponzi schemes.

Re: Living in a Van

#66

Post by petec »

patio11 wrote: post #15

This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live. If you want to save money, you can try what they actually do, which is move to a less desirable neighborhood and spend one third what you do on rent for an apartment. You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social securi…

down by the river

Re: Living in a Van

#67

Post by Diederich »

tibbon wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting also to note that the ability to lead any kind of normal or predictable life in this fashion is itself a privilege. People in the software business can get away with wearing the same clothes, coming in wrinkled, missing the occasional shower, and, for that matter, getting in a little later after having to move the van in the middle of the night. Our field is extremely accommodating. Put yourself in…

I agree with you. The one thing I can never figure out is why managers of some types of companies run them the way they do. Why couldn't a call center employee work with a headset from a van and wear whatever they please? There's all sorts of strange practices that some of these companies do. Never in a million years would I ask an employee to submit to a drug test before being employed for example- yet that's what t…

I work for the largest (I believe) 'callcenter in the cloud' companies. http://www.liveops.com/

You can work from anywhere, as long as you have a good phone line and good Internet.

Re: Living in a Van

#68

Post by davidw »

GladHatter wrote: post #26
patio11 wrote: post #15

This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live. If you want to save money, you can try what they actually do, which is move to a less desirable neighborhood and spend one third what you do on rent for an apartment. You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social securi…

I'm not sure if the allure is necessarily the bohemian way of feeling poor. I think much of it has to do with the minimalism of the experience. The ability to pack up and move on at a moments notice has 'starting over' feel to it, which can be quite nice. Kind of like refactoring crufty code.

A guy I know recently bought a van, and you nailed it. It has nothing to do with patio11's comment, and everything to do with the 'minimalist' experience you describe. He says it's an experiment - maybe he'll get tired of it, but it's something he wanted to try, and has the cash to spend on it (the van was not cheap). I can't say I would be interested in that variety of experiment myself, but "to each his own".

Re: Living in a Van

#69

Post by OldSchool »

The van thing should resonate with a lot of entrepreneurs. As a bootstrapped 20-something entrepreneur I couldn't help but secretly think "live in a van" was my backup no matter how well things were going.

Re: Living in a Van

#70

Post by GFischer »

Cass wrote: post #55
GFischer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that scale for someone who wanted to do an extended visit to the Bay Area? (say a month or so) I'd like to visit San Francisco, but, apart from the US Visa and airfare, accomodation doesn't seem cheap (I haven't researched much but it comes up all the time here on HN). Food, oddly enough, sounds cheaper than in my 3rd world country.

Have you researched hostels? They're still not cheap by the standards of developing countries, but when I stayed in SF a few years ago, a bed at a hostel could be had for a fifth of what a hotel would have cost me, and certainly beats sleeping in a car. On the other hand, I found food shockingly expensive, and I come from Germany.

Interesting. I've stayed in hostels, and they are indeed cheap, and no, I haven't researched at all, it was just a thought. I haven't seen AirBnB either :)
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