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Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

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Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#41

Post by kiddo »

This line caught my attn:

"Not including tuition, I lived (and lived comfortably) on $103 a week, which covered my necessities: food, gas, car insurance, a cellphone and visits to the laundromat."

To each his own, but if it was me and I wanted to live on $103 a week I would skip the van (-$1500), gas, car insurance, and probably cell phone too. I know you can find rooms in Durham for under $300 a month. Find a friend to share the room with and you're each paying $150 a month. You then have windows (fresh air), a kitchen, shower and toilet. Maybe buy a bicycle from the Salvation Army for $10 and you're more than set.

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#42

Post by Luyt »

MikeCapone wrote: post #31
lhuang wrote: post #29

This reminds me of an experiment I did in college to see how small of a food budget I could go on while still maintaining three healthy (and delicious) meals per day. I think I got it down to under $2/meal with a carb, protein, and veggie/fruit component to each meal. Pretty amazing when you factor in that I did ~50% of my shopping at Whole Foods. (they have quite competitive prices when it comes to frozen veggies an…

Could you give us a sample ingredient list/menu for a typical day?

Probably involves a lot of peanut butter ;-)

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#43

Post by Scott_MacGregor »

Dude, I’m not judging you but if you are homeless and living in a van and having trouble getting regular meals here is something that might help you out a little. It is going to get very cold soon.

There is a program called Section-8 vouchers that might be able to help you out. I think you can just pick an apartment and the state of North Carolina will pay for it. They get reimbursed by the federal government from the taxes we pay.

Here is a link from the Durham Housing Authority near Duke University: http://www.durhamhousingauthority.org/

Best of Luck

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#44

Post by Locke1689 »

patrickgzill wrote: post #32
Locke1689 wrote: post #27

Most undergrads imagine they'll effortlessly pay off their loans when they start getting paid the big bucks; they're living in a state of denial, disregarding the implications of a tough job market and how many extra years of work their spending sprees have sentenced them to. But "facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored," as Aldous Huxley famously said. No, they don't. The facts are that your prospects a…

Your statement "However, the idea that loans are obviously a negative thing have no basis in math or economics" seems a little odd, in that he is putatively trying to live without debt. Mathematically speaking, the sum of the amount of money he will have left after x years is greater if he has no loans, which have interest attached to them.

Mathematically speaking, the sum of the amount of money he will have left after x years is greater if he has no loans, which have interest attached to them.

With a huge penalty in disposable income while in grad school. Spending more in the long term and spending less in the short term are two different cases -- neither of which is objectively better than the other. The better is dependent on circumstances.

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#45

Post by cma »

billswift wrote: post #18
pyre wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Couldn't he be working on a startup, instead of living off rice in an ant-filled van? Why does "working on a startup" equate with "making the world a better place?"

Since the only way to make money is to provide something people want, if you are doing something that provides you with money, you are making your customers' world a better place, at least they must think so.

Let's say your customers are "everyone in the world," and your product is diamond rings. Your customers rank each other based on how big of a diamond ring they own. All customers want a bigger ring. When you sell one customer a slightly bigger ring he moves up a rank, and someone else correspondingly moves down a rank. In this abstract model if we assume rank is as important to each participant, you have provided no wealth.

This model corresponds well to bits and pieces of an absolutely massive portion of our economy.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#46

Post by cma »

kiddo wrote: post #41

This line caught my attn: "Not including tuition, I lived (and lived comfortably) on $103 a week, which covered my necessities: food, gas, car insurance, a cellphone and visits to the laundromat." To each his own, but if it was me and I wanted to live on $103 a week I would skip the van (-$1500), gas, car insurance, and probably cell phone too. I know you can find rooms in Durham for under $300 a month. Find a friend…

I think it is all pocket change compared to what he is paying to attend Duke. From his blog:

"Anonymous said... I'm curious why you chose a very expensive private uni over a public. Perhaps you could write an article on that from a frugal perspective. Cost/Benefit comparison?"

I'd love to see his response. Particularly since a common theme here on HN is that you go to an elite school to be with intelligent, driven people; the classes are almost superfulous. You could get them via open courseware if you really wanted to be frugal.

I bring this up because according to his article the van caused him to avoid all contact outside of classes with other students for fear of being found out and reported. Seems like he isn't frugal at all, unless he just wants the cheapest path to a 'prestigious' degree and doesn't actually want the best experience he can get. But being in anything for 'prestige' seems antithetical to the type of thought pattern that would lead you to live in a van. The whole thing comes off confused (and braggardly... "60 miles north of the Artic Circle," etc., etc.)

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#47

Post by drusenko »

lhuang wrote: post #29

This reminds me of an experiment I did in college to see how small of a food budget I could go on while still maintaining three healthy (and delicious) meals per day. I think I got it down to under $2/meal with a carb, protein, and veggie/fruit component to each meal. Pretty amazing when you factor in that I did ~50% of my shopping at Whole Foods. (they have quite competitive prices when it comes to frozen veggies an…

I lived on $50 for 2 weeks of food one summer stretch when money was really tight. Meals weren't incredibly healthy, though :)

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#48

Post by dimitar »

cma wrote: post #46
kiddo wrote: post #41

This line caught my attn: "Not including tuition, I lived (and lived comfortably) on $103 a week, which covered my necessities: food, gas, car insurance, a cellphone and visits to the laundromat." To each his own, but if it was me and I wanted to live on $103 a week I would skip the van (-$1500), gas, car insurance, and probably cell phone too. I know you can find rooms in Durham for under $300 a month. Find a friend…

I think it is all pocket change compared to what he is paying to attend Duke. From his blog: "Anonymous said... I'm curious why you chose a very expensive private uni over a public. Perhaps you could write an article on that from a frugal perspective. Cost/Benefit comparison?" I'd love to see his response. Particularly since a common theme here on HN is that you go to an elite school to be with intelligent, driven pe…

His reply:

"Anon-I chose an expensive private school because it wasn't that expensive for me. Typically it's $3000/course but they knocked it down to about $1000/course for me because of my destitution. Public school wouldn't have been any cheaper. Another good question might be: why didn't you just try to get your school paid for like most grad students? My answer: I tried this. I applied to 6 history phd programs and 4 MFA writing programs and got denied from all of them. And I'm glad I got denied. I'm better off in Liberal Studies, which keeps me from becoming "specialized" in something, which I wish to avoid like the plague."

Re: Living in a van - an inspirational story of frugality and achievement

#50

Post by giardini »

He learned to live like the homeless: tucked away in his van, quietly hoping campus security didn't notice (they probably were generously keeping an eye on him and his van for his own sake). Seems a stretch to romanticize his lifestyle vis-a-vis Thoreau, who lived in the wilds rather than a parking lot. And he's a long way from Thoreau as a writer:

"During rainstorms, I listened to millions of raindrops drum against the roof and watched them wiggle like sperm down my windows."

Caught between the security guards and the sperm, it seems a bit isolating, nearly paranoid.

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