How to live on $432 a month in America

The next day a friend called, who I hadn’t seen since we got shipwrecked in the gulf of Panama, and told me he had been building out a “fancy instagram School bus” for the last year and between his wife and his pot farm in CA he realized he’d have no time for it.

“I figure you were the guy to buy it from me.”

I said yes and bought a 1 way ticket to Santa Cruz.

I sublet my place in park slope for $3,600 a month furnished which was $1k more a month than the base rent.

I thought I’d spend a few months driving around, go on Phish Tour, and flip the bus for $50k.

That was about 4 years ago.

The bus cost me $36k and within 10 months paid for itself.

I let the place in nyc go entirely after that and for one months rent could drive back and forth across the US.

A $89 parks pass gets me into all the national parks and I can stay on BLM land in the most beautiful places for free.

I soon realized many people have at least 1 home and love having a self contained guest for a week or two. I visited friends, family and clients (I still maintain a high end high performance coaching business working with founders of companies like Asana, Bombas and other interesting folks).

I also run a remote AI research lab for the last 4 years.

I shop at farmers markets or wholefoods.

I love ultimate frisbee and am pretty good, having been a former world games invitee, and any city usually has a game and within an afternoon I can make a dozen or so new friends and be invited to all sorts of things. (pickupultimate.com).

Last year on the eclipse I met a woman in hot springs, Arkansas and fell in love - and she lives in Kansas City so I’ve spent a lot of time here with her the last year.

The creative freedom of having a bus and living in beautiful spaces is unmatched. And knowing if I lose all money, I can buy a 50lb bag of rice and beans, fill up on water, and use my cell phone and solar for a month to figure out the next move, is very comforting.

Of course there have been problems like breakdowns, a friend filling my diesel tank with reg gas, a break in in nyc, and getting hassled for parking legally by house dwellers in Santa Monica, but it’s been a great investment.

So much of “middle class lifestyle” is a trap marketed to you people by the upper classes to get you to opt in to being a modern day share cropper. Taking a couple vacations a year, retiring out of shape and unable to really enjoy life and nature, and coping with pills and drugs and tv and consumption that are primarily part of the problem.

Ps we host an ai / philosophy / founder meetup every Wednesday, come as my vip! Http://earthpilot.ai/play

As for climbing, you don't need a $200 climbing harness you can tie your own Swiss seat out of rope ($2/ft.) and buy a couple of snap links ($4-10/ea.). I would buy a lower-end harness for $30 though.

Spread out over several seasons that is as close to "nothing" as you can get, and is well within reach of any person with a pulse.

35 years ago I played DnD with a single AD&D 2e player's handbook and DM's guide shared among us all, campaigns and items out of Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine hand-copied from issues at the library, and a player miniature made out of a film roll canister that I used whiteout to paint a design on. Our greatest individual expense was dice and I think those were less than $10 for a set.

Hobbies are only expensive if you let them or want them to be.