I can empathize with these people. It feels like a form of Stockholm's syndrome, where we're starting to come to grips with the idea that we will never escape an economic situation that I can only describe as tap-dancing on quicksand.
If we can never achieve a stable life anyways, why bother seeking one? And if tomorrow is probably going to be harder than today, why put off the things that people used to put on their bucket lists?
It doesn't have to be a bad thing. My ex-girlfriend and I spent over a year in Australia, most of which was circumnavigating the country in the campervan I built. It was amazing, I would without a doubt do that kind of thing my whole life if I could be a 20 y/o until the day I died.
We only spent about 500 usd/pp/month and were really comfortable. We had most of what we wanted and ate well. Learn how to cook, don't buy junk food and the best things, like surfing, are free. I made money on the van since I did all building and repairs myself.
Doesn't lend much gravitas, but it was a good life and I hope to build another campervan to use in the future. I'm quite scared of this in America though with our culture, crime, and police. I can also believe it is certainly not for everyone.
Yep I've been rambling about 23 months now. Savings went from - balance to 5 digits not blowing it on rent. No problems, whatsoever. The key ia to not loiter in one place too long, don't leave a mess(cleaning up helps, alot) & be courteous to randoms & LEOs. It would be a reduced SoL to rent again, IMO.
*I do have a job that requires travel(paid), so I drive across multiple states or fly out of the closest airport qhen required. When I'm not working, I want to be out hiking/paddling/skiing, anyway.
I've realized that my level of financial safety I feel is directly tied to the amount of margin for error I have.
I'm from rural Indiana and grew up in with a comfortable but relatively low standard of living. Going out to eat was spending $3 at Wendy's. All dollar amounts any business talks about still feel mindblowingly large.
Then I got a computer science degree and got into remote freelance web development. At first it was hard, but with shared rent at like $120/month, it didn't really matter. I could keep trying until I succeeded in freelance without much risk because I had margin for error. Rent was covered in a few hours of work, and every subsequent hour built my buffer.
My rate went from $50/hr to $90/hr to recently $125/hr while still living in this low cost of living area, and my margin for error increased even further. I think I got used to this and didn't realize how much margin I had compared to many people. I realized I could live a comfortable life working only 10-20 hours of billable work a week, and combine that with regular recurring clients and there was very little need to hustle for new work. Life was pretty chill. When my first girlfriend told me that "you make more in a day than I make in a week" I didn't really know what to say. Of course we were talking about something like $900.
I never understood how people could say that $100,000 a year wasn't enough money until I moved to Chicago. I kept the same relative amount of income at around $60k working 10-20 hours a week, but my cost of living probably quadrupled. I loved it there but there was so much less margin for error. My finances started to drain and my stress increased, and I had to take more work that I struggled to complete to pay my now $1080/month rent and buy $30-$40 dinners when going out with friends. And there were people around me making much less somehow surviving. I lived like I had margin but I didn't, so I recently moved back to Indiana.
My real goal is to spend more time working on my business anyway, and hopefully if those take off it will give even more margin. But until then, freelancing a few hours a week and living cheaply gives me infinite runway and no financial stress. Sure this town has 6000 people in it and the most exciting thing to do is walk around the local park, but I once again have margin for error.
All that to say, the van dwelling people seem to be experiencing something similar, as you describe. If finances feel like quicksand, there are interesting options for ways to gain leverage, especially as a developer.
Some of the most free and wealthy (in terms of purchasing power) people I know do this. Compare the person who can't pay all the bills with $20k a month (a figure I recently heard from a real person!) with my friend also living in this town who is extremely frugal who spends $1000 a month and built up $40k in savings from a job. She is now writing novels and basically doesn't work unless a good freelance gig comes up.
Another friend moved to Lithuania and teaches part time at a college for a visa and worked remote tech support for a US company and made $60k a year and saved nearly all of it. Now he does whatever he wants.
Nomading is another way to get that same leverage. There are others if you are creative. I'm always excited to read about people doing interesting things like living in vans, because I've found there to be so many more options if you are willing to look outside the normal ways of doing things. Many are even pretty comfortable. You may not want to move to Indiana or Lithuania, but it is an option.
Some of the most free and wealthy (in terms of purchasing power) people I know do this. Compare the person who can't pay all the bills with $20k a month (a figure I recently heard from a real person!) with my friend also living in this town who is extremely frugal who spends $1000 a month and built up $40k in savings from a job.
Those two extremes both sound very unappealing. The obviously superior middle ground would be to make $20k/month and spend $5k, which would allow you to both save massively AND live very comfortably without pinching pennies.
Sure, but my ultimate goal is to escape the rat race, and if I have to spend my whole life stressed to get there that sounds like just a different extreme that is unappealing.
I guess what I'm more saying is, the default seems to be stressed out about money, and in order to avoid that you need leverage of some kind. One option is to work a ton, another is to take a high remote rate in a low cost of living area. It allowed me to work 20 hours a week right out of college instead of waiting until I retired. I also freely acknowledge that this is harder to do with a family.
Comments
I can empathize with these people. It feels like a form of Stockholm's syndrome, where we're starting to come to grips with the idea that we will never escape an economic situation that I can only describe as tap-dancing on quicksand.
If we can never achieve a stable life anyways, why bother seeking one? And if tomorrow is probably going to be harder than today, why put off the things that people used to put on their bucket lists?
It doesn't have to be a bad thing. My ex-girlfriend and I spent over a year in Australia, most of which was circumnavigating the country in the campervan I built. It was amazing, I would without a doubt do that kind of thing my whole life if I could be a 20 y/o until the day I died.
We only spent about 500 usd/pp/month and were really comfortable. We had most of what we wanted and ate well. Learn how to cook, don't buy junk food and the best things, like surfing, are free. I made money on the van since I did all building and repairs myself.
Doesn't lend much gravitas, but it was a good life and I hope to build another campervan to use in the future. I'm quite scared of this in America though with our culture, crime, and police. I can also believe it is certainly not for everyone.
Don't be. I've done it for 7 years and counting. Have met awesome people and never hassled or bad interactions.
Yep I've been rambling about 23 months now. Savings went from - balance to 5 digits not blowing it on rent. No problems, whatsoever. The key ia to not loiter in one place too long, don't leave a mess(cleaning up helps, alot) & be courteous to randoms & LEOs. It would be a reduced SoL to rent again, IMO.
*I do have a job that requires travel(paid), so I drive across multiple states or fly out of the closest airport qhen required. When I'm not working, I want to be out hiking/paddling/skiing, anyway.
Did you have this experience as a minority?
Don’t pay attention to the hyped news. America is very safe
I've realized that my level of financial safety I feel is directly tied to the amount of margin for error I have.
I'm from rural Indiana and grew up in with a comfortable but relatively low standard of living. Going out to eat was spending $3 at Wendy's. All dollar amounts any business talks about still feel mindblowingly large.
Then I got a computer science degree and got into remote freelance web development. At first it was hard, but with shared rent at like $120/month, it didn't really matter. I could keep trying until I succeeded in freelance without much risk because I had margin for error. Rent was covered in a few hours of work, and every subsequent hour built my buffer.
My rate went from $50/hr to $90/hr to recently $125/hr while still living in this low cost of living area, and my margin for error increased even further. I think I got used to this and didn't realize how much margin I had compared to many people. I realized I could live a comfortable life working only 10-20 hours of billable work a week, and combine that with regular recurring clients and there was very little need to hustle for new work. Life was pretty chill. When my first girlfriend told me that "you make more in a day than I make in a week" I didn't really know what to say. Of course we were talking about something like $900.
I never understood how people could say that $100,000 a year wasn't enough money until I moved to Chicago. I kept the same relative amount of income at around $60k working 10-20 hours a week, but my cost of living probably quadrupled. I loved it there but there was so much less margin for error. My finances started to drain and my stress increased, and I had to take more work that I struggled to complete to pay my now $1080/month rent and buy $30-$40 dinners when going out with friends. And there were people around me making much less somehow surviving. I lived like I had margin but I didn't, so I recently moved back to Indiana.
My real goal is to spend more time working on my business anyway, and hopefully if those take off it will give even more margin. But until then, freelancing a few hours a week and living cheaply gives me infinite runway and no financial stress. Sure this town has 6000 people in it and the most exciting thing to do is walk around the local park, but I once again have margin for error.
All that to say, the van dwelling people seem to be experiencing something similar, as you describe. If finances feel like quicksand, there are interesting options for ways to gain leverage, especially as a developer.
Some of the most free and wealthy (in terms of purchasing power) people I know do this. Compare the person who can't pay all the bills with $20k a month (a figure I recently heard from a real person!) with my friend also living in this town who is extremely frugal who spends $1000 a month and built up $40k in savings from a job. She is now writing novels and basically doesn't work unless a good freelance gig comes up.
Another friend moved to Lithuania and teaches part time at a college for a visa and worked remote tech support for a US company and made $60k a year and saved nearly all of it. Now he does whatever he wants.
Nomading is another way to get that same leverage. There are others if you are creative. I'm always excited to read about people doing interesting things like living in vans, because I've found there to be so many more options if you are willing to look outside the normal ways of doing things. Many are even pretty comfortable. You may not want to move to Indiana or Lithuania, but it is an option.
Those two extremes both sound very unappealing. The obviously superior middle ground would be to make $20k/month and spend $5k, which would allow you to both save massively AND live very comfortably without pinching pennies.
Sure, but my ultimate goal is to escape the rat race, and if I have to spend my whole life stressed to get there that sounds like just a different extreme that is unappealing.
I guess what I'm more saying is, the default seems to be stressed out about money, and in order to avoid that you need leverage of some kind. One option is to work a ton, another is to take a high remote rate in a low cost of living area. It allowed me to work 20 hours a week right out of college instead of waiting until I retired. I also freely acknowledge that this is harder to do with a family.