Living in a Van Down by the River
I’m thinking about living in a van to lower my living expenses. I’ve already done all the usual frugal stuff but I feel the need to do more. To make any significant reduction now I have to eliminate either my apartment or my car. I decided to go with eliminating the apartment.
Ever since reading Blue Highways in high school I fantasized about traveling the country in a van but never got around to doing it. Eventually that dream expanded from just taking a trip but having a full-time adventure. After joining the Vandwellers group on Yahoo and reading various blogs by van dwellers,such as HoboStripper (NSFW), I’ve realized that this dream is actually quite feasible and I intend to make it a reality this year.
My plan is to move into a van when my lease terminates at the end of October. I’ll purchase a van in August or September so I’ll have plenty of time to prepare it for living in. My needs for the van will be very simple. I just need somewhere to sleep and the ability to store things. I’ll take my showers at the fitness center at school. I have my own carrel at school where I can keep my books and a small amount of other stuff. It also has an electrical outlet that I can use to charge my laptop and cell phone. For food I can use the microwave at school and keep a small amount of food in the refrigerator there. There is also an ice machine which I might utilize ice from occasionally. For my bed I’m just going to use a couple camping pads stuffed in a sleeping bag with a folded comforter on top. I’ve used this combo before and it is comfortable.
I don’t really think it will be difficult to live in the van while attending school. There are plenty of vehicles parked there overnight so my van shouldn’t draw any attention. This should save me about $400 a month and get my living expenses to a minimal level. This idea of living in a van down by the river probably seems crazy to some but I welcome any comments,suggestions, or questions you might have.
Don’t Wait Until You Retire
There are a lot of things I want to accomplish that I don’t get done. I tell myself that this is due to the time constraints imposed on me by school and my job but that isn’t entirely true. A recent post at My Money Blog, “The Depressing Truth About Early Retirement” helped me realize what I already knew. The post describes how early retirees have many things they want to accomplish thatthey don’t get done. This makes them realize that it isn’t the job holding them back but a lack of motivation, organization, or discipline.
I have to admit those factors are what is holding me back. If I can’t get things done now, why would it be any different when I’m retired? I can’t accomplish everything I want to while working but I can accomplish some things. Right now I’m not getting much done at all. I need to focus on getting some things accomplished now so I can continue and expand on that when I retire and have more time. I’m considering a semi-retirement of sorts that would allow me to get stuff done and still earn money. This would consist of working half the year and ratcheting up my frugality the rest of the year. My future living plans that I was going to post about yesterday will be a key element in making the semi-retirement feasible. I promise I’ll post about that on Monday.
Turning Off the Gas Didn’t Work
Last year I was able to successfully turn off my gas and save some money during the summer. I tried to do that again this year but my landlord was uncooperative. He didn’t want to go through the hassle of turning off the gas so I am forced to pay for gas through the summer even though I won’t be using it. I did manage to save a little through my attempt at turning off the gas. For the short period the gas bill reverted to the management company rather than me there was a smaller customer charge so I’ll save that little bit. I’m unhappy that I’m unable to do this and will be moving out at the end of my lease. Wherever I live next won’t have gas heat-at least not natural gas heat. More on my future living plans tomorrow.
Latest Carnival and Festival Picks
This week the Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted by Mrs. Micah and it included my post about my food stamp experience. The carnival is themed around Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve never watched Buffy but since it was created by Joss Whedon who also created the best series ever, Firefly, it ought to be pretty good and I’ll get around to watching it one of these days.
The Festival of Frugality was hosted by Broke Grad Student. It included my post How I Couldn’t Find $10,000 Per Year If I Had To.
Some other posts I liked from the Carnival and Festival include:
Find Grocery Savings in Your Own Backyard at Not Made Of Money. This is something I should consider doing but I don’t have a backyard right now.
David of My Two Dollars compares the cost of hiring movers or doing it yourself. One advantage of not having much stuff is that you don’t need to hire movers. All my stuff will fit in one pickup load.
Kelly from My Small Cents wonders whether people who write about personal finance should blog anonymously. I don’t blog anonymously. You can easily find my name and location by digging around on this blog. It isn’t a problem for me but if I made more money I might think differently.
An Unexpected Windfall…That I’ll Probably Have to Return
When I logged into my latest bank account today I expected to see a bonus of $50 credited to my account. Instead there was a credit of $150. I don’t have the terms of the bank bonus with me but I believe they made an error and credited me for a larger bonus than I qualified for. I briefly thought about just waiting to see if they would catch the error or not. I really don’t think they would though. The bonus was entered by the person who opened my account and they probably just rely on that when determining what amount to credit. I decided to go ahead and let them know of the error though. I’m hoping that maybe I’m wrong and I did qualify for the larger bonus amount or maybe they’ll just let me keep it. If not and they take the money back that is okay because it wasn’t mine anyway. I’m frugal but I don’t compromise my ethics for financial gain.
Accelerating My Internship
My original plan was to work at my internship through the end of July. I’ve changed my mind and hope to wrap up my internship in the next two weeks. I just have to put in a total of a 120 hours to get full school credit for the internship. I should be able to work enough in the next week to get to that total.
I’ve changed my mind for several reasons. One is the gas cost of of making the 3 hour trip twice a week. Another is the limited time I have left to earn income. Another big one is less time to spend with my girlfriend. I knew of all these before I started my internship but thought by extending my internship I would gain exposure to more experiences. It now looks like there wouldn’t be any significant new experiences in the extra couple of weeks so I might as well wrap it up so I can get back home and get my finances back on track.
June Credit Score
My credit score for June is 710 down from 719 the month before. This is still a decent credit score but way down from the high of 781 earlier this year. I’m assuming this drop is due to the balance transfer I used to pay down one of my student loans. Since that was a couple of months ago my score should start stabilizing.
I get my credit score for free from my WaMu credit card which is about all that card is good for. I’m not particularly worried about my score since I don’t plan on borrowing any money other than student loans. Your credit score can affect other things though, such as your insurance rates, so it is good to maintain a high credit score even if you don’t plan to borrow money.
How I Couldn’t Find $10,000 Per Year If I Had To
JLP at All Financial Matters posted how he could “find” an extra $13,000 per year if he had to and Flexo at Consumerism Commentary followed up with how he could find $10,000 per year if necessary. This led me to analyze how their “money-finding” techniques would work for me.
Since I only made slightly under $13,000 last year I obviously don’t have nearly the discretionary expenses they do. I’m always a little surprised at how much some personal finance bloggers spend on these kind of thing when they’re usually reminding people to control their spending. Of course, what seems an extravagant expense to someone making $13,000 can be a quite reasonable expense for someone several times as much. Let’s go ahead and compare expenses anyway.
Cable and Movies
I don’t have cable so I can’t save any money there. The only money I spend on this category is in going to the movies. By taking advantage of different promotions I can often go for free or for a low price. If I completely cut out going to the movies and limited my movie viewing to free rentals from Redbox I could save maybe $200 a year.
Meals and Dining Out
I only spend about $100 a month on food making it hard to cut much here but there are some changes that could be made. I could take home more free food from work, reduce or eliminate my soda consumption, eat even cheaper food than now, and eat less of it. I could save another $200 a year here.
Communication
I use a cell phone as my only phone. There is no land line to get rid of to save money. My monthly bill comes to about $36 with taxes. I could discontinue this and go back to my $7.08 a month phone plan but since I’m making more calls now it would probably cost me about $20 a month now if I limited my call time. This would be another $200 saved.
Live Entertainment
This is something I currently spend $0 on because I don’t particularly enjoy it. No money to be saved here.
Vacation
I spent a lot on vacation this year but don’t usually take a real vacation. Still, I could probably save $200 on vacation or other entertainment expenses.
Cds,DVDs, and Books
This is another category I spend little or no money on. When it comes to music I’m content to listen to whatever is on the radio. I can get DVDs and books for free from the library or elsewhere. In the vast majority of cases once I’ve watched a DVD or read a book I don’t feel a need to own it. If I want to read it or watch it again I’ll just borrow it again.
That makes a total of $800 for these categories. Maybe I could save another $200 somewhere to get the total up to $1,000 but I’m not sure where. There just isn’t much excess in my budget. Making these cuts would be difficult. I’m quite happy with my current expenditure level but if I were to reduce it much I think my life would be much less enjoyable.
More Love for the Hoopty
If you’re a regular reader of this blog than you know that I have a hoopty(beat up old car) and think it is one of the better forms of frugal transportation. Trent at The Simple Dollar recently linked to a couple of posts that show why a hoopty is a great,frugal transportation choice.
Do Cars Stop Depreciating After 200K Miles? from Pro Bargain Hunter. My car has over 200,000 miles and I’m not at all worried about it depreciating. I plan to get just salvage value from it when I’m done with it, anything more will just be gravy. I bought my car for $1750 so even a 100% depreciation wouldn’t be that much.
Hybrid vs. Gasoline Vehicle Comparison - Are Hybrids Worth it? from Million Dollar Journey. After reading this post Trent came to the conclusion that the most efficient car in terms of carbon emission and fuel efficiency isn’t a hybrid. It’s driving an old Toyota or Honda into the ground. If you’re concerned about being green consider that by buying an older car you’re keeping it out of the junkyard and helping delay the carbon emissions that would result from manufacturing a new vehicle.
If going without a vehicle isn’t a viable option for you than I would suggest that buying a hoopty is your next best option.
Nintendo Wii for Sale
I was lucky enough to find a Wii for purchase at retail price. It was purchased to resell since it is out of my budget to keep it. Rather than putting it on Ebay or Craigslist I thought I would offer it here to my readers instead. The price is $300 plus actual shipping costs. This seems pretty competitive with the online prices I’ve seen and is only a modest markup for my time in purchasing and shipping the console. I can accept payment through PayPal or RevolutionMoneyExchange. If you’re interested leave a comment or email me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
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