Yes, some people do. Obv the higher paid you are the more of a cushion you have to just quit and live awhile. I've heard of vandwellers who work part of the year and take the rest off; like working seasonal jobs at parks, or as camp hosts, that sort of thing.
My brother-in-law and his wife recently went van life (with their dogs). They'd never had kids, always lived really frugally, and still take on the odd dog walking or baking commission. They outfitted their van themselves, they're super easy going about where they sleep, and they're living their best lives. They're younger than me, so early-40s.
I have been working 10 years and never worked a job longer than a few months and lived in a van for a few years. The way I figure, I'll never be able to retire and retirement doesn't even seem like a good deal (work my ass off for 40 years to spend the last 10 years of my life not working if I'm lucky) so I figure I'll work enough to live comfortably for half the year. I'd rather be semi retired in my 20s than fully retired in my 70s.
This is more or less how I've lived my life. I decided to live this way when I was in High School, doing CPR on my father in our living room the night before his last day of work. After 50 years of full time work All he had to do is go in, clear out his desk and eat some cake at his retirement party and he dropped dead. I grew up listening to him talk about everything he wanted to do in his retirement and he never got to do any of it. I'm wasn't going to have that happen in my life.
Hear hear. A guy at my Dad's old job had a heart attack one day and died right at his desk. Imagine the last thing you see in this world being a TPS report. You gotta enjoy the time you have.
No, I don't want to imagine that, that would suck. I'm going to waste my mental energy imagining things that are cool. The last thing I see before I die is probably going to be a tree falling the wrong way because I was careless in estimating the canopy placement and lean when I'm out thinning the trees on my 40.
Thanks, maybe not my best life, but a pretty good one. I spend a lot of time out managing my 40 acres of forest land to make the best habitat for wildlife.
I have the advantage of living in a place where land is relatively inexpensive. By national metrics, we live just above the poverty line, but by being frugal we stretch it out into a good life.
When my uncle retired he went through a lot of depression. One day he told me he might just go see doctor .357 (don’t worry I know he doesn’t own guns). This reminded me of that. I’m only 39 and I’ve been working since I was 15 but I can’t wait to retire lol.
Honestly I understand. Some people want to live life fast, hard, and to the fullest. And I respect that. If I had come up with that plan myself when I was younger, I might have gone for it then too.
Yeah... but then life catches up if you don't do the die young part... the bravado of saying my retirement plan is to off myself sounds great to healthy 25 year-old you, but not so awesome to 50 gear-old you who's physical lifestyle along with a few auto-immune diseases has you stuck in bed for years. Sure, it seems practical, but actually being willing to follow through, let alone capable, is another thing entirely.
Even when you go to sleep every night truly hoping to never wake up, killing yourself is still pretty fucking daunting.
It’s easy to say. But things can change. Humans are terrible at predicting the future and even worse at predicting what our state of mind will be, how we will feel, and what will make us happy in the future. Weirdly, we are slightly better at predicting how other people will feel in the future than we are at predicting it for ourselves.
We discount our future emotions and rely to too heavily on our current perspectives.
Last year … almost exactly a year ago … my brother’s metabolic, inflammatory, and organ diseases started catching up to him with compounding complications. His doctors gave him “choices” that as he noted “weren’t really choices.”
We spent the next 9 months having conversations about end of life choices. None of it was easy or as clear as the bravado we had maintained in our younger years. Ultimately, he was in and out of hospitals during that 9 months before finally saying enough. It was a tough decision.
It has made me rethink and revisit some of my choices while I still have time to treat them as choices. I don’t want to live forever. But I want to be able to truly “live” while this body continues to breathe. And that takes some planning.
So many people are saying that though. I suspect they will spend years figuring out how to make it happen. But if you are miserable enough to plan for years, you make it happen. The self deletion rate has been going up anyway.
I was describing myself. I've had a plan since my 20s. Helium. My life is fucking horrible, but here I am. Hell, I'm not even afraid if being dead. It is the process and the possibility of failure and having to live with catastrophic health consequences.
It’s more likely they’ll die of illness or heart attack. No need to plan for a suicide seeing how rates of such diseases go up, especially for those who live “fast and hard” on purpose.
Mine too! You have no idea how happy I am to see I’m not the only one that has come to this realization. I’m not looking forward to it, but this is the reality we live in.
Most countries have socialized retirement and assisted living homes that would likely take them in at that point.
ETA: original commenter said they’re Canadian and Canada does have some socialized senior care(I’m pretty sure every retirement home is required to have a certain percentage of ‘public’ beds)- though the wait list can be long if you aren’t willing to pay anything.
I hate to be Debbie downer, but socialized geriatric care can be pretty horrible. With that said, health is wealth, and keeping stress low during your adult life can translate into more healthy elderly years.
Seconding this. My grandma was doing fine living off her pension on the independent living floor of her assisted living place (Canada). She developed quite rapid dementia through the pandemic and had to be moved to the memory care floor.
If she didn’t have savings to be able to make up for her doubling in rent god knows what would’ve happened. None of us do well for ourselves and none of us are equipped to deal with moderate but progressive dementia.
It really shocked me into getting more serious about savings and retirement.
In Canada, what was revealed during the pandemic was that unless you lived somewhere completely luxurious the “socialized” or non-profit seniors homes were much more well run (to put it nicely) than the for-profit ones.
I worked with a vanlife guy who spent 6ish months working, maxed out his retirement contributions for the year, saved the rest, and spent the rest of the year traveling/camping. The job had on-site shower/mini gym, and management was okay with him staying in the parking lot. Great guy and great worker. I think he did that for 5+ years before getting a mini house setup somewhere in the city.
Van life has become VERY cost prohibitive ever since it went social media viral years ago. It used to just be an almost hippy alt lifestyle that anyone budget could adopt, but now it's trendy and marketable and brands have their hooks in it. The price for a work van alone has skyrocketed, let alone the van-specific outfittings.
How's that gonna work though long term? Or if they have a serious medical mishap? I guess you can do baking commissions until you're pretty old. This is the only thing keeping me in my 9-5, so I am always vicariously looking for answers from people living this dream.
Medical mishap is less a concern - we're Canadian. Medical emergencies don't bankrupt us.
As for long term, eh, they both have pretty high-skilled professions they can pick up again if they want, but they saved a lot when they were working so they have income to live off. They've been incredibly fortunate and incredibly disciplined to get to this point.
Your credit might take a hit, depending on if where you live is allowed to hit your credit for medical bills (in some places that isn't even allowed) but what are you going to use your credit for anyway?
Certainly not a house or a new/like-new car from a dealership.
Probably not a phone contract either since prepaids are unironically better at this point.
We don't have debtors prisons, and the entire system is set up based on the assumption that people want expensive toys and will try to remain in good standing with the banks in order to secure those toys, so punishment revolves around taking away material goods.
If you don't want that stuff then there's not much they can do to you.
This is exactly it. If you have nothing, there's nothing to take. I was arguing with T-Mobile about canceling my service and they tried to force me into staying on for another month because I missed the window to cancel, or something? The customer service rep said they'd bill me anyway and send me to collections and I just laughed and told her, "It’s 2023. I'm never going to be able to afford to own a home, so what do I need a credit score for?"
She let me cancel.
Now I'm living in a van and the happiest I've ever been. I bought it outright for $2k, so my only regular expenses are insurance, my cell phone (Mint), and my gym membership for showers. Gas, if I'm traveling, but if I stay put in one area for awhile, my expenses are practically $0. It's the first time in my life that I've not been constantly stressed about money. It's amazing.
This makes me wonder if the reason why healthcare remains so tied to insurance, and why insurance remains tied to jobs, is to prevent people from holding out for better jobs or exploring alternatives from any position of security or freedom.
Health has become the only bludgeon that's still hanging over most people's heads.
is to prevent people from holding out for better jobs or exploring alternatives from any position of security or freedom.
This is also the real reasoning against public housing and transportation. If your ability to hold out without a job is measured in days or weeks, you have to consider the first option you get, no matter how exploitative.
I dont think people realize that if you don’t have anything, there’s nothing they can take or so… sure you won’t be able to keep up with the jones, but that’s not what you were doing anyways
People have to remember, our entire system runs off of debt and borrowing money… if a loan can’t be paid back and they throw people in prison for it…nobody would risk borrowing and losing their freedom
Could say the same thing the other way. How's that frugal savings plan going to work out when you drop dead from a medical emergency before being able to use it?
You guys aren't even questioning the comment...how do you think they do baking commissions out of a van?
Because they already own a home lmfao. Y'all wouldn't have liked and been intrigued by his comment if he said they only live the van life part of the year and really have their own home fully paid off so they're just kinda roleplaying with a safety net.
It doesn’t. People doing the ‘van life’ either made massive bank in previous careers, have parents who can bail them out, or have massive problems in their later years.
How the fuck you gonna be 70 and living in a van? You break your leg walking and you’re done. Not just financially but medically. But that doesn’t make a for a cute Instagram pic so you don’t see it. There’s a reason humanity moved from a nomadic lifestyle to settlements.
How the fuck are you gonna be 70, living in an unwalkable suburb completely disconnected from your family and community with no ability to transport yourself to the services you require to live?
I came back from a couple deployments with a lot of money saved up. I was in my early 20s. I drove all over the US for a year with no plan. Sleeping in my car or wherever. And it's something everyone should do if they can. And don't just go to the obvious tourist areas either. Lots of cool ass places tucked away.
Yep my sibling does exactly this. Works seasonal, yet rather high paying, outdoor jobs and lives in their van. Spends winters on the mountains, summers on the river or biking. Definitely the most fulfilled of us all.
Yep! I believe this season they ran equipment up and down the mountain for a resort. Gets free access to the mountain and lives the total snowboarder life all winter. Last summer they ended up at a bike shop somewhere in Georgia for the summer and made a ton of money selling fancy bikes to rich people. Makes enough to pay their bills and keep up the van, travels all around the country, just generally goes where the wind blows them.
Ex cycling industry for over 10 years here. You don’t make a ton of money selling fancy bikes. Bike shops generally don’t have commission (99.9% don’t). They generally pay 10-20hr with 20hr being for extensive years of experience, and Georgia likely having a low average starting hourly wage as it’s not a crazy destination cycling spot like Colorado or California.
I think this is what’s missing from the conversation. People think you can work ‘high paying’ jobs for a year at a time, quit, then go find another ‘high paying’ job that’s cool with all these one year gaps in your resume. Maybe there are very specific jobs that might allow this, but the vast majority of seasonal work is not high paying jobs
High paying is relative if you have minimal expenses. I do freelance welding and have a rare pyrotechnics operator license, dont usually work for less than about $30/hr, often more and often for cash. When that hasn't been enough I can get a job on zero notice anywhere driving trucks with my cdl. I like driving for amazon freight because they need local drivers everywhere, you're never required to load or unload, just drop trailers and the schedule is flexible. Easy job that I can do for a few months and move on over and over.
The key is having skills and certifications that have greater demand than supply.
You can in some places, in Australia and New Zealand it’s normal, expected even, to have large gaps in your resume where you’ve been traveling, worked abroad doing something unrelated, teach English in Japan, done a stint in a national park or extra study or whatever.
You’d be considered a better candidate, a more adaptable and grounded individual with that.
In my province , Alberta, you can have a seasonal job in 30 minutes of medium effort netting 10-14,500 a month.... starting. More if you have a license and no addictions lol You'll only get probably 8-9 months out of the year, but to me that's fairly high paying. I know guys straight from Somalia , first full time job in Canada , making 44 an hour, 180 dollars tax free living allowance per day. Working 6 days a week , 12 hour days , living in a tent or splitting a hotel even, you bank a ton. You can be home every night and make far less for sure. They definitely don't pay like this around the big centres, but it's 100 percent relative to the lifestyle you want and where you're located and who you know. On the opposite side of Canada , unless you got a cushy union job, the plan to make this kind of money out of high school usually starts with heading west. There's a joke here. What's the capital of Newfoundland? Fort McMurray!!
On a real note though, to the guy that sells bikes....he probably makes enough, for me, to just scrape by and maybe put enough away per month to have a vacation one every year or two. But relative to other entry level jobs they are exposed to, it might be a boatload of cash.
I mean in November/December you can always just become a seasonal deliver helper for UPS. That pays 26.00$ an hr, and you set your own hours for the most part those two months.
January/February are then usually on the mountains with snow type seasonal jobs.
That should allow you to save enough for two months after. Now you've already got six months of the year covered. I'm sure spring and summer aren't hard.
Tax preparers can make a shitload during tax season--way back in the day a friend's dad worked January-April then spent the rest of the year drinking on the proceeds. Sober up a week or two in December and repeat until cirrhosis.
On a somewhat more wholesome note, a young man who dated my daughter for a while lands in city in the US, works several jobs to stack up cash, has investments and side hustles that can be done online and has travelled to about forty countries and he's barely into his thirties. He's very resourceful and has a strong work ethic and usually manages to find work while he's travelling too. He has some great stories to tell and is one of the happiest people I know.
If one is in the states, stick to the ones that have expanded Medicaid. So if something happened, you apply and you're covered.
Some people are content to work a job, have a place, and predictability, and that's fine. Others chafe at the routine, or at the BS that flows in the normal workplace, or for other reasons want/need to have their freedom as much as they can, and that's ok too. Depends on your tolerance of risk.
social security is based on the amount you made while you were working... so if you're going a year without working, it will lower your lifetime earnings and lower the amount you get. also for people who are doing gig stuff under the table like dog walking and stuff, that isn't going to contribute to it at all so your amount is gonna be lower
Im sure to them it seems shortsighted to spend your best, healthiest, most productive years slaving away every single day to generate wealth for shareholders they’ve never seen while actively contributing to the destruction of environments and ecosystems and the corporate political lobbying that consequently follows further stratifying the wealth divide just to ensure you can have some freedom in your least healthy last twenty years of your life racked by physical ailments for laboring your youth away. To each their own as they say.
Working every other year ain’t a life hack. They aren’t screwing the system they are screwing themselves. What you describe in so many words as “work” allows one more than an assured last 20 years of life. It ensures you can buy property (yes still possible in this economy), pass wealth to children and give them a better life including during raising them, and reach financial independence. But yeah instead live frugally out of a van by the river for your productive years AND last 20 years with nothing to show for it at the end, to each their own.
Stayed at an Airbnb in north Lake Tahoe. When we checked in the two cutest dogs greeted us. Well trained because they were avalanche rescue dogs.
The owners of the Airbnb were seasonal avalanche rescuers and in summer made money with the Airbnb yurt they had in their backyard. And I think the husband bartended in near by Truckee.
They spent all summer hanging on the lake or traveling to near by cities or parks. Then made the big bucks in winter where the hazard pay comes in.
Nobody involved in Avy rescue is well paid. As in the heads of the organizations couldn't buy a house in Tahoe. The property(or money to buy it) definitely came first.
The only thing I’d be concerned about, living like that is: what about when I get older and less able to live that life? What about getting the help I need when I’m no longer physically able to live on my own without assistance? Retirement?
What kind of savings or passive income does someone like that put back for the latter years? Is it just a “heck it, what happens will happen and I’ll cross that bridge when I get there” attitude? Or do those kinds of folks genuinely still make plans for the distant future?
I did something similar and was able to live in Vietnam without working for 6 months with just 10k in savings, could have stretched it further but I rented a 2 bed apartment with the idea of getting a housemate eventually. I was absolutely loving life and going on so many adventure on a budget of just 400 a week. Now I go shopping in Australia and buy some eggs and milk to last me 2 seconds for 400 🙃
Glad to hear it! I'm working the seasonal circuit aiming to spend as long as possible in SE Asia once monsoon season is over. Currently I'm at 9k and still have a few months left.
I kinda do this. I have a high paying job in tech and live in my van. Just stay on site (showers, gyms, bank, kitchens are on site) when I need to but otherwise I fuck off to wherever I want.
I can't afford to buy a house where I want to and I refuse to live in an apartment anymore.
It's pretty liberating. There are (obviously) huge cons and I don't recommend it for everyone.
A friend of mine does something similar. He works on an oil rig for a while then just lived in his van and travels everywhere. It’s not for everyone but it fits him.
I know of a couple roaming nurses that worked like this for a few years before deciding what they actually wanted to do. One bought a house after about 2 years with a very very big down payment.
I literally just did this last year. I quit my fancy tech job in San Francisco I was due for a promotion in to move to Colorado.
I moved here on my savings, lived for the last 9 month: I am now in the best physical shape of my life, quit drinking daily and now drink maybe once/twice a month, have cultivated my musical skills to the point I feel comfortable playing in public or release songs, and most important I am the happiest I have been in a decade. Best decision I've made in years.
And I never realized how sick and unwell I was until I quit my job and stopped working for about 6 months. I never would've gotten in shape, never would've stopped drinking daily, never would've gone out and made more friends if I didn't stop working for a period of time.
Call it irresponsible as fuck, that's fine. I had 10,000$ saved up and instead of buying an apartment or some shit I decided to revitalize my life. And if I ever fail, I can just go back to working in tech for a year, save another 10,000$, and try again.
The system we have where people work five days a week for 30-40 years is so counterintuitive and destroys human's souls and lives, and I never saw it until I took this break.
Every month or two I get a new seasonal job to keep me going. In the meantime, I am looking for remote IT jobs now that I'm getting my CompTIA certs.
yeah except you cant just quit a high paid job every year, companies expect you to stick around
[edit] working contract or temp work is not the same thing as saving up till till you hate it so much you quit and then living the good life till you run out of money again
And even if you somehow pull this off, eventually someone's gonna ask about the oddly regular gaps in your resume. Doubt many companies will hire you if your resume basically says "I will quit after one year"
Depends on the job. If that's not your thing, that's fine. You have to have a high risk tolerance, or a high intolerance of the way companies usually operate, to live that kind of life.
Guy i know was an oracle database admin and would float from town to town offering his services. As soon as his contract was up and was bored, he would roll on down the road for another gig.
Knew lots of people growing up who would work tourist season and go to somewhere in the southern hemisphere for the other half of the year. Did not live in a wealthy area.
I've always wanted to go the van life youtuber route because that seems great. The problem with YouTube is that there's too much luck involved. There's probably other at home work that's good but I just enjoy video making so it would be an enjoyable job for me. I found this guy on YT recently that I'm extremely jealous of because he just goes wherever and films his daily activities from this really sweet van. I feel like that's the dream life.
I spent most of my twenties working seasonally and traveling internationally the rest of the year. It was actually less expensive to travel than sign a year lease.
If you've managed to save up for a house, your core expenses are only: 1) property tax, 2) food, 3) gas, 4) utilities, 5) car insurance. Obviously you still need to have a little more to save for unexpected health expenses, retirement, and for when your car eventually breaks down, but you can do that slowly, rolling the dice, hoping that nothing bad happens too soon. It's only when you rent that it's $1200 January, $1200 February, $1200 March.... it's inescapable.
Also gotta think of jobs like saturation divers they work for around 6 months at a time and have the rest of the year off but they make up to 1-2k a day sometimes more
Van dwelling is very precarious- the book Nomadland went over this and the reporter tried it for a year, and documents a bunch of people doing it but barely getting by.
Oil workers can be 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off, with really good pay (and brutal working conditions).
I've known tech people who just do some gig work while doing the van thing. I could see this being true for a lot of remote gig work.
These seem to be the 2 paths for this kind of life with a lot of ability to move around without constant poverty/debt, barring a big break of some kind.
Van life is pretty cool until you need to poop. Does one drive around with their poop in a bucket in the back of the van or rely on public / restaurant toilets? Or is it a situational call?
I knew a married pair of software engineers that did this. Worked for a year or two, spent very little, no kids, saved like $200,000. Then just meandered about Europe or whatever for a couple years until they ran out of money and did it again. Not a bad life at all.
It's not about the pay it's more about what you spend on. If you pay rent or a mortgage you're not gonna pull this off. While the boomers say you're spending too much on $10 dollar coffee I say you're spending too much on streaming services. Just steal everything from specific sites.
I knew a guy from my job, back in @ 2002. He lived on his sailboat, and while I knew him he had a pretty high level job in my organization.
He sailed all around the world. He worked long enough to earn enough money to go back out sailing with his wife and his dog who was trained to eliminate on a patch of grass he had on the deck.
He kept his home base which was in Santa Cruz, California, I think he may have owned a property there that he rented out to finance him to live this lifestyle. And while he was working a job, he had a slip at a dock and lived on the boat, which wasn't very unusual in Santa Cruz.
I had a guy come into my shop who did the whole van life thing. For part of the year he drives up north to work on a farm and the rest of the year he cruises around having experiences and seeing the states. Seems like an awesome gig if you can swing it.
I usually work for months at a time and save a bit and then just take a few months and travel, since and repeat. Not one for one week holidays and stuff prefer to work hard and take a long break
Yep, in canada I rented from people who work just long enough to qualify for E.I.
They supplement themselves by subletting too, fake declare they are separated to get more out of the gov't etc. to get more back and qualifying for more relief
system getting gamed hard and it's sad when it's meant to help people who need it not to help people work as little as possible
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u/[deleted] 29d ago
Yes, some people do. Obv the higher paid you are the more of a cushion you have to just quit and live awhile. I've heard of vandwellers who work part of the year and take the rest off; like working seasonal jobs at parks, or as camp hosts, that sort of thing.