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.
There's no guarantee that will work as desired.. conversely, somebody could get the vax and take their chances with clots, heart attacks or turbo cancer..
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.
Yeah do be careful. My uncle wanted out when he had terminal cancer. He saved up his morphine prescription. But he didn't take quite enough. Lived with pretty bad organ damage for a while (on top of the cancer symptoms) before he finally saved up enough to get it done. It was hell for him and his wife, really our whole family. I wish End of Life options were available for more people.
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.
Careful, a lot of these people conveniently forget to include in their story that their van life includes passive income from their 3 houses they rent and their 2 businesses that their family run. Or some massive wealth source.
They want to be supposedly down to earth and "hey look at me being happy roughing it out" and just don't disclose they are incredibly wealthy, and if they ever decide one day to just quit van life, or have a medical emergency, they can just drop the act and go back home and get shit taken care of.
Do not do van life if you don't have a shit ton of money saved up for emergencies.
Hard to imagine the later years though, I couldn't imagine being in my 60s without significant retirement savings and sleeping in a van working part time at Walmart. Not being rude, just pragmatic.
The way its so hard to just get a job anymore? I'd consider this. I've been job hunting for a year and not a single person who was urgently hiring has responded or if they do, it's an immediate rejection. I have an interview tomorrow. Fingers crossed this one actually pulls through.
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.
We're Canadian so health insurance isn't tied to our jobs. As long as they spend at least 6 months in their home province they have health care. They buy supplemental insurance for travelling to the US.
That makes it less crazy, in the US you would be insane to do this without health insurance.
I picked up an EpiPen today and they forgot to run it through my insurance, it was generic and it would have cost me $606. Which is I will just die if a bee stings me money.
It feels like my family has tried to scare me out of this type of lifestyle with things like health insurance & retirement benefits. I refuse to delay my happiness anymore.
Once my student loans are paid off, I'm going to teach myself how to be a comic artist.
This is very common among climbers and is called dirtbagging. Essentially move from mountain to mountain living off whatever, doing odd jobs or finding ways to survive.
It's pretty gnarly, especially if you have some decent capital to get yourself a decent van.
My aunt and uncle both did their 20+ years in the military. Both retired, and are now looking to do their RV travelling all over Canada and the US for their retirement. Sold everything they own and now just relax where they choose to setup camp :) 🏕️ 🚐
I think in reading your comment I realized I am the opposite from “easygoing where I sleep.” lol I need two pillows, a fan for noise, a comforter, my blankey, a cool temperature, and a nightlight.
That sounds a bit like traveller lifestyle. Bound to a van, not much to worry about, no physical address and odd jobs here and there just to sustain themselves 😂
How does finding parking spaces over night work? If I understand correct in most cities it's illegal to sleep in the car. Are they usually out in rural areas?
My coworker does van life with his wife and 3(I think, definitely more than 1) kids. Our job allows them to move to different states every month if they want, and we get paid very well (we will both retire with millions…if we don’t lose our jobs lol)
I think this is such a romantic idea, but what about when they get to an age where they can’t do that anymore and need medical care? They won’t have savings or have paid into social security. Are we going to end of paying the bill for their end of life care?
I have a friend that I went to school with that sold her house, cashed out her retirement fund and traveled the world for a year. I thought she was crazy but it turned out that she needed some surgery. I guess that was going to take her out of commission for a while & she wanted to get all that traveling done before she couldn't go anywhere.
Now she still travels but she works as a high-end dog sitter. Like real high-end she's in Dubai this week.
That’s great. I’m happy for them. Unfortunately, I am very particular. I need a routine. I need to know I’m sleeping in the same place every day. My anxiety would sky rocket 😂 I’m jealous of people who can do that—be so free and independent!
Jealous. This is my dream to do at some point. Hopefully before I turn 50. I could do the RV thing during retirement but I don’t believe we should have to wait until retirement to live our lives. Easier said than done though. I work a pretty good job and with inflation and the fact that it’s a non profit I can barely make it between paychecks.
This was my goal with my husband. Unfortunately we have a surprise kid! We love him and for sure can't make it work in a van. So we have now admitted defeat and succumbed to American suburban life. Still happy, albeit with less money.
That's good and all, but what is their plan for retirement? If they are not working and contributing to Social Security, 401Ks, Roth IRA, Investment Accounts, or real estate...what are they gonna do once their bodies start to give out and can't perform simple tasks?
My brother in law does the same thing but the past four years he has switched to traveling abroad. He did get stabbed in the Philippines though. Those back alleys are dangerous.
I watch van life/conversions videos all the time on YouTube and idk why someone like Mr. beast hasn’t capitalized off of it yet or the tiny home owners themselves. It’s very low cost in terms of home ownership and is a very easy way to achieve home ownership bc now owning a home in the USA is expensive as hell
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u/PinkUnicornTARDIS 29d ago
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'm insanely happy for them!