Living In A Car To Save Money | How I Did It & Complete Guide

so I'm going to teach you how to stealth camp in any city in any vehicle. I avoided the unreasonable cost of housing in San Francisco by sleeping in a converted Nissan MV200. I'm going to teach you things like how to find parking spots when no one will bother you how to apply for a job without an address and how you can not only save

money

by not paying rent, but you can even find a better paying job

living

in your car. By the end of this video, you will have an understanding of what this lifestyle can be like for you, so let's get started.

Van

living

has received a lot of attention over the years for its unique lifestyle of constant travel and life on the road, but I embraced van living not for this nomadic lifestyle but as a way. live in cities that would not have been accessible with traditional housing. I can stay in cities as long as I want without price pressure and I can move to different cities anytime I want. move anywhere accessible by car. There is no longer a need to look for housing, sign a lease, pack up all my belongings, or deal with housemates. I just pick a city and start driving with things.

Camping setup. You can do it too. You can stealth camp in any vehicle. It doesn't have to be a van, a sedan is possible, but it is more challenging, well, a van will be more comfortable. There are many examples of smart campus setups in small vehicles, so there is plenty of room for creativity, as long as you can find a way to create a comfortable bed in your car and feel safe sleeping in it at night you have a decent car. From camping here are some tips on how to make any vehicle stealthier. The first is the window tint on my truck.

Here I have 35 tints on these front side windows. and 85 percent on my windshield If I was stealth camping in a passenger vehicle like the CR-V, I would

complete

ly black out the rear windows with a tint of 5 and a tint of 20 to 35 on the front windows. It would also darken the rear windshield. Also with five percent tint and seventy or eighty percent for the front windshields. My next tip is to add dark colored curtains behind the driver and front passenger seat. The combination of blackout tint and curtains will create

complete

privacy in the rear space of your vehicle.

The advice is to add wind deflectors to the windows. You want to keep the windows open while you sleep to let in fresh air and reduce condensation that builds up on the inside of the windshield. These deflectors are great because they allow you to keep your windows open. even when it's raining or snowing and most importantly they hide the fact that your windows are ajar Once you have a car you feel ready to camp in, try it for a night in the city or on a camping trip. weekend and see how it feels from there you can get an idea of ​​what is missing and find out what you can do to improve it the best way to find a long term parking spot is the first location finder using Google Maps really not there is a limit to where you can find parking in a city it could be in a residential commercial area or anywhere in between the goal is to find a place where people pay little attention to your vehicle or simply don't care if you are sleeping in your car here is a Par Tips you can follow for parking on streets where other cars are parked at night.

Busy neighborhoods or streets near apartment complexes are great because they are usually full of cars and people who live nearby don't mind seeing an unfamiliar vehicle. Parking is possible in quiet neighborhoods. but you want to avoid parking directly in front of a house, instead parking next to an open area or a non-residential structure such as churches or public buildings. Parking lots can also be a great option, for example some training bus stations have large parking lots with free overnight stays. Unlimited Parking In California there are usually parking lots near the beach, so look for ones that have free overnight parking.

When I lived in San Francisco in my van, I finally found the perfect parking spot every morning. I would get up, get dressed and go out into the street. driver's side door, then walked two minutes to the gym where I worked out and showered from the gym. I would walk back to my truck, change my clothes, and then walk five minutes to the train station to go to work. I never had to move my truck unless it was there. It was a nice sweep, which meant I was saving gas and keeping my car maintenance costs down.

I slept in the same place every night in the middle of a neighborhood without any problems. The only way we could have found a better spot was to park inside. Walking distance to my downtown workplace, but I avoided it because unfortunately car breakdowns were very common in downtown San Francisco, so I chose to park further away and take public transportation. The ideal parking spot is where you can safely park your car every night and have everything. within walking distance or a short commute, your eating habits will certainly change once you start city camping, the foods you have access to, the time and amount you eat will all fluctuate at first when you try different things and food costs will likely become your biggest expense, not having access to a kitchen while living in an expensive city, will make it a challenge to keep food costs down when I lived in San Francisco, ate out on all my meals and I spent between eight hundred and a thousand dollars each. month with just food, my biggest regret about the design of my truck was not including a dedicated cooking setup.

I can cook in my truck, but with limited capacity, there may be many creative solutions to keep food costs down. You can cook outside your car. use a portable stove ask a friend to use your kitchen to prepare meals once a week personally intermittent fasting is a great solution as one large meal a day and that cuts my food costs by about half; However, there are also many studies on the health benefits of fasting. If you do, managing your food costs will be a great way to reduce your monthly expenses. Now the most important thing to keep in mind when thinking about food is to prioritize eating healthy over cutting costs.

I know the premise of this whole video is about sleep. in your car to save

money

, but saving money is not the greatest purpose in life, your health is more important, covertly, the fact was revealed to many people that they did not have to physically be in a workplace to perform work, for some working from home was as effective or even more than working from the office and even if you do not currently work remotely, a growing part of the jar market is opening up options to work partially or completely remotely, which means it's easier than ever to find a person online. work now instead of working a remote job from home, why not take it a step further and work from a van?

You could be on the road traveling and recreating while maintaining an income to support that unique lifestyle. It has never been easier to be a Remote working as a digital nomad is ideal for this type of lifestyle, but having a job where you commute to a workplace is still doable with a motorhome. When looking for a non-remote job, you may want to consider looking in dense or affluent cities due to salaries. in those communities they are usually higher, for example the minimum wage in San Francisco is always a few dollars more than the average, so working in San Francisco would guarantee a higher wage than in other parts of California and because it is reducing your overhead by eliminating When renting, you can benefit more from that salary increase and make more money.

This is how you find a better paying job living in a car if you don't have a permanent address what do you write in the address portion of any tax form like? an i9 or w4, the first thing you can try is to put the address of a friend or family member that you are okay with, if the address is obviously not within traveling distance from the workplace, you can ask your employer if it is okay to use the address of a house where you do not reside, this is not a strange question, so don't worry about what your employer may think, but if your employer says no, there is another solution, the other option is to use an agency commercial mail reception or a cmra, these agencies work. just like a post office box in that it is a service where you pay a monthly fee so that your mail can be received from a temporary address.

The important difference between a cmra and a post office box is that the address that a cmra gives you does not have a clear indication. which is a temporary mailbox, it looks like a normal address that could be a house, this is different than a post office box in the sense that it has the letters po next to the address, there is actually no restriction on the use of a PO Box on an i9 or w4, but if you don't want your employer to ask questions and want a temporary address that looks legitimate, you should use a cmra.

Dealing with extreme temperatures in winter and summer can be the biggest challenge someone will face while living in a car in California, the climate is mild all year round which is why you will find so many people doing van life here. The weather is especially mild along the California coast, where many homes within a mile or two of the beach don't even have air conditioning, but that doesn't mean you won't deal with uncomfortable temperatures in California—you'll still find nights where The temperature is in the 40s or days above 100 along the coast, which is a recent phenomenon, no matter where you live in your car, you will have to face extreme temperatures, so knowing how to handle them is necessary now that my truck is not equipped with an auxiliary air conditioner or heater.

The only thing I have that helps control the temperature in my truck is the ventilation and the roof fan. This fan will draw air in and out of the side windows. the top and I can lower the temperatures in my truck 10 degrees in 5 minutes during a hot summer. Most of my experience living in my van has been spent near the coast, so hot days rarely occur. My biggest defense against the heat is basically something I do almost every day, which is not being in my truck unless I'm sleeping most days of the week, I'll be at work or when I started YouTube on time full in cafes all day where there is air conditioning, so in general, the heat does not affect me much, the cold, on the other hand, is more of a problem of conscience.

I have slept some cold nights and the coldest night I have slept was 38 degrees Fahrenheit. There have also been weeks when it is constant. in the 40 degrees I can use a propane heater, but it's too complicated to store and I'd have to spend money on propane, so instead I'll put on warm clothes, a base layer and a jacket, and then sleep somewhere low . temperature rated sleeping bag, but let me get this straight. Honestly, I don't mind sleeping in this cold. I don't even dread cold mornings where I have to wake up and prepare for the cold.

It's not pleasant but it's tolerable. I know I try. in the cold better than the average person, so simply layering up and sleeping in a warm sleeping bag may not be enough for you, so here are some tips on how you can keep your car at a comfortable temperature. Tip number one to keep your car warm only. Invest in insulating your car if you have a heater. Insulation alone will do little to nothing to keep your car warm. It needs a heater as insulation to serve a purpose. Tip number two in the winter park, where the sun will hit your car early in the day. morning, this will help warm your car in the morning as you get up and in the summer park in the shade of large buildings or trees for as much of the day as possible to keep your car cool, so tip number three is consider purchasing custom magnetic covers for your side windows now, if you want to get them, I would recommend getting ones with reflective backing, this one doesn't, so let's pretend this black side is the reflective side, so in summers you would have the reflective side pointing outwards to that can reflect heat from the sun and in winters it would be facing inwards so that it can reflect heat from say the heater inside your vehicle, inside, long term car campingIt can be mentally exhausting due to lack. of a secure base, but having a routine focused on the spaces outside your vehicle will provide the stability that will make this lifestyle sustainable.

Here are some tips on how to do it, take advantage of public spaces like libraries, parks, cafes and gyms. routine by doing something alone in these spaces, for example, you can read a book in a coffee shop or library every Sunday morning or talk to a friend on the phone while walking to a park after work, you can also journal in a notebook , listening to exercises, music or a podcast, you can list the things you like to do in public and these activities will help you anchor yourself in this new lifestyle when you live without a car, you are stripped of the basic comforts that a house has, running water, electricity, internet, but living within a city limits means you have access to all those amenities, public bathrooms, hot showers at a gym, free wi-fi and electrical outlets at a local library, the problem is that you don't It is convenient to access them, this is obviously the best.

The disadvantage of living in a car, but this disadvantage brings with it new opportunities. I have to go to the gym every day so I can shower, but I better exercise before because I'm already here. I have to go to the cafe. shopping every day to charge my phone and laptop, but I get to interact with friendly people every time I'm there, but none of these opportunities were granted to me. I can walk into a gym just to shower and never touch a treadmill or wait. I can walk. I walk into a coffee shop and the only words I say to anyone are my coffee order.

The actions I take will affect what will and won't happen in my life in 2018. After finishing my van conversion, my first and only plan was to drive to Santa. Cruz California was a city I had fallen in love with during my college years and was eager to return. I didn't have a plan for what I would do there. I was just going to see what it would be like to be there again when I realized I wanted to stay for a while. I went and found my first job while living in my van at a local photo printing store.

I was slowly getting used to living in a Van and I was building a routine after work. I went to the same coffee shop that stayed open late. I had friends who worked at this coffee shop, so I would see them when they were on shift and eventually I knew the names of all the baristas. and I had friendly interactions with them every time I saw them. I had a group of people who knew my situation and some offered me a place to park my truck and even a room if I ever needed it. Seeing these people every day and knowing that they cared. about me was profound, this routine I built in the early days of my van life would later transform into the current way of life I now have continually seeking out and surrounding myself with community, the reason I stay in a city and I don't travel for another. my truck is because I enjoy being close to my community.

I saw a familiar face every day that lived in my van and to me that's what living in a van is like, so I've shared with you what van life is like for me. I've learned to adapt the pros and cons of living in Avocad to suit my needs, but if you adopted this lifestyle it would probably look a little different than how I do it now. The beauty of this lifestyle is that it is so flexible. Shape and mold it in a way that helps you achieve what you want. Is this lifestyle right for you?

You won't fully know unless you try it, but whatever you decide to do, I hope you find the best path forward. Thank you. for taking care of you and taking care of you