[text version of The Rude Guy Podcast #60 August 1, 2009]
[CLICK HERE to listen to The Rude Guy Podcast #60]
- So you wanna live in your car
[OR CLICK HERE to watch the Youtube video]
So you wanna live in your car!
I felt sorry for myself because I had no house, until I saw a man who had no car.
Screwed by corporations? Lost your house? Stop whining and go live in your car. Like me.
There’re lots of good reasons to do it: no rent, no mortgage, no grass to mow. Can’t be found by cops, process servers, auto repo guys, ex wives or needy kids.
Save on gas. You don’t have to drive to work. You can sleep right in the parking lot. Don’t have to drive home, you’re ALWAYS home.
Sound good? Here’s what you need to know.
Stealth:
It’s best to have a van or SUV with tinted windows. You want to be able to park anywhere and have no one suspect you are sleeping inside. If you snore, cut off your nose. Cops will roust you out of nice places like parks and beaches, so you gotta be able to sleep on any quiet suburban street. Stealth.
Shitting and showering:
If you’re planning on shitting and showering in your van do us all a favor and go hang yourself right now. Peeing is different. I need to pee several times a night so I bought a yellow, plastic wide-mouthed screw-top bottle in the camping section at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart?
If you are living in your car you cannot afford to shop anywhere EXCEPT Wal-Mart.
Also, it’s not a bad idea to take your morning “constitutional” there, or McDonalds or some 24-hour food store.
Showering is trickier. I often swim and shower at the beach. Some communities have free or nearly free swimming pools. You might have to join a discount health club to get at a shower. Just don’t wear out your welcome with your friends. You’ll need them for other things.
Communications:
Most folks use cell phones. Nobody ever calls me so I just use a cheap headset and Skype on my computer whenever I get somewhere I can poach bandwidth. Skype is 2 cents a minute almost anywhere on earth. Can’t beat it.
Food:
Food is a problem. I hate not being able to cook. I used to cart around a gas burner bottle and pots and pans but gave up. Too much effort for too little cooking. Bought an ice cooler but soon learned I could go broke buying ice. So now I just use the cooler for storing dry food. I score canned food from food pantries and sandwich fixin’s with foodstamps. Your mom lied. Mayonnaise does not spoil out of the fridge.
A few times a week I hit the church soup kitchens for dinner or Salvation Army for lunch. You get two choices. Starch with salt, or salt with Starch. Really tough on my high blood pressure.
I keep most of my stuff in a storage locker and just go there every day or two to grab the things I need. That way I don’t have to worry about losing my laptop.
Car-sleepers are the aristocrats of the homeless. Ground sleepers have it rough, fending off dogs and bums.
I sleep on a foam futon in my car and have an office in a storage locker.
As the economy tanked the Storage Locker place made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I got a four-times bigger locker, 10 by 10 feet, for half price: $140 a month. Now I can microwave coffee and ramen noodles and Italian sausage and baked potatoes. And it’s also quiet enough that I can record and edit podcasts, and take afternoon naps. Up town!
And when it comes to cars, check out this rolling riot. No one will even bother to wonder if you are sleeping inside something like this.
Your attitude is pretty inspiring, given that you actually did this. I’m thinking about truck-camping my way across the western US in search of beautiful parks and captivating cities. My obsessions have made me insane. I’d rather not drive myself to a deeper and more repressed condition by denying my urges.
Take care sir.
You have a good attitude. Someone once said that the only way to become adjusted to an insane society is to become insane yourself. That made sense to me. Repression to accomodate false gods leads to greater insanity as I’m sure you know.
I knew I liked you. I’ve lived in my car too. In fact, lately, while work has been scarce, I’ve been telling my friends who are surprised about how blasé I am about going broke, “Well, I’ve lived in my car before, so the worst-case scenario really isn’t that bad. In fact, I think I had more fun living in my car than I do now!” (The sad thing is, no-account dropouts like you & I know we can bob like a cork… but my friends who pursued the American Dream straight out of college, got careers and wives and kids and houses, are the ones who are really screwed now. )
Helpful tip: In Washington state, on the I-5 south of Seattle, they allow overnight parking in rest areas, plus have free coffee 24/7 for your morning cup. I lived in one quite happily for a week once.