TINY HOUSE vs. #VanLife

Match of the Century!

As I spoke about in a recent post, I stumbled across the idea of a "Tiny House" not long ago, and was pretty convinced that was the path I was going to travel in terms of how/where I would be living in the future.

And it made all sorts of sense: just enough room for me and my greatly-reduced load of "stuff." All the comforts of home except, probably, for a washer and dryer. It would be mobile as long as I had a vehicle to tow it.

So, I had done some initial research into what it would take to build my own. I began the search for some sort of garage to build it in that would be a) tall enough at the door to allow the finished structure be towed out (i.e., a door around 14 ft.+ tall) AND which had electricity AND which, hopefully, would let me build my Tiny House in that space for free. Even better if this space was going to be in proximity to some place with access to craftsmen with woodworking tools, I began researching where I might be able to park my Tiny House once I completed it (a step that EVERY "how to" on Tiny Houses couldn't stress enough). I began searching for a truck to buy that would be able to tow the Tiny House any time I wanted to move it. I spoke at length with my contractor friend Donnie Young about the realities of trying to construct something like a Tiny Home AND, most importantly, how much it might cost to build.

In this corner: TINY HOUSE

After all that fact-finding, several key facts emerged:

• Building a Tiny House was going to cost me more like $30k (and that was for a kinda smallish one) rather than the $20k I was hoping for
• The truck I'd need to tow the Tiny House was likely going to be around another $20k
• I'd likely have to rent some sort of space in an RV park, at least for the foreseeable future, since there aren't really any places (subdivisions, etc.) which are made specifically for Tiny Houses to exist
• Due to the height and length of the Tiny House there were going to be places...possibly lots of places...where I wasn't going to be able to take it due to low bridges/overhangs/tight turns/etc.

On roughly the exact same day all of those facts started to become clear, I stumbled across (NOTE: I do a lot of stumbling) an Instagram page called #VanLife which, as I learned, is a relatively famous Instagram that started what is now being called, appropriately, the "Van Life" movement. I wouldn't say it was in any way new really (hippies in microbuses following the Grateful Dead, surfers living in a popup Vanagon on the beach, rock climbers living in the back seat of their old family GMC Safari in Yosemite all spring to mind, not to mention the legions of retired people living in RVs year-round), but the profusion of just "regular old people" who ditched their usual living arrangements in order to live in a van blossomed.

And in THIS corner: #VanLife

That was, I believe, in 2014. Not bad for me...took me less than three calendar years to find a movement going on in this country!

And from almost the first moment I learned about this idea of Van Life I knew that was a MUCH more realistic/doable path for me:

• Far, far more mobile
• No need for any kind of "space" in which to park it either on a permanent, or even semi-permanent, basis. While, yes, I COULD choose to pay for an RV space, there are many, many places I can just park it for the night, sleep in it, and then move on to Subway for breakfast in the morning, etc.
• I could still do the conversion myself, but could do it in my garage, not in some sort of industrial warehouse in town
• And, most importantly, I could be up and running for less than half of what the Tiny House/truck combo would cost me.

So, the decision to go the #Van Life route was made 6 days ago (i.e., last Wednesday). ANOTHER flurry of Internet research immediately began. What kind of van to buy? How large? What brand? What engine? How old? What price? What would I need/want in it? Could I even remotely hope to do this conversion myself? (I mean, seriously, I know NOTHING about plumbing, wiring electricity, running gas lines, etc. And in terms of carpentry skill....maybe, at best, beginner level)

By Friday I was the proud owner of this van:

Now, whenever anyone asks me "What do you do?" I'll reply "I'm in Sales & Service!"

A 2007 (badged Dodge in the US, built in Germany by Mercedes) Sprinter Superhigh, Extra Long cargo van with 142k miles and an extremely capable and efficient turbodiesel engine (gets around 15-18 mpg).

Here are some more pics of what is now the shell of my next home:

My blank canvas

The previous owners had no problems with motor oil spills

Check out that ratty driver's seat! 

No windows on either side = urban camouflage

Why this van specifically? Well, several reasons:

• Sprinter vans offer the largest interior cargo space of any vehicle that is rated as "Class C" by the DOT. That means I don't have to get a commercial drivers license to drive it while maximizing how much room I have to work with
• This model year, 2007 is one of only two model years in the Sprinter pantheon which features the Superhigh, Extra Long Wheelbase AND was built before they added some hideous piece of emissions equipment to the engine in 2009 that apparently every Sprinter afficianado hates
• Because it is the "Superhigh" version I CAN STAND UP INSIDE. Yep, of every single possible "Class C" van out there, this is one of the only ones I can stand up in.
• Because it has no windows (not to mention that supercool "Sales & Service" vinyl signage across the front) I'll be able to "boondock" in cities/towns/urban areas much more easily. "Boondocking" being parking the van somewhere not designated as an RV campground and sleeping in the van for the night.

So, in two days from the moment I decided "Hey, I think this might be a good idea" I was in Dallas negotiating with a small used car dealer who had just learned that used Sprinters were in high demand and had purchased this one at auction just a few days before I found it online at CarGurus.com. In fact, while I was talking to the guys who run the place, two other people came to look at it with hopes of buying it.

So, what next? Well, there is now a huge fire in my belly to get this conversion done as soon as I possibly can. There simply can't come a time when I've sold my house and need to move on and my new home isn't yet done. That would be bad.

What I Thought Was Right Is Now Going to be Wrong

Now that I've committed my entire pool of energy, thought and focus into creating a Gap Year Life for myself, some previous assumptions that have always...and I mean always...been in my life are no longer valid. And it is really making me wonder how to deal with that.

Assumption 1 - "I have an address"
How many times have you completed something as basic and mundane as ordering something on Amazon and having it shipped to you? Well, the other day I was completing an online form and it asked for my address. That is an easy answer at the moment as I have an address. But I then began to wonder "What  happens when I no longer HAVE an address?

If I am, say, living in Tiny House and on the road, how am I supposed to answer that question? How can I get something delivered to me if I want to shop online? What do I list as my billing address for an entity like my bank who wants one for my checking account?"

My immediate thought was that, sure, I could simply list my mom's address, or maybe one of my kids (heaven knows family are the only people one could possibly impose on to the extent of having them handle both their own junkmail AND yours!). That wouldn't solve the problem of how to get something shipped to me if I'm on the road, but it would at least resolve the issue of having something as basic as a billing address for a checking account.

But how authentic is it for someone trying to live a flexible life to lean entirely on someone ELSE not living a flexible life in order to make one's own life possible? Yeah...that sounds like cheating.

No answers right now, but I remember the last time I was in one of those franchised UPS retail locations I saw a sign that said "Get A PO Box With A Real Street Address" and thought at the time "Hmm...I wonder how that would be useful?" because, well, at the time I was under the assumption I would always live at a physical address! Now...contemplating a more flexible/mobile life...I realize there is an excellent chance I won't have a physical address in the near future.

So, in checking out UPS Mail Services, I found that it could be a possible solution to this problem in many ways:

• When you rent a mailbox from the local UPS store, you can get a small box for $12/mo. And, it turns out that if you get more mail than your box can handle, they'll set up an overflow box for you for free. Not bad!
• That rented mailbox has...hugely important!...a "real" street address that UPS/FedEx/US Postal Service/etc. will ship to. No shipping company, on the other hand, will ship to a PO Box.
• They will forward your mail to you for a fee. Say, if I was going to be setting up shop in someplace like Alaska for a two months to learn how to be a musher for a sled dog team and there was something I wanted to specifically forward, they'd do it for me.
• You can call in and they'll tell you if you have mail in your box.
• They will set up a text notification any time a package arrives for you.

Could this be the home address I use going forward in life?

That brings up a corollary assumption which I've always automatically had without question:

Assumption 2 - I always have a permanent abode

When I meet someone new, eventually I'll get asked where I'm from. My typical reply is "I live in the Jackson, Mississippi area, grew up in Phoenix but I've lived all over the country and in Europe." But once I move to a flexible life, a big part of that will be living in a mobile fashion. Not that I am structuring my life so that I HAVE to go anywhere specific, but simply that I plan to live in a "home" that is on wheels.

And the simple fact that my future home will be on wheels means...to me at least...that I no longer HAVE to have a permanent abode, or "home base" as I've begun to term it in any kind of traditional sense. If I want to spend a week or two a year in each of the lower 48 states, what would I then say when someone asks me where I'm from? What would I then consider as my home base?

Or, more pointedly, which of the thousands of UPS store locations out there would I choose as the one that would be my physical mailing address?

And that is something I definitely don't have an answer for.

In the past, I've ALWAYS moved either for school or for a job. Now, for the first time in my life, l have the option of choosing any place in the country as the place I would...at some sort of interval...go check my mail.

And to answer that question, I think I have to have a much better idea of why, exactly, I wouldn't just call the Jackson area my home base. And, I'm not sure at the moment that I have sufficiently good reasons to switch my "home base" away from the Jackson area, though I know it is possible that with more thought a reason, or reasons, may reveal themselves.

What Do I Want My Life to Look Like?

So...just what is my ideal life?

I think I may have been one of the few people who actually LIKES meetings. In my old job world, I always looked forward to most of the meetings that filled up my calendar every day. It was a time to exchange ideas, talk over plans, debate different possible approaches and/or generate new ways of thinking and solving problems. In the best meetings I got to throw around some amusing anecdotes. A witty rejoinder or two.

In short, meetings fed the social beast in me.

But, now, those meetings are no more. I spent the first two months of my "Gap Year" riding solo across the country, so no meetings were going on during that time! Now that I've been home for about a month and trying hard to both minimalize my life AND, simultaneously, generate new income streams, I spend most of every day alone in my house either working at the computer or cleaning/organizing/selling. No meetings happening in my house either, so my former constantly-full world of meetings and social contact literally evaporated overnight.

And now I'm not only wondering whether or not I can't handle being alone most of every day in this fashion, I'm also wondering if I WANT to be alone most of every day in this fashion.

And, in the middle of the night last night, that question woke me up and kept me from going back to sleep for hours. And, in trying to answer it for myself, I began to see that the REAL question I needed to answer for myself is "what does my ideal life look like?"

Everything I've had in my mind thus far consists primarily of either 1) what I DON'T want to do (i.e., be tied down to a specific work location I have to be at physically all day every day, go back to a job in corporate America, etc.), or 2) a now-too-vague idea of what I would like to do (i.e., make money from writing in some way, or live a "flexible" life, etc.).

All of this thought and quandary came to me last night because I had read this article at RootsRated about something called "Dispersed Camping."

Hmmm...might this be what I want my life to look like?

Essentially, dispersed camping is when you camp at un-improved sites along the backroads of Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forest, or Wildlife Refuge Area lands (or their state-run equivalents) FOR FREE. Yep. For free. And even though there are usually limits on how long you can stay there (a typical limit is no more than 14 days out of 30), those limits are plenty lax enough to, essentially, allow you to camp for free throughout the entire year if you are willing to drive around a bit.

So, theoretically, my only expenses under the "dispersed/free camping" model (if I choose that route) would be, roughly: health insurance, car insurance, gasoline for the car, maintenance on the car, car registration, cell phone bill (which would also perform as my major source of internet access), food and entertainment (e.g., Netflix account, some books for my Kindle, etc.). All that means it fits my new attempt to drastically lower my expenses.

But how lonely will it be? Can I manage that?

Not sure at all what the answer is to that.

Why Now?

Part IV

Financial Means
Ok, let me start by saying I am NOT wealthy. I've had some excellent jobs with great salaries, but I was also the sole wage earner for my first marriage of 24 years and raised four kids, and meeting ALL the needs of six people took all the money I could ever earn. I've also been divorced three times, have done my part to put four kids through college and have lived a lifestyle commensurate with making good money (eating out, new cars, big ol' house, etc.).

That said, by my calculations I have saved up enough over the last few years to last at least a year...as long as I downsize to having no debt at all. Thus, the following ideas/moves were born:

• Sold my Harley: one debt gone
• Selling my home: another, major, debt gone. To replace it, I am going to either build a Tiny House to replace it (currently trying to do that for $20k...we'll see!) OR buy a small travel trailer (around $10k).
• Selling my car: one debt gone as I plan to by a used truck capable of towing my Tiny House.
• Selling ALL my furniture: I won't be able to fit any of my current furniture in my Tiny House so it can go.
• Selling almost all my other household furnishings: Why would I need a patio table and chairs in a Tiny House? Or an air compressor?

My motto: Get Rid!

No human being has ever sat at this table for any reason. Is that not idiotic?

Now, admittedly, the scariest part now is the idea of using some of my "I could live for a year" cash reserves on a Tiny House and truck to pull it. My other option is to keep my current car, make the payments and just buy a small trailer. The benefit of that is that if I don't like this minimalist/downsized life, I've not put a ton of cash into it...just enough for the trailer. And, if I did decide to simply go back to a regular ol' life I could sell the trailer and probably not take too much of a loss.

So, readers, I'd love any opinions any of you have on THAT dilemma!

Why Now?

Part III

No commitment to job/career
In my "epilogue" post a month following the end of my bike journey across the country, I spoke to the idea of not being happy in my old working life and seeking a new one. That is the way I felt back in December, and that is still the way I feel about my old life now.

But let me tell you, it is a scary thing to not have steady, regular income arriving twice a month, no matter how much money I've saved up to help me with my transition. Now, don't get me wrong: no job anywhere, ever is "guaranteed." Market forces, the economy, whether or not a new boss arrives on the scene...all kinds of factors can mean the end of work that you may once have thought of as "going to be in this job until I retire." But, having a job in which the business is relatively established and which has been paying people just like you regular wages for months/years/decades is an extremely comforting situation.

And what I've consciously chosen is a severe degree of discomfort.

Waking up in the morning now is a LOT different than it used to be. Now, rather than know exactly what time I'll get into my office, exactly what meetings are on my schedule for the day, what work I need to get done for the day and roughly what I'm going to be doing that evening I get up and think:

OK...of all the many things I COULD be doing today, what is going to get me furthest towards my goals?

For the first time in my working life, no one but me is putting items on my calendar. No one but me really knows where I am or what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. And no one cares. No one is wondering "where is David?"

I think it should feel more exhilarating than it does. But, right now, it just feels really scary. There have been times of the last week where I'm really questioning whether or not I'm doing the right thing. There was a time this morning as I was out running errands at 11am (something I NEVER could have done in the past several decades because I'd have been at work) when I started to panic. Started to feel the heavy burden of swimming against the tide.

Then I saw this Hyundai coming at me down the street.

 

"Yes, Hyundai undoubtedly employees tens of thousands of employees just in the US alone, not to mention around the world. But, at some point, Mr. Hyundai was just like me: a guy, alone, trying his best to do something different than what he might have been used to. He probably had lots of panic moments too. But look at that car now: he made it through."

And so, today at least, I'm still going forward with the idea of trying to forge a new path for myself in which I don't go back to my old career path. All thanks to Mr. Hyundai.

So, while I don't have a commitment to a job/career, in the traditional sense, I DO have a commitment to a job...just one I'm making up for myself as I go along. But more about my attempts to create new income streams in an upcoming post :)

Why Now?

Part II

"No one left depending on me financially" certainly applies to my kids all being independent now, but it also applies to the fact that I have no spouse to support either. Now, I get that not everyone who is married is responsible for financially supporting their spouse. In fact, my experience may be pretty rare. But, in all three of my marriages I've had the responsibility of financially supporting my spouse to at least some degree. In my first marriage of twenty-four years, my wife (and mother of all four of my children) was a stay-at-home mom. I'm not complaining about that as that was the choice we made at the time and I have no regrets. But supporting six people isn't easy in today's world, and I was in full-on "support" mode beginning three days after I graduated from college.

So when other folks were off living out their gap years...or, at the very least...the life of a single person or childless/two-wage earning couple, I was earning money to support myself and one other person. Then two others. Then, by the time I was 28, five other people. So there was never a time in my life when I could do the things that other people do when they are young: travel, have adventures, volunteer in remote places, etc.. I was working hard, long hours to feed, clothe and house everyone. No complaints! Just the reality of my life at the time.

Then came my second marriage. For a while I wasn't responsible for anything but my half of the collective expenses for the household. But, that included both my favorite ex-wife AND her two sons. Again, I was happy to be a part of their lives and have no regrets or complaints, but the fact is, I was responsible for more than just myself. And, eventually, when we moved to Mississippi I become responsible for solely supporting everyone again. And, of course, with two fine step-sons still living with us there weren't any chances for a Gap Year.

Then came the crazy third marriage. For a variety of reasons I was, once again, back in "full support" mode. At the time I thought that would be a temporary situation until she became employed, but as I eventually learned, the entire point of marrying me was so that I could entirely support her (and preferably in the high-life manner she preferred!). I think I'm just a magnet for women who want to be fully supported. Even when I was dating before I got married the third time, one of the women I dated who had a successful, decades-long career underway, asked if she could quit working and stay at home to contribute in other ways to our relationship other than financially. I never figured out what, exactly, those other ways were but as you can see, they sensed I was a guy who would generally say "yes" to that kind of thing.

Then came the great "Jerry Springer" moment of late 2016: the Facebook engagement announcement of my third wife to another man while still married to me. After trying for 14 months to get her to agree to a divorce, I finally had the "smoking gun" required to end this sad, bizaare chapter in my life:

 

 

So....for the first time in my life...it is just me. Now, don't get me wrong; I'm no Ted Kaczynski who just wants to live a hermit existence in a tiny cabin deep in the woods writing anti-government manifestos all day. I very much prefer the idea of having a partner to go through life with. But, since that isn't currently my situation, I find myself able to even contemplate something like a Gap Year.

Why Now?

Part I

To understand how I could ever even contemplate turning 2017 into a Gap Year, I probably need to provide some background. And, boy, do I love me some background!

In fact, I love background (or as I sometimes call it "backstory") so much my kids usually asked me questions with a preparatory wince on their face. They had learned to brace themselves for backstory.

In the usual course of things, young people are typically able embark on a Gap Year journey because they meet all of the usual Gap Year criteria:

1. No one they care about is depending on them to be wherever they currently are on an every-day basis. That means no kids. No contrarian spouse who is saying "you are doing what? leaving our home AND ME for a year??" (Now, don't get me wrong. Some spouses might go with someone contemplating a Gap Year. Others might say "sure, see you in a year!" But, in my experience, both of those would be a pretty rare occurrence. NOT impossible...but rare)
2. No commitment to a job/career
3. The financial means to, generally, not work for a year and still meet whatever financial obligations they may have. And since Gap Years are typically undertaken by people just graduating from high school or college, they have precious few financial obligations: no mortgage, maybe no car payment, no orthodontist's bill for their kids' braces, etc..

So, at 54 years old, how is it that I meet all of the above criteria? Well, here is the backstory:

No one is currently depending on me
When I graduated from college in 1984, I got married three days later. Now, getting married doesn't always mean having kids right away. In fact, these days, many couple choose to spend several years as "just them" before they begin their families.

Not us.

At the time I was an Army officer. We were also Mormons. The combination of those two cultural influences meant that EVERYONE we knew was newly married and having their first child. Now, we didn't start having kids simply because "everyone was doing it," but it is true that there wasn't anyone telling us to slow down either. No, a big part of my personal reasons for wanting to start having kids right away was that my father was a bit older when I was born (37), and the entire time I was growing up he frequently didn't want to do things like play catch because he complained about "being too old." That had deep impact on me and created a burning desire to be a YOUNG man when my kids were growing up.

My first child...our oldest daughter Caitlin...was born when I was 22 years old. My oldest son Zach was born when I was 24. My youngest daughter when I was 25. My fourth and final child, Ethan, when I was 28.

Let that sink in a bit. In today's world, having four kids by the age of 28 is as rare as a lottery win.

But that start lead directly to today in that when my youngest son graduated from college, I was DONE in terms of the major "commitment" portion of raising a family and doing all I could to fund their educations. All of my kids weren't simply "out of the house;" they were all self-supporting and on their own career paths.

2015. My oldest son Zach and I posing with Ethan, my youngest son, just after he graduated from the University of Utah with his software engineering degree.

So, by the time I was 52 years old, I had no children left to financially support. Nothing is more critical to the complicated answer of why I can contemplate a "Gap Year" now than that.

But that, in and of itself, still didn't push me completely into the Gap Year zone...

{stay tuned tomorrow for Part II: my marriages and how I'm not married}