Tag Archives: van dwellers

How to Avoid Becoming an Involuntary Van Dweller

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Debt-Free, downsizing, Personal, Retirement, Simpler Living Tagged , , , , ,

Last time I mentioned imagining that you’re one of the many women following the trend of living in a van and making it their own little home as a way to become motivated to declutter. That exercise is also useful even if you don’t think you’ll ever have to downsize, because you never know what kind of curve ball life might throw at you down the road.

Many women will reach retirement age with very little in terms of support, but they don’t realize it now. Unless they’ve had a great job with wonderful benefits and managed to save up a sizeable retirement account (and/or will receive an impressive pension), they may find themselves on a very tight budget if their husband dies first (statistically likely).

Many women have been disappointed to learn that because their husband didn’t earn an above-average wage, they’re only receiving a small monthly stipend from Social Security, not enough to live on unless they’re debt-free and live very frugally.

One of my friends lost her husband to cancer when they were in their mid-50s. She had been a stay-at-home mom and still had one teenage child at home. She was shocked to learn that she couldn’t even get widow’s benefits from Social Security because she wasn’t 60 yet. Financial aid from one of her older kids is the only reason she’s not homeless now. Today she’s in her mid-60s and living on Social Security; her husband’s job didn’t offer a pension, and they never had any spare money to save for retirement because they spent it all raising kids.

So unless you have plenty of money waiting for you in retirement, now’s the time to reduce your expenses so that you don’t end up living in a van in your old age. Cash out everything you own that you don’t really need anymore. Find a more inexpensive place to live. If your car isn’t paid off, sell it and buy something less expensive.  Then take the money you save each month and sock it away for your retirement years. You’ll be glad you did.

Think Like a Van Dweller

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, Simpler Living Tagged

On YouTube.com, you can find many videos of women all excited to decorate their vans that they’re living in. It’s hard for me to imagine choosing such a lifestyle, but apparently it’s a trend right now.

Imagine being one of these women. You have to get rid of most of your stuff to fit into your van. Which items will you keep and which will you get rid of? Which items will be most useful to you, or will have the most entertainment value for the space they take up, like choosing your tablet to replace your bookshelves full of books, and your entertainment center full of dvd’s?

If you watch a few of these videos, you’ll see that they have to devote much of their limited space to supplies, food, and batteries. So we’re talking very little space for frivolities.

But if you’ve been having trouble decluttering, put yourself in each woman’s place and think about what you really treasure amongst your many belongings. Yes, you could rent a storage space to keep things you can’t take with you, but are you really likely to go visit your stuff regularly?

Pretending to be one of these women is a good starting point for motivating yourself to declutter.

Van Dwellers on the Rise

By Claire Posted in Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

In typical Daily Mail fashion, this article about a gathering of van dwellers includes a misleading headline and quite a few photos.

The insinuation is that a bunch of hippies that live in their vans formed a town in Oregon recently. The reality is that this was a weekend gathering, not the creation of permanent parking spots for a large number of people who live in their RVs.

That said, an increasing number of people in the U.S. are finding that they prefer living in a van or RV to spending their lives on the merry-go-round of working full-time for stagnating wages while trying to afford increasingly unaffordable housing. Some young people have decided that’s not the life they want, while some older people can no longer make the math work, especially if they can only find part-time jobs in their forced semi-retirement.

The result is a large and growing number of people who live in their vans. Some of them may have been at this gathering, but according to a couple of commenters on the article, many of those who were at this event just like to camp in their RVs on the weekends, and enjoy getting together with others who feel the same way.

Regardless, an increasing number of people have given up on renting or buying housing, and are living in their vans full-time. Some of these vans are quite nice; others not so much. Anyone who decides to do this will have to downsize by giving up most of their possessions after choosing which few are essential to daily living. This trend is no accident; until stagnating wages go up, bloated housing costs go down, or (ideally) both things happen, we will continue to see an increase in van dwellers.