Thoughts on living in a van?

[TheRedHare]

I've recently thought about getting an old conversion van and living in it....sorta.

I spoke to the owner of the current home I've renting a room in, and he said that he would be fine with me parking a van in his drive way and living there. I haven't negotiated a price with him yet, but I'm positive it would be much cheaper than the rent I'm currently paying at $510 with everything included. I live in downtown Charleston SC, and it's pretty expensive and difficult to find cheap living.

I was guessing a good price might be $250. I would buy the van which would be around $2,000. I'd then get a blow up mattress to sleep on, and store all my belongings in it (I don't have much). I would be able to use the kitchen, shower, internet, and other utilities. I would cut my expenses down even more, and my savings rate would be about 75-80% while making $25,000 a year.

I was thinking that over time I could slowly build up the van into something more self sustaining by putting solar panels on the roof, have a sink, camping stove, and heat and maybe some for of a/c. I'd also be very mobile and would allow me to relocate if need be.

I've read a little into what living is like, but I don't really see myself living in a van for a long time (maybe 2-3 years at most)

[BRUTE]

paging C40

[TheRedHare]

paging C40

Not sure what you mean.

edit: Oh, never mind haha

[jacob]

Let me get this straight. You get the run of the house (kitchen, bathroom, water, electricity/extension cord) and the only thing is that you now have to sleep in the van parked in the driveway? In general, the biggest challenges with van-living is water+sewage (aka "bathroom"), it getting too cold (probably not a problem in SC), and where to park it. The rest is trivial.

[TurboDave]

This link helped me immensely in the planning stage: http://carliving.info/index.html

I willingly moved into the bed of my pickup for about 6 months. It's not hard if you have some time to get into the proper mindset. I didn't have access to basic amenities other than coin laundry and public bathrooms, but I was able to get by. Some notes:

It's very simple to wire a second battery to the vehicle with a battery isolator. This isolator lets you drain the secondary battery without pulling from your main. That way you can still start your van if you drain the secondary battery to nothing. The isolator I used had a button to allow the secondary battery to be used for starting the engine as well, so it serves a dual-purpose in a way.

I recommend skipping the blow-up mattress and instead building a bed frame 2ft x however tall you are + a couple inches. Then, use a cot pad or cut yourself a mattress out of memory foam. The 2 foot width makes it similar to sleeping on a couch.

Coleman makes a camping sink that packs away into a small bucket. It's powered by a standard Coleman battery and includes a drying rack for dishes. I find this to save more space than a built-in sink, but in a van you may be able to splurge on the space.

If you get a solar panel, I recommend getting one 300w panel from a residential solar supplier. These get below the $1/watt price, where the Renogy ones on Amazon run $1.44/watt and only provide 100 watts. There are plenty of options in the RV market for mounting the panel.

Try to keep the outside of the van as inconspicuous as possible. If you end up parking somewhere else, you'll want to blend in to avoid both the general population and police.

For reference, this is what my truck looked like before putting the topper on: http://imgur.com/WsbhBbr

[TheRedHare]

Let me get this straight. You get the run of the house (kitchen, bathroom, water, electricity/extension cord) and the only thing is that you now have to sleep in the van parked in the driveway? In general, the biggest challenges with van-living is water+sewage (aka "bathroom"), it getting too cold (probably not a problem in SC), and where to park it. The rest is trivial.

The main thing I'm asking is what's everyone's idea on living in a van. What challenges they've had..etc.
I'm starting out by basically sleeping in the van, and then having access to all the house utilities. I'd eventually like to put a little more work into the van so that I could live in it without the need of using someone's home for utilities.
I'm thinking of it as a slow progression towards living fully in a van, and I'd like to know what people's opinion of that lifestyle is before I move in that direction.

[C40]

I suppose that would be a pretty nice arrangement. But also:

I don't think it'd be worth doing this just to save $260/month on your rent. It sounds like you'd save, at the very most $10k over 3 years of doing this. I don't think it'd be worth it because:
1 - Your landlord could cancel the arrangement at any time. You'd need to be prepared to deal with that.
2 - If your main motivation for doing this is to save money, I think you'd come out ahead if you instead focus instead on earning more money (whether at your current employer, or through other sources).

If you think you might like to live entirely in the van after those 2-3 years, then you'd get more out of this in-between phase than just saving the money. You could use it as a transition phase to get used to living in the van (which may actually end up taking very little time once you do it), and build it up over time to have everything you need.

[bryan]

Agreed that you could leverage the arrangement to be a nice transition phase. Maybe 3-6 months? Another perk is having a legal permanent/mailing address still (~$30/mo value).

May be a good temporary exercise, regardless. I would try to offer a lower amount than $250 to see if he bites..

I would pay up to around $750 to live in an acceptable, to me, traditional dwelling (less if it is less acceptable). This is usually very easy for an ERE-minded person, except if you want to live in high-rent areas. Otherwise, van-living just isn't a huge net savings to warrant the drawbacks (like no space for particular hobbies). $510 rent everything included sounds great to me (obviously I don't know specifics, but as C40 said, over 3 years focusing on earning more would be better).

I would say the main challenge is pooping as you want, when you want. Females may have additional bathroom needs. If not on the west coast, I would probably say AC will be your next main challenge (easiest solution is avoiding the van at all times except for sleeping).