[NOTE: I’ve blogged all these how-to posts before, but am gonna re-run them on occasion, since folks may have missed them, and many of them have been updated or expanded since they were first posted.]
Van dwelling is a very cheap way to live.
Or, more accurately, it can be a very cheap way to live, if you want it to be. Because van camping is so flexible, it is also very variable. It can be as expensive as you like: you can live in a pricey Class B and sleep in an RV campground every night with hot running water, toilets, onshore electricity, cable TV, and a microwave. Or, it can be as inexpensive as you like: you can sleep in a parking lot every night in a sleeping bag in the back of the van. It’s up to you.
Most of the expenses you will have to pay every month are the same ones you would still have to pay if you lived in a fixed home. You still have to buy food and eat every day, for instance, whether you cook in an apartment kitchen or on a camping stove in the van, and you still have to put gas in the van whether it’s parked in your driveway or in a parking lot. The advantage of the camper van lies in those things you do not need to pay for: rent or mortgage, electricity, water/sewer, natural gas/oil for heat, cable TV, high-speed Internet.
To give an idea of the finances involved, here is what I spend for a typical month of living on the road. These are just rough averages, since prices vary over time (the price of gas in particular can go up and down a lot). And I estimate them a bit high to be conservative.
Food: about $400 per month. This is typically my biggest expense, mostly because I eat out at least once every day. (I try to avoid eating fast-food, though I confess I have a liking for Big Macs and Beef’n’Cheddars.) If I were to cook all my meals in the van, I could cut this expense by at least half.
Gas: about $100 per month. This depends on the current price of gas, and how far I travel. Typically I only drive the van from one city to another, once every few weeks. In the West the cities are further apart, so there is more driving.
Insurance: for the van, it s about $100 per month. There is also health insurance, which is another $100 per month.
Bus pass: about $60 per month. This varies from city to city; the cheapest monthly bus pass I’ve seen being $35 and the most expensive being $95. Weekly or bi-weekly passes cost less, but usually work out to a bit more per day than a monthly.
Admissions to museums, zoos, parks, etc: about $150 per month. Depends a lot on where I go. If I’m going someplace like Sea World, that can easily be $100 just for one day. But most places are around $15-20 admission, and many of the places that I go are free.
Miscellaneous: about $150 per month. Includes everything from the yearly state inspections on the van to my Tracfone cellphone to whatever odds and ends I need to buy, from paper towels to new shoes.
So it costs me roughly $1000 per month to live on the road. Heck, in places like Washington DC or San Francisco most people pay that much a month just for rent.
And my life in a van isn’t very much different than my life was in an apartment: I wake each morning, wash up, take the bus to do what I want to do, come home, cook dinner, watch TV or read a book, then sleep. The only difference is that now my “apartment” is smaller and more mobile (and there are lots of things, like rent and utilities, that I don’t have to pay to live here). Of course, I am a longtime backpacker so I don’t mind roughing it, but those van dwellers who like their creature comforts can have them too, if they’re willing to pay a bit more for them.
OTOH, I know vandwellers who consider much of what I do to be “a luxury”, and who get along on about half of the money that I do. And if course there are plenty of homeless-in-vehicle who get by on whatever they can beg on a street corner.
The Electronic Nomad 