 All right van life. Is it based or cringe? Mobile life living in a car. Is that stupid? Let's talk about that So I don't have an email that I printed out that I'm responding to in this video But this is a question I get pretty often so I figure I might as well knock them all out of the park in this one A lot of people ask me well, you know if I want to live Self-sufficiently or at least you know no one's perfectly self-sufficient But if I want to move more in that direction is it a good idea to live in my car in a camper and You know some kind of mobile thing All right I get that kind of question a lot and I will tell you when I was a kid Okay, when I was like a teenager or whatever. I was always thinking my mindset has always been how can I live? Using the least amount of money. Okay, I mean that's always been like a lot of people like let me make a lot of money I've always been like how can I live in as little as possible? That's been my mindset, right? So I often thought about hey, could I live in my car? Could I like not buy land? Could I not buy a house? Could I get by with that just living in a car? Or station wagon or something like that something with a little bit more room. Okay Now and a lot of Millennials Millennials love this. They're like, oh dude. Oh, they're mobile life This is so tiny houses dude. Oh, this is so awesome. Um, but the thing is I think it's mostly kind of a If you live like that at all, it's going to be a very brief phase I'll just tell you that and it'll end up being a phase much more expensive than you think Now if you want to live a more or less self-sufficient lifestyle, it's impossible to do it on the road It's impossible to do it in any kind of van or anything like that Like you can't have a normal life. You can't have you know a set place that you live If you're doing that already you might as well just you know build a house that's cheap or something like that The way I think of it is like when you are living Mobilely when you're living in a car or a van or something like that a single car accident Could you lose you everything you have right even even a minor fender bender? That can signs you to the side of the road for a couple days that could be a setback enough But especially if your car is stolen or your car is damaged, you know or like vandalized or something like that or you know Someone T bones you or something like that everything you have is just immediately gone, okay? That's one of the big problems That I think a lot of people don't think about because maybe they've never been in a wreck or they don't look at that as a possibility That that's problem number one like you even if you're minimizing your expenditures You are in a position where it's much easier to lose much much more, okay? Thing number two is one of the things you have to have when you're living a normal life is you you need a lot of space Okay, not just general space to like walk around or do stuff But you like you need places to store tools To store things that you're not using every day or every week or maybe every month or maybe even every year You want space, okay, and you might not need a lot of space You might be able to live a very full life on a quarter of an acre or maybe even less maybe an eighth of an acre something like that But you are going to need some space to store stuff. You're gonna want to have a shed You're gonna want to have something to you know put the things you're not using in and if you have some kind of mobile living Everything you had like everything you own and I've known people who live Mobility, but the thing is everything they have has to be some kind of mobile equivalent And they can never have the best stuff if you want to do something basic with basic tools It's just not gonna happen That's not the kind of thing if you're just contemplating this lifestyle You're not really thinking about it that often, but that is gonna be a big problem like you there There's a huge swath of things you're not gonna be able to do because you can't have a place You don't have a tool shed or there are so many things That needs so you know if you want to solve or something that needs a lot of power. That's sort of hard to you know I mean everything becomes more difficult, right if you're legitimately trying to live, you know From you know remotely especially if you're living out of a car now campers will often have a little bit more room But still nowhere near enough You know what you need and that also means you won't be able to do stuff like you know growing stuff or holding animals I don't hold animals although. I probably should you know have enough land for it But um, you know, they're just all these kind of things that you can't do that you should be able to do, okay? And last but not least like this might sound like a superficial thing And I'm all for people being I don't eccentric or something like that, but realistically speaking Van life is weird Like people make it look good on YouTube when they're like oh, man Here's me and my wife and we have van life and we're going well we're traveling the country Wow, that sounds like very exotic, but in real life like okay for even if you have this actually applies to like tiny houses too Which you know, I fully recommend Tiny houses are kind of a meme as well You should if you want a small house get a small house Don't get like one of these tiny houses where everything is like oh, let me do it in 40 by 40 and like you know It's not actually bolted to the ground don't do that stuff And the reason I say this and you know of campers is like it's hard to have normal friends It's hard to have like What are you gonna do have someone over in your camper? It's just not it's gonna be awkward and even in a tiny house even in a tiny home where you're like showing people Oh, wow, this is how we store this. Wow. It's so creative and blah blah blah The thing is when you have someone over the whole spiel will be you showing them your house That is actually very uncomfortable to like live and visit in And stuff like that now the only exception would be if you have your house on some You know large plot of land where you can do stuff outside But at that point you might as well just have you know a slightly bigger house or you know in the case of a camper like I mean if you're moving around from place to place It's sort of weird to just have people at the camping lot you're staying at so I think um, you know Although like I understand the principles of people who want to live this kind of lifestyle And I did when I was a kid when you really think it through and you really like experiment with it And there was a period, you know, I was never like homeless But you know there were times where I was visiting a town and I'd be like I'll just stay in my car And I'll see how that goes and it's always like it's always more expensive than you think Especially if you want to park legally you have to you know Either you have to pay or you have to go to you know some certain place and like you're just It's just kind of a pain like there are gonna be a lot of costs You don't realize and of course you're paying for gas massive amounts of gas because you're dragging around Everything you own in your camper or whatever You can say oh, I'll just you know unhook it or I'll have another car or something And there are just so many things to think through So I think a lot of people they see people on YouTube living camping kind of a camping life or like even tiny homes as I mentioned like I think they're kind of um I think people I mean tiny homes are less bad because you can have like space and stuff and you can do a lot of Kind of normal stuff. It's just hard to have people over you know have people visiting stay with you stuff like that So, you know, those are my thoughts. That's why I think You know that your priority should really be having land a good amount of land Maybe a couple acres, but like you could definitely survive on less than one acre so long as it's you know You've got some breathing room and if you're short on cash if you're like a young kid I mean even college age and I'm talking really short on cash like you don't have anything Contemplate going in with it go going in with your friends to buying land or something like that that you can all use or buying an old house Living in there just to save money and stuff like that. That would be my actual recommendation And I will tell you you know once you're an adult and we were more financially independent and stuff like that You will start thinking about well I could probably I could probably own multiple properties and you know If you're willing to wait and willing to look for good deals You know then things become a lot easier and so your priority now if you're young should be Let me put myself in a position where I'm not I don't have to spend that much and I have a pretty stable place where you know I have a little bit of breathing room if I'm gonna work on something, but you know, that's about it But I will say just as one extra addendum. I have known a couple guys. I've never done this I have not known a couple guys who have been voluntarily homeless In the sense that like they're working in a job in another city and you know, they don't have a wife or anything So they're like, okay. I you know, I'm working 10 hours a day. I am just gonna live in my car You know and do something like that And if you're if you if you feel open to that as long as you're not you know shackled like a wagery to that job Forever, you're just doing it because I can make a lot of money here and then a couple months I'll do something else that is an option, but that is not something obviously you want to live in Or make a habit But anyway, so that's my feelings about remote, you know, mobile living It is sort of a meme but and don't have that as a goal. Okay, that's all I'm saying. All right, that's it