Hacker News Reader

Comment by markerdmann | Hacker News Reader

This reminds of a good friend. He got a job making six figures at Google straight out of college, and then lived in his van--in the Google parking lot--while saving every penny he earned. He took showers on campus and only ate free Google food. After a few years, he went into a mini-retirement and devoted his time to traveling around the world and volunteering.

View on HN

I would have loved to save money right out of school, being as frugal as I am, but I was married when I graduated and the first thing my wife wanted after I got my first (low paying) full time job? A house.

So much for the life of a cheapskate.

Putting money into a house you'll presumably be able to live in rent-free once it's paid off may not be a drastically worse choice than putting your money into savings. Unless it was an impractically huge house, or otherwise somehow not a keeper, I wouldn't consider that a frivolous/non-frugal purchase.

You could always take a mortgage out on the house, rent out the house and live in the van.

Or rent out a room or two and live in the house.

Unless he bought in 2006-2007. Still not frivolous...just a mistake.

"Mistake" implies the person should have known better. There are plenty of little guys who got trampled by the crash who did nothing wrong.

That's about the most justifiable reason I've heard for (temporarily) living in a van/car.

I lived in the van Monday-Thursday while working in London (my home is around 130miles to the east). Not a problem and not uncomfortable. I sometimes used the showers at the office but my van is fully equipped with shower,toilet heaters etc. I wasn't the only one doing it either, and after a while you spot other likely vans.

FWIW, he could have rented an apartment and showered at home, and the cost would have been to delay retirement by maybe 10% of his tenure.

Are you factoring in the exorbitant cost of renting an apartment in the bay area when making this calculation?

Plus significantly increasing commute.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com