Here's a story of a man that used a P.O. box for his permanent address and got away with it

[Jim D]

I was told by someone at Escapees that Nevada allows a mail service address on Nevada drivers licenses so I went looking to find out. Nevada won't allow any P.O. boxes no how no way. All the Nevada DMV states is that you have to have a permanent address and you can't use a P.O. Box because they are not permanent. I'm still looking but I ran into this guy's story.

I didn’t have enough money to get an apartment, so I started to sleep in my car.

I knew that what I really needed was a permanent address, but in my sudden new position in life there was no way I could get one.

Here’s what I did …
I went to a post office (PO) box rental company and rented a box.
Instead of putting down my address as “Box 12” when I was filling out a form, I put down “Unit 12”.

Not once did I ever get a complaint from the mailbox company or the post office.
All my mail arrived without a problem, including government mail.
It’s a really good way to maintain a permanent address if you’re moving around a lot or are temporarily living in your car.

It can even help you to improve your credit rating because it appears like you’re in a stable location for a period of time.
The other thing that I did was I got a gym membership. I’d go to the gym every day to take a shower.

The PO box cost me about $35 dollars a month, and the gym membership was about the same.

So, for less than three dollars a day I was able to stay clean and appear, at least on paper and to everyone else, to be stable.

I lived in my car for eight months before I was able to find a job and then another four months before I was able to save up enough money for first and last month’s rent and get myself into a small apartment.

Would you believe that no one ever found me out? It’s true! No one ever knew!
One of the first things I did after I got my PO box address was to try and get credit.
Of course I was declined, but the address went on my credit rating nonetheless.
I am absolutely sure that the apartment rental agency that I applied to wouldn’t have approved my rental application had I not tried to use the PO box’s address as my own to get credit a year earlier.

To them it looked like I had lived for a year at my previous address and simply chose not to renew my lease. I even said as much when I was filling out my application.
During that year I spent another ten dollars a week at the laundromat to keep my clothes clean, including the cost for laundry detergent.

Toothpaste, soap and other incidentals cost me around thirty dollars a month.
So basically my rent, water, electricity, laundry and personal grooming cost me about $150 a month, five dollars a day.

During the time that I wasn’t working I’d go to various public parks around town and remove soda pop and beer cans from the garbage cans.

When I had filled up the trunk of my car and then some, I went to the supermarket and put the cans in the recycling machines out front.

I got a nickel for two cans and two cents for a single can.
I was actually able to collect enough cans to pay the five dollars a day for my upkeep and also put two gallons of gas in my car so that I could drive around the next day.
Incredibly, I was also able to collect enough cans to buy a liter of water and a package of Tang (powdered orange-flavored drink) every day.

There was even enough left over for a Hostess dessert pie for breakfast, a 7-Eleven microwaveable burrito for lunch and some bread, ham, cheese and fruit for dinner!
My food expenses were about seven dollars a day and it was about the same for gasoline.

So, I lived on a budget of $20 dollars a day for nine months.
Somehow, and I have no idea how, I was able to collect between 400 and 500 cans a day—and I survived!

I have no shame in it, nor in sharing it; it wasn’t my fault to begin with, but in no way was I going to give up. I’m too proud.

Sure, I could have sold my car to rent an apartment, but then how would I get to work or find a job?
By bus? Not so practical in San Diego.
So I did what I did in the way that I did it.

Today, I have a house on the beach and I will buy a second one soon. I have a new wife whom I love and who loves me and we have a wonderful son together.
I’ve worked for 11 years at the same company, so my life is stable once again.
But I’ll never forget that year; it was a true life lesson.
And you know what?

It wasn’t so bad living in my car collecting cans so that I could get through the day!
Get a PO box, get a gym membership, maintain a prepaid cellular line so people can call you, try to get credit, do what you need to do to find the $20 to $30 dollars a day you need and in the end you’ll be just fine!
Good luck!
Cheers!

Here's the link to the full Quora article:

If you live in a car, but your job needs a street address, what should you put?

Answer (1 of 72): One of the things that always got to me was the American obsession with street addresses. Many Canadians do not have street addresses, they have post office boxes. Many Canadians don’t live on streets, they live in the woods somewhere, or on an island with no roads. Many America...

www.quora.com

 

[mattvei]

I second that. When I was buying judgments, I rented a PO box but instead of showing PO box in any address I gave up I listed the physical address of the post office with a unit number which was my box number and the nine digit zip code which was specific to my box, Got a couple of nasty letters from the postmaster but as is typical with semi-government employees there was no follow-up, no consequence, I applied using a friend's address who I knew was moving so there was no way to find out where I was. Worked for 10 years until I gave it up.