trailsailor said:
I haven't read this book but I did read all the reviews on Amazon written so far. It's really apparent from reading the reviews that we nomads are viewed as victims and to be pitied.
Pitied for what? Living a minimalist lifestyle on wheels and enjoying the hell out of it? There are just too many reasons and circumstances for why we live like this to make any generalizations about it.
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You are correct. I read it and the writer really had an agenda and made case studies of ONLY a handful of people who fit her agenda. It painted a picture of essentially homeless people who were always begging friends to park in their driveway, imposing on their children who have NO room for them to start with, couch surf their way across America, buy old vehicles because they are cheap that are constantly breaking down and they have no money to fix them, thus the couch surfing.
There was also the angle that those one step above homeless people worked at these ridiculous jobs that are the antithesis of retirement. 12 hour shift in an Amazon warehouse is NOT the life for me. I didn't retire until I could stand on my own feet and NOT be a parasite.
One common thread among the case studies was that they either have never had any money, did not work much through their younger years so their social security was complete peanuts, or had money and invested heavily and lost it in the contrived bank crash in 2008. Also there were a couple of mentions of people who had money and lost it to a spouse during a divorce. The author, Jessica Bruder, tells of people in their 70s walking up to 15 miles per shift at Amazon, or putting in 12 hour days slogging through cranberry bogs. Again, not for me.
It is a good read, sure. Very entertaining. However, as I read it I found myself thinking things more like "Don't let this happen to you" and "Are these people actually LIVING or just existing?"
One thing I could not let go of is that there was a degree of irresponsibility and lack of priority in some of her case studies. One anecdote I remember clearly was one of the van people having to wait for a SS check to pay to get an RV out of a mechanic shop. fill the gas tank, and head off to one of those dreadful jobs. What caught my eye though, and why I mentioned priority, was that as the van dweller filled the tank, there was mention of "adding 2 packs of Marlboro" whatever to the bag. Okay, with NO money to speak of, they choose to waste about $210 of that money on a vice like smoking? In this case, that pack a day habit, at $7 a pack, represented 39% of their available income. Isn't that the kind of thing that should go away first when you have nothing to live on?
And the stories were just sad and depressing. The threw that shade at van dwellers and made people with RVs that do NOT fit that downtrodden profile, again the writer's agenda, come off like snobs. One story related an evening where a bunch of van people were in a camp area and wandered over to socialize with a bunch of people with Class A and 5th wheel RVs. And according to the book, (paraphrasing) "As soon as it was discovered that they lived in vans, they were immediately ostracized." I found that terribly condescending and far too much of a generalization. How dare she hold it against people who planned well in their earlier years and are well positioned to enjoy their retirement in the comfort of a well appointed RV?
Disclaimer: I am NOT a wealthy person, nor have I yet started living in my RV. I HAVE m RV, a 25 ft Class C, and am in the process of outfitting it how I want it so when I sell my home in the spring I can hit the highway, pulling my little Toyota behind me. What I CAN say about my finances is that I have owned this house for 9 years and have never struggled financially. That is a combination of a frugal lifestyle and essentially rarely leaving my house. I like my house, and my old blind dog needs me here, so here I stay. There isn't all that much that interests me anyway, as i am a very deeply introverted person.
So yes, read the book. Entertaining, even if you don't accept the content with open arms. Remember as you read that there is a big difference between cheap and inexpensive. Cheap is doing something so it kinda sorta works kinda sorta okay and it'll do for now. Inexpensive is understanding that fixing something right the first time and never having to fix it again is what saves money. These particular van dwellers in her book do cheap. Over and over and over.
