72 Year Old Solo Woman Living in a Minivan! Van Tour

and welcome back to my next video today we're meeting Jan hi Jan hi Bob and uh Jan is in a very unique I think vehicle and I think something that maybe we should all be considering uh what kind of a vehicle is this Jim it's a 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Limited plug-in hybrid plug-in hybrid yes not just a hybrid it gives a little boost in gas mileage to plug it in and it also gives you that seven thousand five hundred dollar tax credit not deduction for an electric vehicle which a hybrid you don't actually get that so it helped a little on a very pretty expensive price I bet it was yeah but I sold my home to buy a home right right you know I wanted to you know I'm 71 years old and I wanted to make it comfortable enough I want to be able to make sure I could do this well I won't ask how much it was but I imagine these things are very expensive yeah yeah that's that makes it a little unusual not that I have a lot of money I just took money from my home to buy a home I wasn't I didn't have a lot of money laying around and I don't get much Social Security not enough to even get an apartment well yeah that's that's why you it's kind of risky taking off that big chunk of money well I have a little bit more ready for this it's a little bit more that I have you know um and I worry about that but um this is saving me money so when you go into there's electric charging out all over the place now and you plug in are you paying for that once in a while once in a while I do um most the time though a city will have a place that's for free um you know a hotel sometimes has them where they um it doesn't say guests only I make sure I look for that and you know it's just kind of open to the public they're hoping that you'll come in several cities have had them that are free that they're doing you know just to be nice casinos you know have free very totally free they don't even know who you are you just plug it in it's free I've done that at a few casinos too that's great and so you are literally driving for virtually free well you know it it bumps up the gas mileage Chrysler says it gets 82 miles a gallon but there are far more variables to either a hybrid or a plug-in even more to a plug-in hybrid than just a an internal combustion engine so uh what kind of gas mileage are you realistically getting when you're driving around there's a variable almost so variable a lot of times I'm just sitting there with a motor on that's my it's a Wi-Fi hotspot the car is um so a lot of times I'm just sitting there watching videos or whatever not you know using up energy but not getting any mileage out of it so that cuts it way back sure you know so it's just too variable I know it's good so so how long have you been in it now I bought it in October last year and they told me that it was the last one in Florida because they quit making them for a while because of the chip shortage right so I put a down payment on it waited for it to come in so you've been in it for about eight months now no no I didn't leave till December December yeah um I hadn't sold my house yet when I bought it so I had to use Ira money that's why I was hoping that 7 500 would help with the tax whack and it did it did I actually got some money back because I don't make much money so you know that money that I took out that 7 500 covered that um but it's uh I I had got it in October and kind of started you know I'd already had it all planned in my head you know I had it all planned in my head and I had my lists in Amazon of you know categorized lists and Amazon things I wanted to buy and uh everything fits in there just within inches right and so I started had already started working on it at my house sold the day I talked to the guy he brought somebody over he looked at it he said I'll take it and then quibble about the price I had like two weeks to get rid of everything uh you're actually started uh following your Journeys on YouTube yeah I I actually started traveling in December um so I traveled for two months and took some video and pictures that I wasn't very serious about it wasn't sure I was going to do it and then one day I sat down the car was plugged in at a park in Venice Florida and I um just started videotaping just my thoughts I thought I'll never use this but this will be a practice and I ended up going ahead and using it because it seemed more realistic and that was two months so I've been doing YouTube for two months and traveling for four and tell everyone your YouTube channel it's butterfly tracks t-r-a-c-k-s butterfly tracks and the reason I call it that is because butterflies don't fly in a straight line and neither do I were you afraid I mean well how about your kids and your kids well yeah my family was concerned of course yeah of course they were but what I think of is nothing can happen here that couldn't happen to have happened between driving around Gainesville Florida right and so you're not afraid you know you're just I am not you know what I'm afraid of I'm afraid of my 71 year old body breaking down that's the problem uh you know I I one thing I say all the time is it's Freedom versus uh Comfort yep so you by getting such incredible gas mileage you gain so much freedom to go wherever you want whenever you want I don't consider myself a camper though I love to Camp I do it any chance I get to Camp but I consider myself more of a sightseer a traveler right and my goal in fact I you know I started in Gainesville but I didn't want to drive in snow so I had to kind of kill time in Florida so I went down the West Coast of Florida as far as I could go and then I was kind of just you know Meandering around doing my butterfly tracks until the weather was going to change and my sister-in-law told me there was going to be a window I could go through it costs 10 go quick and I've been being blown here and there for my wins ever since you know I look at the weather before I decide where I go next right of course you're a snowbird and a butterfly and a butterfly well uh can we take a look around inside sure let's do that all right this is my bed it is a pool chair it's a resin pool chair and it had to be resin so we could uh saw the legs off to make it level and I wanted a pool chair because I like the head up you can see the heads up a little bit right there So when you say chair it's kind of like a recliner yes right and the floor is not even right none of them are not any of these minivans well I didn't want to add a floor because I didn't want to add the weight right and take up the space because you can see with a hat on right still got plenty of room yes um I have a little tiny baby furniture little wooden drawers you may be able to see it from the other side better when you come around I didn't always have these but they they're kind of nice you've done this is a no build build you've ever done have you done any construction at all no this I didn't want to mess up anything right no the back seats are down my nephews took these two middle seats out which in a Sienna they're hard to take out but these came out easily and there's no Hardware on the floor it's just nice and smooth now I have all my clothes in these pillows what a good idea and I have them labeled as to what's in there so don't forget they're zippered and this these don't come out these are the same on both sides that's reflectix on the outside uh and then um that uh core plast that plastic core uh cardboard but no plastic board whatever and then with this contact paper and that stays I have some storage under the bed but there it's not the beds itself is not very tall I have my little um I have some uh canned food under there and on the other side I have my camp stove one burner butane and I put food in here it could be fresh vegetables or bread or snacks or whatever but anything you know non-perishable would be here and then I usually would have a refrigerator or a cooler right here but I I donated that at the event that you had to one of the recipients right and you have one coming to replace it yes I do that's my potty any any bucket will do a bucket and there's nothing in here so don't get scared but this is an ottoman cover I don't always leave this thing up that is a very good idea yeah it's just a little stretchy round ottoman cover and a lot of times I don't even have this out depending on where I'm if I'm traveling a lot I don't usually even have this up but it's just like any bucket you use I've never seen anything like it you haven't seen these no oh it folds up flat oh I can see yeah it folds up to where it fits right inside of here I use this in the daytime to get some Wind Through for a little bit of privacy right I also have a um white sheer curtain that I can use for this purpose right and I just put it on with magnets but that's my kitchen well that works really really well yeah and you know for privacy at night these things are so hard to keep anything in there for privacy at night if it's not raining and there's no sprinklers around you can do the same thing with this to cover and then put the top put the top down and that makes for complete privacy completely stealthy if that's what you want it also insulates and you know so is this this is obviously a piece of furniture is it just one you happen to have around nope you you went looking for oh I did I looked on Amazon most of them were bigger than this yeah and uh I knew exactly what I wanted this Edge goes all the way around the back so that all of these don't slide forward absolutely so I've got my blue Eddie I guess I'm pretty sure it's a 700. I like it because it's blue that's my ice maker oh I see and it works pretty good you know and you're powering it right off of the uh the car yeah actually there's a 12 volt right here and uh most of the time that's what it is powered from I do it did come with uh 200 watt suitcase things and I have used that and it works good but most time it's off the car if I'm at a campground I plug it in directly and these are just dry things here here's my complicated coffee system and here's my little heater I was so amazed that this heater didn't get hot right you know you could touch it it was still cool to the touch but if you if you uh if it knocks over at all it will not come on so it's a good safety feature and has it is it enough to actually make a difference for in this little thing yes oh yeah that's good to know absolutely and these I got at Dollar Store just for a little cleaning supplies various whatever organization yep shower everything cleaning supplies I've got butane this is a dog playpen and it's really pretty good size but one day as a word of caution one day I thought I got all the dog food out of it at night I left it up and there must have been some little morsels in there because squirrels ate right through the side of it oh yeah I've got the stuff to repair it but it's really nice to let them just hang out somewhere you know but it also helps keep my window covers in place and this is the window cover for this one let's see I've got um velvet right um fresh velvet because it's very stretchy because it's going to bend and this is just Total Blackout absolute complete blackout I'm not not much of a stealth camper but it's kind of nice for the Privacy anyway but when you've got what is thick like this this was actually a throw blanket and this was a velvet so that's pretty thick and it's good for sound and temperature insulation this is the doghouse you have two small dogs I have two little dogs I keep water under there mm-hmm and their dog food's right there they sleep up there or with you this is actually where they sleep but they're they're pretty happy here I put this in here because you know the seat goes like this right and this levels it out and gives two little dogs more room and I've got seat belts for them nice yep yep they got to be in seat belts because they do little dogs just fly too easy yes they do but it's nice for me since the bed is um 25 inches wide it's nice for me that they like sleeping up here yeah I'm really happy that they do so you have a rooftop box yep that's my attic uh I went to REI and it was the prettiest one I like the finish on it it's a little smeary right now of course we are in the desert so I have my charcoal grill up there I usually keep my chair up there and a privacy tent I have a shower up there also which I haven't even used it yet because I mostly travel I wouldn't you know in a casino parking lot it's not going to do you much good um because I do have Planet Fitness for showers um but you know water is heavy yeah and I've seen people use the kind of solar shower I've seen the kind you do too with the pump that's great and I've seen the ones that people hang up in a tree oh and work too good for me try to hang it up but this one has a USB pump in it and it's a big black bag and like I've never even opened it I'm sure it'll work just fine if I ever do want to camp longer um I think it's like three or five gallons and you set it in the sun and you charge up the pump and um it's rice super yeah good idea well Jan I'm really impressed with uh with your home and all the way you've arranged it no build build and so little cost and yeah wow comfortable yeah the bed was cheap even these these little Furnitures they were they were like the one little dresser on this side right behind me here um is the taller dresser that's just for like a bathroom storage you know you yes you have to look for little baby furniture you have to measure it very carefully and it actually sets up on top of the wheel well oh wow yeah because I was afraid that it would just go over the edge where it's not level but it actually sits level on the Wheel well worked well and this little one and back most of them were much too big I think it's 32 inches wide is exactly what I wanted it's got the rim around it to keep things from flying around yes that worked perfectly very good well Jen thank you so much for sharing your home with us I really appreciate it uh folks I think you've got some really great ideas here I hope uh hope you you've been inspired and uh why don't you leave us a comment tell us what's your favorite part so Jan thank you so much well thank you Bob so folks if you got anything out of this video Like Us on YouTube subscribe to the channel hit that thumbs up button and we'll talk to you later bye now

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 125,941

Keywords: car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, camper, camp, boondock, travel, caravan, tiny, house, RTR, Bob Wells, Nomadland, CheapRVLiving, Cheap RV Living, vanlife, van life, how to live in a van, van dwelling, van tour, van conversion, living in a van, camper van, van build, diy van build, sprinter van, van living, #vanlife, van dweller, campervan, vandwelling, diy camper van, RV Life, Living in an RV, Class B, Class C, Truck Living, Living in a car, boondocking, Living in a RV

Id: V0PNmOq-_3A

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2023