Van Life Jobs: How To Make a Living While Traveling Full-Time

[Music] i want to read a quote to you from uh from the forum a friend of mine who wrote this on the forum we had this discussion a long discussion and a thread about living for the future uh so future security versus living for future present happiness and this is what a friend of mine wrote now he just said it so well i can't i can't do better and i want you to read it hear it for me this is my friend talking it came down to the choice of living a life i wasn't enjoying but with a certain amount of safety or living a life i love without a safety net very simple choice a life you're not enjoying no safety net a life that you don't enjoy to create a safety net i chose the latter a life without a safety net because even if something bad or even life-ending happening happened i would have had that time living the way i wanted and this is the all-important question he asks what's the point of prolonging a life i'm not enjoying if you're not enjoying life why not what's the purpose why are you here on this planet to have a good 20 years from 65 on that's your reason to be alive on this planet your whole reason not to enjoy this now not to see places like this and go do things like this what's the point of prolonging a life i'm not enjoying besides i think safety is mostly an illusion it is 100 illusion happens to building dwellers they get sick they go broke they get swindled their homes break down or burn up or get destroyed in natural disasters but they feel safe because it's the way most people live they're following the norm and so they feel safe everyone else is doing it this way this must be the right way i'm going to live this way they're doing the normal thing the familiar thing so it must be the best choice it's not it's the worst choice the safe choice i think danger is also mostly an illusion i i just i love what he's saying here what's the point of prolonging a life i'm not enjoying safety is an illusion it's not there where no matter where you live or how you live i think danger is also an illusion it is most of the fears you have about your life especially as a nomad are are just totally an illusion no reality to them at all we convince ourselves of all sorts of things might happen to us but they never do not because of our vigilance but because they were never going to happen to us no matter what since the mobile life is unfamiliar we can convince ourselves those are even more dangerous it's even more dangerous out there waiting to get us they aren't more dangerous just different ones there's not more danger they're just slightly different uh how many i know so many people who uh who lived uh for the future my father he lived at a job he worked at a job he didn't like all his life he uh he got his weekends off he got his vacation time he took his vacations he dreamed and lived for the future had a job he didn't like working with people he didn't really like buying things he didn't really want and so when he retired at 60 he was dead at 62. he never enjoyed a moment and you say well that's so rare no it's not it's a common story i hear all the time if you're not dead at 60 your health is declining at 60 by 70 nearly all men are into serious health decline you're looking if you retire at 60 65 by 70 75 you maybe have 10 good years of retirement 15 at the most nearly all the men i know at 70 and 75 if their health isn't in decline it probably is their vitality is greatly reduced your ability to enjoy the golden years you've created is so low by 80 virtually no men are out enjoying the golden years they're enduring until they die so the question remains what's the point of prolonging a life you don't enjoy how much better to create a life that you love that you enjoy let's just think about the math this is simple math 60 years of unpleasant life to gain a pipe dream of 20 really good golden years that's the and that's a pipe dream it's not going to happen you are your health is declining i'm 60. i don't have the vitality i don't have the youth i can't walk as far i can't enjoy the time i have by 70 i expect it to be drastically diminished from what it is now so you're trading 60 years for possibly 10 years that's terrible math i can't understand how anybody believes that's a good deal but they do because they've been brainwashed into believing it there's just nothing else to it from the moment you go to school you're trained to think this way every minute of your life you're trained to think plan for the future plan for the future now ask yourself this who wins in that scenario why is society so dead set on you planning for your future and having an unpleasant life today i'll tell you who wins the corporations win they get a workhorse a slave that you work all your life you go to work you go to your cubicle you go to mcdonald's and that's where you're going now you're going to mcdonald's uh and you slave away and then you listen to the commercials and you go out and you buy a bunch of their crap and they get rich the corporations get rich you work yourself to death and then at 60 they put you out to pasture now at least at one time uh they used to feed you and take really good care of you after 60 with a pension with social security those are gone so this pi it's not only a pipe dream it's not always a terrible math and a terrible trade to live at a life you don't enjoy for a life that you will like a very short life that you'll like 40 60 years of life you don't like for 20 possibly maybe 20 years that you will like what's terrible math but now the 20 years that you will love is gone you're not getting a pension maybe you're saving a little towards a 401k or or ira maybe probably not you're probably living paycheck to paycheck with no future all you're gonna have is when you die is social security so here's what here's what the plan is in 2016 for you this is what your people these people are preaching me and tell to me and say no you got to tell people to work than normal work until they're ready to die and then live being happy so that plan now is work hard really hard and then when you get old there won't be anything you'll be just as miserable as you would be if you had not planned because there are no pensions they're gone who gives a pension anymore uh and how many pensions were promised and then pulled out from under people and they never got it starting in 2008 with the economic collapse and since then they just simply don't offer pensions they're virtually gone there's very few pensions that you can get uh social security now you're working minimum wage jobs for very little money you're building not building up social security most of us by the time we get to uh we're not none of us have savings because we're all living on such low-wage jobs by the time we get to retirement we're not gonna have anything so if there's not gonna be anything there if the golden years are gonna be terrible enjoy the crap out of your youth go out there and grab life by the balls and enjoy it [Music] so if if the future is grim anyway live your life to the fullest today go out and see stuff like this i bought my first van for fifteen hundred dollars and moved in you can do that too uh you do have to have an emergency fund you do have to have a way to make money and that's what this series is gonna be about i'm gonna tell you all about jobs you can have and to work at this to do this but go ahead and do it there are several things you're going to gain by doing it first you'll never be homeless you eliminate your most expensive costs so that when times are bad and there's not much money coming in you'll have a home you'll never be homeless if you live in a van or an rv uh you'll learn how to live super cheap so in your old age when you don't have much money that's normal you know how to live dirt cheap you've learned how by a life of adventure and travel and seeing things like this go out there and do this so i think you have everything to gain and almost nothing to lose a few of you will get in jobs where you can build up and get big money and build up a 401k and get a pension not many uh so it's your choice but i'm telling you there are reasons why i think you should do this and i think there are very good reasons and having presented them to you i it's just up for you to choose but i am giving you the choice i'm showing you what my thinking is and what their thinking is and you can make your own choice now i love quotes i love i dearly love quotes and i want to give you some quotes just because i love them so much uh the first quote i want to give you is from jack london jack london died at 40 of any of the disease he wrote call the wild and a white fang he was an incredibly prolific writer you you've read a lot of his stuff uh and heard of him at least and he he lived an incredible life he was literally a hobo he was literally uh rode the rails and and and rode around the country he was uh he worked on a shrimp boat and went to sea uh he lived in unbelievably full life but when he died at 40 of of a disease because this was in the 1940s it was burnt at the turn or at the turn of the century he had lived a full life and he had no regrets about a minute of his life so here's what a quote that i from a female that i love no one's sure it's from him but it's all it's almost universally attributed to him i would re rather be ashes than dust good simple choice you want to be ashes or do you want to be dust i would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot do you want to rot away in life in a job and a life you hate or do you want to just be a glowing blaze of glory that that everyone looks at your life and say wow i wish i'd lived like that i would rather be a superb meteor every atom of me in a magnificent glow than a sleepy and permanent planet the function of a man is to live not exist the function of a human is to live not to barely exist not to get by not to go to a a soul-sucking mundane life of drudgery job for 60 years and then retire that's not the cause that's not the reason you were born you never thought that as a child this is how i want to live my life i shall not might waste my days trying to prolong them i beg you don't waste your days trying to prolong them live your days to the fullest enjoying them to the utmost i shall use my time and i just love that quote from jack london now another quote that i love another quote that i love is from elizabeth kubler-ross who is elizabeth kubler-ross she has a woman who studied death and dying her entire life she devoted herself to it uh she was the person who came up with the five stages of grief that's her theory now she changed the world with her studies of death and looking at and learning about the five stages of grief she changed the world well when you when you spend your lifetime and she literally spent her lifetime at the bedside of the dying at with the with the grieving family that's how she lived her life it was just in her heart it was it was a calling she had some people have that calling uh and so she did that and she learned so many lessons the dying teaches how to live you want to know how to live talk to a dying person that person will tell you his regrets the things he did right the things he did wrong the things he would oh so much like to change about his life and this is the conclusion that she reached about how to live this is the conclusion she reached about how to live it is very important that you only do what you love do you love going to work do you love the traffic the grind the monotony it is very important that you only do what you love you may be poor you may be you may go hungry it's possible you may lose your car you may have to move into a shabby place to live i live in a van some people would say i live in a shabby place to live but you will totally live think about that live today to its fullest grabbing life by its balls and living fully wow to me that's this is just a no-brainer i don't understand how anyone can even debate this and at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do whatever your purpose on life is whatever your choices in life is you lived it you didn't dream about it you didn't think about it you didn't wish oh if only i could live a better life you did it you lived the best life for you a genuine authentic life for you and nothing that society tells you to do is genuine and authentic it has to come from the inside of you out it can't come from the outside in otherwise you will live your life as a prostitute i've given that sentence a lot of thought you will live your life as a prostitute you will do things for a reason to please other people you're living your life to please the people who who filled you full of propaganda most of us are we don't have we don't know we are we would insist that we are not that's not true i'm not living my life for someone else i'm not living my life because of propaganda but you are you're living what the life you live is because someone else told you to live it's not your choice you would never choose this life not in the right mind you will do things for a reason to please other people and you will never have lived this is a woman who has been at the bedside of thousands of dying people and this is the message she heard from them over and over again none of them ever regretted not going to work more often and making more money no one on their death bed says i wish i'd gone to the office one more day or another hour every day i wish i'd spent one more day just making money i wish my 401k was bigger now that i'm dying no one has ever said that i just can't imagine that any person sane person would ever say that you will never have lived and you will not have a pleasant death i live my life so i'll have a pleasant death on the day of my death the moments i will look back at my life and say wow i had a great life maybe it was a little rough here at the end but man what a life i've had and the memories and the feelings that i have created in my life they got me through all the rough spots and you know what the rough spots were actually the best spots i i remember them with the most fondness and the most memories and the most smiles look back on your life the rough times are the ones you remember with the biggest smile that you love to get to bound together with your friends and say remember that time we and it was some disaster that occurred to you you loved it it was it was a joy adventure is good for your soul so i love those two quotes and i hope they they have an impact on you i guide my life by them i guide my life by the wisdom of jack london because he said an example i want to follow and of elizabeth kubler-ross who spent so many times so many hours at the death bed of people as they died and so uh i follow my uh though the life i try to live is based on the the old lakota saying today is a good day to die i have lived so fully my life has been so rich that if this is my last day on this here on this earth let it come i'm delighted i'm happy with my life and if this is it i'd like to have more like to get all i can but man i've lived well wouldn't you like to live well so it's your choice i'm not uh i have presented the side that i think is best and and and in the best way i can but it's your choice now uh we're going to talk about jobs you're going to have to get a job i've never in any way implied that you don't have to get a job as a nomad you need money in this world you need money the best thing to do then is to get the jobs uh work as low as you can live learn to live as cheap as you can here's my recommendations for finding a balance between the two between not any thinking for the future and only thinking for the future both are equally wrong get your jobs make sure you get a job that's building social security uh will it be here when you're older i don't know let's assume it will be that's the best you can do at all your jobs pay yourself the first ten percent uh the first ten percent of your check the gross your check goes into a 401k or an ira or an emergency fund you build up an emergency fund of cash you've got to have an emergency fund to cash but the rest of it to 10 every year for the rest your life and this is a good balance this is a balance i'm trying to find for us you can have security for the future and the wonderful life today so you work six months out of the year you draw unemployment six months out of the year you always put 10 percent of every penny towards security of the future first with the building up a cash emergency fund cash in the bank or however you want to do it that's your choice i don't know the best answer for you you'll have to figure it out uh and uh a yra 401 k conservative plan for the future uh you don't want it wiped out with the downturn so i think that's the best balance the third step is gain skills most of us are are so sp this is a world of specialization and all we do is the one thing we were taught to do so a few of us are taught to do anything that we end up flipping burgers at mcdonald's nothing wrong with flipping at burgers or mcdonald's but learn a skill uh and i can't tell you what your skills should be uh it could be the internet it could be writing it could be blogging it could be making youtube videos gain a marketable skill take go to classes take classes learn and then do on do on the job take classes find a job in it become an electrician become a rafting guide learn how to do arts and crafts make find a marketable skill that you can take into your old age so that yes maybe you will have to work until you're old but you have gained a marketable skill along the way that you can do when you're old so those three things are what i think are a compromise between living fully in the moment uh yeah you're gonna have to have work you can't live fully in the moment uh 365 days a year half the year you're gonna have to work probably for most of us maybe if you live really cheaply maybe only a quarter of the year at any rate uh build up for the future and live for today both find a balance that's our any all of your best solution so there you have it uh i i really believe that there is an a good life for you and the question the answer to the question how can i afford to be a nomad living in an rv or living in a van or living in a prius or a car or an suv the answer is how can you afford not to so in our next few videos we'll look at jobs and i'll tell you about there's a lot of jobs that you can enjoy that's the best solution of all find a job that you both enjoy and uh builds up for the future so come back to our next video until then like us on youtube and subscribe to our channel and we'll see you on

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 524,180

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Fill-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, job, workcamping, future, 401k, IRA, retirement, Amazon, campground, host, Beet Harvest, planning

Id: faJ1pv4SOdY

Length: 20min 34sec (1234 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 07 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Campingintents2]

Great resource. Only wish their forums were as open to a wide range of subjects and viewpoints as reddit. The cheaprvliving forums will mute your posts at the least hint of conspiracy (I mean the very least). Also totally intolerant of political discussion. Even if no direct criticism of any political party or individual functionary is part of the post.

The focus of the web site is living on public land. The current federal administration is showing increasing intentions to sell, lease and lock-up public lands. Try introducing that subject into a forum in any form and your post will be muted. To me, the very banning of discussion of a subject essential to the purpose of the web site is itself political. Censorship in the name of preserving power is political and the defining characteristic of every fascistic regime on the planet - for all time.