Incredible Minivan with Many Ingenious Tips and Tricks!

grant here we are the middle of that Arizona desert what are you doing out here oh I'm talking to this dude named Bob right now hello everyone welcome back to my next video today we're gonna meet grant and find out all about his really amazing home so your question is is why did I choose to live in a van for the time way back in 2006 I invented a data standard for educational content that I hope will make it so that everybody in the world can get complete education for free even without connection to the internet so working a regular job and trying to do this was just wearing me out and so I just wanted time to think and work and learn all the stuff that I needed to learn to be able to finish that and there's no way I was going to do that paying way too much rent so that's the main reason plus just got sick of paying rent so you're not retired yet no I'm not retired I got three and a half years to go I do get a little bit of disability from the VA so how are you supporting yourself out here right now I'm living on savings but I took your wise advice and went to the big tent and the very first camp host company that I taught to I just walked in and said I can build and fix almost anything I used to be a network manager and I used to run my own business and they're like you're hired and like practically invited me to go meet their parents are you full timing I'm full timing full time how long you been doing it I've been on the road since November 7th just before Jamie's van build party but I Boone docked in this in Austin Texas for about a year before them in town itself in town itself there was a business that they really liked me and they literally invited me to park in their their parking lot so I parked in their parking lot went to McKinney Falls State Park the most awesomest State Park and got a shower every day and then went to work and I worked in the evenings and then I came out of work and 12:30 at night and just basically commuted back up to my parking spot and slept and then got up in the morning and spent all day at Wendy's sounds like a good plan and then before that I Boone docked in a really really crappy beater RV that I paid only $1,000 for but I lived in it for a year yeah thousand dollars for a year rent ain't bad right so so during that time while you were working in and camping in your your minivan uh-huh you were able to save a bunch of money yes I was able to save a lot of money and I saving up money to finish my undergraduate and to do things like get extra durable breaks do all the possible repairs I could find that maybe needed done on the the car to make it you know reliable and then also while I was parked on the street some guy rear-ended me an insurance company paid off my car loan and gave me 1,200 bucks and that put me a whole year ahead of schedule right that's such a good idea folks if you've got a business idea that you need to develop the being out here is a way to do it yeah I got you know one thing on my bucket list and that's it to get this program going yeah yeah okay good and another really important lesson here is that you can work and save and that will get you out here so you can work on your dreams exactly exactly so whatever your dream is this is a good wait to actually make steps yeah make it happen yeah I mean I hated that job you know but I worked at it for two and a half years saving money because you know that's what you do so really this is a way to make your dreams come true yeah your world yeah it's definitely a way to do it yeah you know I'm fortunate and then I'm able to you know build and fix almost anything so that helps but I honestly believe that lots of people can learn to build and fix at least the stuff they need a lot easier than people think everybody's so afraid to pick up a jigsaw pick up a drill oh my goodness I may do it wrong well so so tell us about your minivan well it's a 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan I love the Dodge Grand Caravan as a choice for a minivan to live in because it's it's the sides are more vertical the back is more vertical so there's more shoulder room more space almost all of this body style comes with what they call stow and go seats which fold down into the floor in the the middle and the back well if you take those out a you've lost a good three hundred pounds of weight in the car and B it's a ton of space and you'll see once you you know I do the van tore apart yet so you actually removed the seats yep but you still have the floor and that's a big hole under there well the the panels that they had for that what kind of pain in the rear so I just cut my own panels okay put him in there make sense yeah well do you mind if we take a look around and see what you're doing here sure grant let's go ahead and tell us about your basic layout here you've got a lot of cabinet and storage on one side and your bed on the other right and you know like I said the bed is just a board land on top of tubs and each tub is a different you know type of stuff in it mostly and then there's a little bit of room back side of here to jam things I've even got a whole shovel in there these are the tubs that the bed sitting on and you can see the bed is just a loose board stacked on top of these tubs and two layers of foam memory foam and Joey pushing phone and I use this Afghan to let air get in there so I don't get moisture buildup and you can see I've cut this board to fit right in here oh and there are pictures there are better pictures of this on the cheap RV living for them so I've got a whole build series of build pictures on the forum that people can look at and see how I put all the pieces together and everything okay with like in-depth descriptions because I want people to see that they can do this stuff to just storage you got a space storage there behind where those tubs sit and then I can close this door on the left side is the cabinets that I built so the cabinets are designed primarily around these plastic storage drawers and I definitely recommend just plastic storage drawers they're lighter they don't fall apart and then I needed space for my two laptops these are two separate laptops both of which either the keyboard comes off where the keyboard folds all the way back and so my keyboard just kind of pops out there and I use my glasses case hold that up and I can work all day in here so those are your actual laptops yeah and then because both of these laptops are laptops that you can ride on with a stylus I've made this frame so that it can be latched in two different positions yeah tuck this away and it's just enough room between those two little legs back there that keyboard whole thing is close it up nice desk sit on there's my kitchen counter this is just more storage over here yeah and all the rest of it was just whatever would fit you know I mean I measured how wide I needed this to be well so this this panel comes all the way down so that determined how wide these are and then whatever leftover was for these and I literally just guessed at the height of things this came out so insanely perfect yeah it's just and there's all my water mm-hmm I find I'd use no more than about half a gallon of water a day and people aren't going to believe that and they're going to think I'm dehydrating myself but I literally can get by for two weeks on eight gallons of water and have water left over so and under the there was a still in go seat back here too and you can see that's enormous there yeah I'm looking for back it goes yeah goes way up to here yeah and so this is my trunk and believe it or not this is a scanner I've got a book scanner in there that I just can't bring myself to get give up I bought it when I was going to graduate school that furthered I would be scanning lots and lots of stuff yeah and well now I just can't get rid of it so another question is how do I stay warm right and I use this this is the gas one duel fuel oh yeah that you did a review of that's like Oh awesome it comes with that hose and what I've done and they're gonna be people to scream is I've cut this out and I filed down those edges and then I covered it with with Gorilla Tape huge fan of Gorilla Tape so I can detach the hose from the Coleman green bottle and fold it up and put it in here without taking it off of right here all the time because this connection is kind of you didn't seem like it'd be too durable for me if I was constantly connected and reconnecting it and I use the green bottles which I refill from a 20-pound bottle that is tucked in the floorboard up where the passengers feet would be and the way I see it if it's completely you know if it's got crumple zones to protect the passengers feet then a big steel cannister should be fine so that's what I do for heat and for cooking and everything and I was concerned that it would be too much heat for up here but that heat dissipates really fast if you just keep your eye on it check it yeah make sure it doesn't get it my rule is as long as this is no hotter than a dashboard would be in the summertime in Texas mm-hmm I'm safe yeah this is my only pot that's it kind of when frying pan but for my refrigeration I got what this is the LP cool brand DC compressor fridge and it's a 23 quart it's 23 quart refrigerator you could set it dad to freezer if you want and so it also has this tiny tiny tiny little freezer compartment and it'll freeze ice oh you should have seen them the adorable little ice tray that came with it but it was worthless it works pretty good it uses almost no power and as you can see I've got it stashed inside of this Coleman cooler that is a really clever idea well it's only because I already had the cooler right and I got the thing and I was like you know that almost fit in there and it it did almost fit I had to cut about a half-inch out of the front side and you can see I had to cut out some of the roof roof lid and I had to cut out that back edge there so this this lid would open up but there's also an inch and a half layer of poly I so in the bottom so at the bottom super well insulated and then I put this stuff which is the stuff you get new for when you're clocking around windows yeah I tucked it around all the edges so you know the cold air won't get out and then you know well I needed something to stuff in there too so well I had this my Furman goes and I cut out all these holes for all the events for the refrigerator and I covered them up with again roll the tape I think that's one of the smartest things I've ever seen this is not the most durable plastic you know what I mean so I wouldn't dare set that plastic out here on these rocks but I can set this cooler out on the rocks and I can sit on it and never have to worry about damaging the cool absolutely so it is really really really clever there and I left as much cord as possible so I can you know pull it out if I need to you just slide it up in through here to get in and you know do my stuff and yes this does take up a little bit more space this cooler but I like the insulation and just the durability of it right this is on those doing one of those lift up shelf things mm-hmm right and I cut this so it would clear that and finished it and paint it and everything I'll clap I didn't check to see whether the thing would open but it does it actually opens - Wow the inverter has two power strips plugged into it that's all I do for wiring so I just got a power strip here that I used for when I'm running tools and a power strip but by my computers and that's it I have 12 volts right into a terminal strip tucked under there and the terminal strip tucked up in here and they're each on their own separate views and then this is wired into that so I have to ask this everyone wants to know how do you go to the bathroom and how do you shower okay this used to be my poop bucket right it's your standard five-gallon bucket with a what's the brand of this Yamma Yamma lid gamma seal lid and now I just use it for my trash can I decided to switch to a porta potti and that's in the shower to the charger just more convenient for me to even pay to dump it than it is to have bags and bags and bags and bags of poop that I'm trying to throw in a dumpster right and so how do you shower then when I've shipped in between one spot and another because I'm pretty much just hanging around in this area I go to the La Paz County Park that's eight miles north of Parker and it's $2 for a shower Wow that's great yeah if you pay 5 whole dollars then you can get a day pass and if all you've got is a porta potti then they'll let you dump that at the dump station now normally for an RV they charge 10 bucks but you tell oh it's just a party about potty and they're like okay plane so for five dollars I get shower all day dump my porta potty fill the water in the porta potty and then I buy in my drinking water that they've got a little kiosk there and do you have any idea how much you're living on per month for food alone I'm getting by on about $150 a month keeping my gas as low as possible by just not driving around and not driving very far right so literally $200 a month well you have your fixed expenses right but you have a little something from the VA that's covering that almost all of that yeah yeah and how much is that the VA gives me one hundred and forty dollars in like thirty-six cents because I got tinnitus and that covers my phone and my insurance all but thirty bucks so food gas that thirty bucks that's my expenses so that was like $400 a month I know you're living you're living on 400 a month yeah wow that's pretty amazing it can be done it can be very very it can be done well now a benefit or is because I worked those extra two years past when I wanted to keep working right believe me me I did not want to keep working but I did it and I got the computers that I wanted I got the you know all the stuff that I needed I saved up enough money to buy the materials now the materials for this cabinet only cost me like 150 bucks you know was the solar thing especially you bought high-quality everything good quality stuff but now I don't have to worry about it right grand well thank you so much if you have any social media you want to tell people about um well there's this website that I go to a lot on you might have heard of it it's called cheap RV living calm and my username on there is love care think do and I'm probably gonna start a YouTube channel called love care think do where I'm mostly going to talk about well the the class that I gave at the RTR which is you know you can build a a decent you can do a decent van build with minimal tools I mean I did you can do all of what I did with a drill a jigsaw and some hand tools that's it grant thank you so much for sharing your home in your life with it what a lot of really great lessons here folks stay at a job you don't like for a few years save a bunch of money I mean that's just a great idea II told you have an emergency fund you got exactly what you want really really good idea organize your stuff use the stoan goal you just got some really really good ideas put a fridge inside a fridge really really a good idea so folks I know you've got some great ideas here and I'm I'm glad about that if you did like us on YouTube subscribe to the channel and we'll talk to you later one third of all Americans haven't got a penny and savings and are on the edge of homelessness we get many emails from them asking for help with a 1/3 of keep RV living subscribers gave $1 a month that would be $100,000 to create homes out of minivans and trailers and to loan out tents for temporary shelter is helping hundreds of people on the brink of homelessness worth $1 a month to you if so please visit us at www.tonerparts.com you

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 282,753

Rating: 4.9289265 out of 5

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, snowbird, caravan, tiny, house, tribe, RTR, adventure

Id: G2Ctm-oknSU

Length: 20min 36sec (1236 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 18 2019