Tour of Solo Woman Living Cheap in a High Top Van

[Music] hey everyone welcome back to my next video today we're gonna meet Mary and Mary isn't a real nice Ford high-top van hi Mary how do you do nice to meet you also and how long have you been in your van now I'm just started I'm a brand-new newbie I went out for three weeks in September and now I've come out on January 1 Wow so January 1 yeah that's I'm new things by the 7th there's only one week yeah and why are you out here well I have a house so I still have sticks and bricks and but I've always wanted to be a hippie gypsy so I just really want to have this experience so this is a trial maybe it is not gold it is I could sell my my condo in time I have two roommates and they literally pay for the condo to exist mm-hmm so I'm on my social security out here I'm doing great and so far anyway and why not keep it yeah well you know it's paying for itself and it's you know change your mind go home that's a very good idea and I don't I don't want to burn my bridges before I make a firm decision yeah you so you tried it for three weeks and that went well right and I've camped forever so I've been camping since I was in diapers right so I don't think I think I'll enjoy it good yeah and after a week or well total to four weeks pretty good so far yes I did feel a little isolated the last week that I was coming back I went to New Orleans and then coming back I was feeling a little isolated so I really did want to hook up with a caravan right and say you're one of the women's caravans now right that's January of 2020 I don't know when you'll be watching this folks but so you're with one of the women's caravans and that's working well it is it's like a little apartment complex and then you meet your neighbors it's really fun and then we have the fryer every night and everybody gets the chat and get to know each other and that's actually what kind of better than an apartment complex because you really are interacting with each other we are we are someone gave me a stove nice dough had broken and someone else had gone to the food pantry today and they gave me a big pork roast and I'm gonna cook it for the group oh how fantastic so communal living yes and yet you know you decide you need to be alone a little bit you could be alone here or you could just drive quarter mile away and be all alone it's true we're a desert yeah usually be alone out here yeah yeah so you're in control I am and that's really what a lot of us like I like that too to be able to pull up and drive away if I want to and stay if I want to and and and and be with people or be by myself right and so you're retired I am very fortunate to be able to retire at 60 knew you were so you're not even on Social Security yet well I am on Social Security all because I have my ex-husband passed away and so I was able to get survivor benefits at 60 mm-hmm that's nice it's not nice it's not nice but it's a wonderful my life is golden right now right that's that's a good way to think of it these are these really are your golden years no regrets well it's only been a little while no but I haven't regretted retiring that was three years ago oh and so I'm I'm traveling a little bit a little bit see what happens and so were you a little bit afraid I mean you must have had a lot of friends when you told them said is you won't be safe you'll get hurt they do but I feel like there's two different kinds of people there's people who are scared rabbits and they're afraid of everything and then there's people who go out and have an adventure right and I'm an adventure person right so this just feels good to you it does it does and what could happen right I mean I have a credit card if I get into really bad trouble fly home absolutely and here you're in a group then yours you're probably safer here than you've ever been in your life so I think so too I don't worry about I don't worry about people coming up and hurt me RINO I can usually talk my way out of anything and if you're nice to people people will be nice to you almost always yeah yeah we we get this idea that there's a lot of bad people out here but my experience alone after a long long time is I almost never meet people I don't like but I always meet people who I love just great great people everywhere you go yeah I haven't had any I haven't met anybody that's been unkind or or not nice or anything yeah that's that's the norm and when I when I travel I've been staying at the truck stops and stuff I feel very safe at the truck stops more safe at the truck stop than I do at the rest area there's more people right yeah going on there there's always people walking around moving great noticing and so tell us about your van well about a year ago I had a impromptu date with a gentleman and we went and had had lunch and he told me all about you and all about going out in a van and everything and I thought I have always wanted to do that so I started watching your videos and and I bought the van on Memorial Day stripped it out and then and then this is a no build build oh so so the van and I put them like this and then put some wood over the top and then that's the bed so it's just a piece of plywood sitting on it's not even plywood it's this um it's the pieces of wood that are glued together in strips almost very light why woods to come person for me to deal with but I can deal with this because they were only like 17 inches wide maybe 14 I'm not even sure but I had him cut him at Lowe's so they did the cuts for me and I could put them in a big piece of plywood gamely for me yeah yeah so yeah it's just two coffee tables and two pieces of that big wood on top of it and then the cushion and somebody gave me some memory foam I had to cut the cushion down it's not quite a twin bed right so it's like like a foam you it's about this big of a foam and then look at some memory foam on top I sleep very well looks really five feet tall and I can stand up that's really nice the answer getting harder and harder to find did you have any problem finding it the second I looked at and I got it on the Facebook Marketplace and I had a friend go with me and we drove up in the mountain then this guy was selling it and I paid 3,200 for the man what a great deal and then I had to put two thousand worth of suspension work and then eight hundred into something else the steering wheel was really loose and so that had to be fixed so I guess I've got six grand in it and it's a 95 and it's got like a hundred and seventy thousand miles on it so I don't know if the money is good with the mileage or not but I'll just drive it till it dies yeah it'll be fine and the mechanics have been all over it so yeah yeah mechanics that the engine is amazing really nice setup here with your bed and super easy you just put in the tables and the board mats on you were done I was and I it's really tight so I had to like smack it with a hammer to get it in there so it's not going anywhere good so is it alright if we take a look inside then absolutely and I see you're running solar this is a goal zero 100 watt solar panel mm-hmm and I watched lots and lots of videos on the solar and how to hook it up and I just couldn't get my head around right so I went and bought the the goal zero generator uh-huh that plug and play and I only have 100 watts and I may need another I think I would like to have 200 mmm cuz I have a CPAP machine oh yeah with a CPAP you would probably need a you probably need 200 yeah so I'm thinking at the big tent I've maybe y'all they'll have solar panels yes they will and then I need to I need to do some research as to what I can plug into my my goal zero battery and what I can't because I'm just not I'm not familiar enough to make it a decision about that this is a goal zero panel so I know it goes together right right yeah you'd have to just have to look yeah yeah and then I just slide this in the back of the van this way on top of the bed hmm and I'd like to I'd like to put solar on the roof but it's it's what's it called fiberglass yeah it's fiberglass and I'm just not sure about drilling into that and it's not flat right it's always a problem yeah yeah so I thought about getting wetter matter Jack's get ladder racks on the racks gonna put it way high right coming time right well this works so you're happy with having it mounted outside like this right and every time you travel and you can't charge while you're driving but if you put it in a cigarette lighter that's just right the charges back here and she get the door shut you know no one could go on the bed worse comes to worse that's true that's true yeah it's like you have a very pleasant outside my little one burner stove fell the other day and broke and uh nice lady here gave me this two burner stove mm-hmm and I've had those the whole time I camped throughout my life right I know how to work those and I just I just had my little a little bath earlier everything's fine so you're doing uh you don't have a shower I do not have a shower I just have the wash tub and put some warm water in it and bathe right sponge bath type thing yeah and then wash my hair right oh good it's good it's people have been using sponge baths for a million years so it's not that it's no big deal right well there's showers are so pleasant we want one yes but you don't need one to stay clean no you don't no I totally agree yeah okay so so you do your cooking outside you have a nice outside camping area have you been doing quite a bit of cooking no I know not a lot of cooking but I like to cook and I will cook it's just a matter of getting settled right I have a lot of dry goods in there right now probably too much food well you probably don't have enough solar to keep your batteries up on the microwave how are keeping it charged I just plug it in and then use it but you only cook for a minute right that's the big thing yeah so it's you're done right yeah do you run the engine while you charge it while you're running the microwave no well good so good so far so good I noticed that I'm I'm down to like 62% today and I need to get it charged back ups on the cpap works right CPAP is more important than the microwave right and I do have an electric refrigerator one of those I don't think it's a code um the medic it's an off-brand but it doesn't take hurt me any power right those are pretty easy to keep running yeah I went out with an ice chest in September and Isis a nuisance boy is it a nuisance I've done it I've done it for years but it's a nuisance yeah and with my with my little drink that I have I I have two of the mason jars and I just feel one with water and put it in the refrigerator and then I pull the other one out so I have cold a cold drink all the time that's nice yeah that's very pleasant yeah so this is just furniture that you had on hand and probably from your house yes this I had for years and years I got this for $25 at a garage sale and I did cut it up and I felt really bad because after I started cutting it it had square nails so it was definitely an antique and I sort of butchered it because in the back there's where the fuel comes in and then this was $10 at the Salvation Army and the bottom this is where the wheel well is back there mm-hmm so this little drawer is only a half a drawer a clever idea and I just taped it up Habitat for Humanity code go on go on going this just puts tons and tons of stuff and really organized you gotta be in a small space yeah it's pretty much mandatory really nice so let's just go to the thrift store or you man Habitat for Humanity and find good stuff this was only $20 right yes couldn't have been any better mm-hmm and like I put these these baskets in at the last minute because you need someplace to throw things that aren't going to slide mm-hmm and I just took a shoe string and tied them on all these little gizmos are from Ikea and hook them up and excuse me this man had this these one wouldn't stress huh and so there's wood here and then there's wood about this high and I just screwed everything into those pieces of wood I don't use these these are so tiny right there's really not and I don't know if I could I just didn't want to strip the whole van out you could bet it'd be a lot of work and it wouldn't look nearly as nice yeah when I made these panels that for the curtains so I have reflections in the windows and then these have they were supposed to be my my blackout ones but I just put the reflectance back in and then they have some quilt batting in them for our value I bet that makes a big difference it's not it's very nice in here yeah well that's just really brilliant Wade you've done this to to this much organization with just a plastic drawer here you know they have the ones that are twice this wide mm-hmm this just this doesn't take up much space and it holds just everything Wow and then that will show was a bookshelf that was in my bathroom and I brought it in and turned it upside down so it would have the little lip lip here so this stuff wouldn't slide out mm-hmm and then I just screwed it in that way and then got some wood and screwed it to the top it's not all that pretty but it gets the job done boy that is so organized you are was astoundingly organized I do you have a hundred to two hundred dollars in your entire build in inside the van yeah well the mattress was the most expensive thing it was like 89 but other than that everything is less than 200 at the very most at the very most at the very most yeah this is such a good example of what I really recommend thrift store oh yeah you got a blank empty space now you had to be creative yeah but getting around the wheel well and the gas filler but you figured it out yeah I just I just I saw in kind of butchered the back it worked yeah it doesn't have to be pretty on the backside so yeah and I think it's kind of a little gypsy wagon uh-huh and it and it looks like home I like it this stuff was all in someone's home my home yeah yeah so that's just you know it's not it's normal sweet it's very I have this I like it my curtain rod up here is just two of those um stick constant anything commander I think they're called and then this was a blanket I made a long time ago to go on picnics without a dinner and then that just cuts it just gives me that little privacy in the evening mm-hmm and then this is just a sarong and then I just pull that across when I need a little privacy to use the toilet mm-hmm just more storage you gotta have uh winter clothing at one time I had my battery up there but it was heavy it was pretty and then I had I can't lift it somebody else has to lift it to get it up in there and it did the van did rock a little bit with it up so high and it's um and I had to get into this is where you plug everything in the goal zero and then you can't open this when it's up there so yeah and then I called Zero was in Riverton Utah I'm in Salt Lake and and so this is a refurbished model also I didn't pay full price for that I don't pay full price this is proven it is cheap RV living absolutely absolutely and so you're using a Dometic port-a-potty I'm not sure what the brand name is on that one of the Clones probably there's a lot of them and I've found that they are just as good yeah fancy ones are hundreds of dollars and this was less than 200 that was really a deal uh-huh someone gave me that big pork roast they went to the food pantry today and sir I'm waiting for that to thaw and then then I'm gonna cook for everybody tonight or maybe tomorrow depending on when it thaws right well it's a it's a very pleasant nice home well thank you very much and and easy just buy furniture bring it in yeah and so you you were lucky in that you had all the wood to just screw right into right yeah yeah you just got it you've done it we've done it really really well and then I have limited mobility I mean I can walk in everything but I get really tired and sore and I can't lift very much so I brought my walker with me and I used that kind of like a little red wagon if I have to move this or something heavy I get the Walker out and then I lift it to the Walker and then I push it where it needs to go mm-hmm so because my back's just not strong enough to lift big heavy things like that right right yeah just anything that helped yeah well you've done a really really good job thank you so much for sharing your home with us and I love the no build build furniture is just a great way to go I mean I may have tried I got it from your videos because you know if you don't have the skills to do all the cutting and the the two by fours and everything you can always throw stuff in the van mm-hmm make it work well Mary thank you so much for sharing your your home with us I think you've done an amazing job I just really appreciate it thank you thank you folks I'm sure you've got some great ideas of how you can get into a van easily and cheaply and you don't have to have be a master carpenter to do it so 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 did you know that bob has a patreon page you can find it at WWBT on Comm slash cheap RV living you'll find behind the scenes photos and videos as well some bloopers and some interesting short videos where you can learn more about Bob as well as some longer more in-depth interviews you can also post your questions prior to the live feed and you can get inspiration for life on the road also you can find drone footage of some of Bob's camps and places he visits so please visit us at WWE TLC party living we appreciate your support and we'll see you down the road you

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 375,602

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

Id: Jg765CIY7vc

Length: 20min 34sec (1234 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 31 2020