How to Live in Your Car
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Extreme Minimalism, done right
Hi stranger 👋
This is my Prius and I, today.
In 2017, I spent a full, blisteringly hot Austin, Texas summer living out of my car.
It was pretty fun.
……why, dude? And, how?
After college I moved to Houston for law school. I went to class with and was friends with a lot of bright people, cut from a certain cloth, with high-falutin tastes. Some of my classmates bought Porsches with money earned from their first internship/future job. Some came to school with the Porsche they already owned. Others were there to marry into a Porsche.
Though I didn’t have a fancy car, my apartment in Houston was expensive and had a lot of expensive stuff in it. I was within walking distance of the Galleria (the most famous mall in Texas), River Oaks (the most expensive neighborhood in Houston), and I could see Joel Osteen’s $10M+ home if I walked to the end of my street. I had all the latest electronic gadgets, Versace sunglasses, a David Yurman bracelet, all kinds of dumb shit a guy buys to pass the time.
I realized I wasn’t in love with Law and decided to move to Austin to enter the Tech industry. I couldn’t afford a U-Haul, so I had to get rid of anything that didn’t fit my trusty Camry.
I didn’t have a job or an apartment ready for me. I found a couch on Airbnb I could sleep on for $25 a night. There was 1 couch for 3 tenants and 2 dogs on any given night.
Then I found a job! And moved into a house in North Austin.
Here’s a look at my old closet.
I started actually living live and discovered that despite not having much stuff, my happiness hadn’t change. As long as I had my health, my family, and some friends, I was happy. 😄
I ultimately left the sales job and flew home to focus on studying web technology to further my ambition of entering tech. After a month of self-study, it was time to return to Austin again. I once again was moving to Austin with no job or lodging figured out.
Then I found an article.
I found the guy’s blog and learned what he was about…scrappiness, resourcefulness, simplicity…
And I found some of his pictures.
“This guy doesn’t seem like a lunatic. And I love how scrappy he is…what if I lived in my car?” I thought. “And, what if I was still just as happy?? That would be crazy!!!”
Then I saw a bunch of others had tried it.
And I tried it.
How to do this
There’s only a couple bases you’ll need to cover:
Scaling Down — Letting go of stuff that doesn’t truly make you happy
Moving In —Organizing your new pad
Sleeping — Making sure you rest comfortably
Eating — Eating good in the neighborhood. Like, actually in a neighborhood.
Scaling Down
The first step of living entirely out of your car is to be able to fit all your stuff into your car. This involves donating, selling, giving away, or just throwing away a lot of stuff. It can be a lot to wrap your head around. I only started even considering a life with less stuff after this video:
I found it a bit challenging to get rid of so much of my stuff. Especially because I was emotionally attached to it. Video game systems, my record player, pieces of art…so many things, so many memories created.
Reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondō helped reframe this challenge for me. It might help you too.
She’s got a ton of good advice in her short book, but this little nugget stands out:
…the best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is to take each item in one’s hand and ask: “Does this spark joy?” If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it.
It’s pretty simple! Does it make you happy? Like, actually happy? Keep it. Does it not? Give it to someone who can enjoy it. Let the item make someone else happy, like it once made you happy. As Marie says, “Get rid of those things that no longer spark joy. Make your parting a ceremony to launch them on a new journey…I truly believe that our possessions are even happier and more vibrant when we let them go than when we first get them.” 👋 😃
This very simple test helped me realize I had a lot of stuff hanging around that would be much more useful in another’s hands.
Side note: Does the idea of something “sparking joy” within you seem too froo froo? Does it sound lame?
Well then you’re wrong and fuck you.
Moving In
Great, you’re down to the essentials: your most beloved and loving possessions.
Now let’s get it all in the car.
As you can imagine, there’s not much space to work with. So we’re going to have to be real, real tidy with our stuff. Military-tidy.
You’ll want to dedicate certain areas to certain things. Reminiscing on my rig, this was my layout:
I’m not sharing anything groundbreaking here, this is simple stuff. But it’s very helpful to adhere to a layout. What happens when you don’t? This:
It might take some time to get the layout right. It’ll “click” at some point and try to stick to it. Keep it clean!
I’m sure you must be wondering…how weird are you going to look when you hang with your buddy or a date and you’ve got a camping pad set up in the back?
Don’t even worry about it — as long as you’ve been conservative enough bringing stuff, when you roll up your camping pad and pack up all your stuff into the trunk, the back seat will be almost empty.
Sleeping
Aaah…sleep. In my opinion this is the most important piece of the puzzle, one that you’ll definitely want to get right. You’re gonna want those hours you spend in there to be niiiice and comfy.
The more comfortable Hotel Prius rigs I’ve seen online utilize a camping pad. Sometimes folks will put a foam pad under the camping pad for some added comfort. I opted for a single camping pad, namely (my idea of) the Rolls-Royce of camping pads, the Therm-a-Rest MondoKing 3D.
That baby was just was comfy as a mattress to me. I’d still sleep on it if I didn’t have a mattress today.
Eating
Two things to think about when it comes to eating: Storing your Food and Finding Places to Eat
1. Storing your Food
This kind of depends on your diet, but if you would like to drink milk and OJ and cold foods, I highly suggest a YETI cooler. I had a YETI Roadie 20 I filled with ice twice a week. It did a fantastic job of keeping things cool.
Put the rest of the food in a duffel bag. That’s it. Eat it quick, even non-fridgerated food spoils quick in the summer heat.
2. Finding Places to Eat
The key to eating while living in your car is NOT TO EAT IN YOUR CAR. Please!
It doesn’t matter how clean you are or how careful you are, I promise food will get on your upholstery. Then you’ll have to spend money to clean it professionally, like I had to. 😞
Eat elsewhere. Anywhere. The easiest spot to eat is the park. I’d head to any park in Austin, pop a squat, and eat breakfast or lunch.
And that is all!
Get ready for an adventure. And a funny story for later. 😆
