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Older Americans who live in RVs and drive from one low-wage job to another

162 points by joeyespo 9y ago

madengr 9y ago
People not saving for retirement is a huge problem. Average 401k balance is about 1/5 of where it needs to be. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/single-post/2017/02/09/Average-401k-Balances-by-Age-and-State%3f_amp_=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/singl...
- jnbiche 9y ago
  Some of you are very out of touch. They're not saving for retirement because they can't. First, most of them were not even working jobs with 401k's available. Second, how the hell are you supposed to save when you don't even have enough money to pay your current rent, food, gas, medical expenses? I think some of you imagine everyone is making $80,000-$200,000 a year and they're just being irresponsible and not saving up money because they live beyond their means. In fact, the number of people who don't have enough for retirement because of this reason is quite small. Most people are there because they or their family had a catastrophic medical event, job loss, and/or some massive loss of value in their home due to the depression (from which they've never recovered).
  - madengr 9y ago
    No, people are too lazy. Making $25k a year, and saving 15% ($3,750) over 45 years at 7% return is $1M. You also don’t need a 401k. You can do a traditional or Roth IRA.
    - mikestew 9y ago
      Leaving me with less than $22K before taxes. Please tell me you’re being sarcastic, and not as out of touch as parent post claims. Because if I were being sarcastic, I’d use the ridiculous numbers you came up with to make my intention clear.
      - madengr 9y ago
        I’m citing numbers for an individual. The median household income is almost $60k. The median household could easily retire with $1M. I’ll say it again, they are too lazy.
        iN7h33nD 9y ago
        So we shouldn't start a family on 21k, but then you say that the median household income is 60k. That's because two married people making an income of 30k each before taxes gives 60k. So which is it don't start a family or do? Why should people with less opportunity not be allowed a family anyway? Even with your 60k median (basically a bit more than 21k each) is hardly enough to live on, saving for retirement is just out of the question. Your logic here is very flawed, without even getting into any other numbers/situations these theoretical people may go through. Take the average cost of health care, utilities, medical bills, dentist bills, rent, and food. Even if these people were to do no eating out and no entertainment, I think you would find that they would not have enough to save for retirement. Throwing the word lazy around is a "lazy" argument
    - jnbiche 9y ago
      What happens when you come down with an illness that leaves you with a $15,000 medical bill and a month out of work (so you probably lose your job)? Happens to people all the time. Have you tried raising a family on $21,000 a year, even in a low-cost area? (not to mention an urban area, where such earnings are quite common) Lazy? Wow.
      - madengr 9y ago
        Sure it happens to people all the time, but in average it does not. No I have not. No one should even start a family on $21k. Again, poor choices if they do. I’m tired of the mentality of victim hood.
  - mikestew 9y ago
    I upvoted you, but to be fair to parent, nothing you said invalidates what they wrote. Parent made a statement, and it would seem that because they did not give the “why” you assumed that they’re being a scold. Maybe, maybe not, but the All Holy HN Guidelines suggest taking the charitable interpretation, and I’m going with that. EDIT: and just as I hit “reply”, parent comes back with a response indicating that the charitable interpretation was wrong. sigh
chiefalchemist 9y ago
> "For one thing, Amazon should pay its workers more and give them better working conditions. It’s laughable that the workers get a 15-minute break when they have to spend it walking to the break room. It’s completely insane." Perhaps the rest of society should be more aware of the darkside(s) of the business models they are supporting? Plenty of multi-nationals - Nike comes to mind - have been pressured into making changes to practices that were not socially acceptable. Why isn't Amazon being held to the same measuring stick? Editorial: Why is the public still so naive about the "hidden costs" of cheaper? Certainly, Walmart (for example) and its darkside would be fresh in the minds of the American public. Instead, it seems, the perception is Amazon is the saviour (from Walmart), when the new boss is really the same as the old boss (sans the glossy high tech paint job).
- badestrand 9y ago
  >> Why is the public still so naive about the "hidden costs" of cheaper? Because it is not true. Apple products are considered luxury goods and the company is known for the horrendous treatment of their workers in Asia. And ALDI is a very cheap supermarket chain in Germany but pays and treats their employees better than some more expensive ones. There might be a correlation but that means nothing for each individual purchase.
  - jgamman 9y ago
    shouldn't you be quoting examples from within the same society? it seems a bit suss to quote a German budget chain acting reasonably responsibly towards its employees as a counter point to an American one. last time i looked labour laws were vastly different between the US and Germany...
    - jnbiche 9y ago
      > last time i looked labour laws were vastly different between the US and Germany... Exactly.
      - deleted 9y ago
crypticlizard 9y ago
This seems like an extension of the sharing economy where people expect less and less from a job.
- convolvatron 9y ago
  its seems a general extrapolation of a purely free market economy where if you cant bootstrap yourself into the bottom of the investor class by the time you get old for whatever reason, you're essentially human trash
ourmandave 9y ago
I always think of the remake of Little House on the Prairie series where Pa had to walk for 6 days to the nearest city to find work when the farm wasn't making it. Not the same thing but sometimes you have to go where the work is.
billmalarky 9y ago
"We saw in the 1980s a shift from pensions to 401(k)s; that was a raw deal for workers. These retirement plans were marketed as an instrument of financial freedom, but they were really transferring risk from the shoulder of the employers to the backs of the workers." This is misleading. 401k's are considerably lower risk since they allow you to be diversified instead of putting all your eggs into one basket (ie a company retirement pension). The problem is the amount of money going into a standard 401k is nowhere near the amount that went into a pension. You had pensions paying out amounts that would require a 401k account with $1MM+ in it. The standard company 401k match these days isn't even peanuts compared to that, and that's if the company even matches at all.
- andrewvc 9y ago
  The other problem is that 401ks let you do dumb stuff pensions don't. Dumb stuff like pulling most of your funds in the 2008 crisis and holding it in cash to miss out on the rebound. Or investing in borderline scam products like variable annuities. 401ks are great if you're savvy. They are massively inefficient for society in that they require all the people who use them to understand investing. This is really bad policy at a society level. People need real, unbiased investing guidance.
  - jdavis703 9y ago
    At what point does personal responsibility kick in? Every 401(k) I've been on has given the option of investing in funds that ramp down risk exposure as the fund's target retirement date comes closer. Literally all you need to do is put your $1400/month in to a retirement account and not touch it. If you're upper middle class this is not hard to do (again I'm not talking about poor people here, but those with money who aren't saving). Whenever our 401(k) report comes out at work I can tell that most people are not putting nearly the amount of money they should be into savings -- and this is a tech company so most everyone aside from interns are being generously compensated.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
dogruck 9y ago
Sounds like this book has an unfortunate bias of victim hood. Lost your mortgage? Not your fault. Didn’t save for retirement? Not your fault. Only job prospect, after working and training and networking for your entire adult life, is moving boxes in an AMZN warehouse? Not your fault. I prefer a more objective view, like Studs Terkel’s classic book, Working. Finally, don’t get me wrong — I have neighbors in the described situation. I care about them. I’m just saying I’d enjoy reading an objective narrative about their hard, and unfortunate situation — something not clouded with the tone of victimization.
- timthelion 9y ago
  Perhaps you meant to write "bias of false victimhood". There is nothing biased about victimhood itself. Many people are really truly and objectively victims.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    Yes, that’s a better phrase.
- pwinnski 9y ago
  People who lost their retirement investments in the 2008 crash aren't suffering from an artificial feeling of victimhood. They're victims.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    That is your unsubstantiated and overly general opinion.
  - markshead 9y ago
    How did people lose their retirement investments in 2008? Most of the stories I've heard where people lost all of their retirement around 2008 involved doing things were considered fairly risky before 2008 hit. Were there people who lost all their retirement who were following typical retirement investment strategies? Edit: And to be clear, I know the value of almost everyone's investments went down, but unless your money was all in a single company it seems that most diversified portfolios bounced back.
sandworm101 9y ago
There is a steady stream of these articles describing this as a problem of older people. It isn't. This is about poor people. There are plenty of non-old people living our of RVs, or worse, chasing seasonal work wherever they can find it. An RV is a huge step up from a tent. This is one slightly more pathetic version of an increasingly common story: our modern economy isn't addressing poverty. Poor people of all ages are falling off the cliff. They need help. They don't need classes on writing resumes. They don't need tax breaks. They need cash and a place to live near a reasonable job.
jondubois 9y ago
It's interesting reading this because I also feel like I've been living a desperate, nomadic life. There was a period of time in the past 2 years when I didn't have a home and stayed at various places on AirBnb while working remotely. The worst part was when I ran out of money because opportunities dried up on the work platform I was using. At the time I was in Russia with a dependent partner; we had gone there because of the low cost of living brought on by US sanctions. So I can relate to the feeling of being constantly forced to follow the money wherever it takes you. It's stressful and disorientating. I don't understand how anyone in their 50s can sustain this lifestyle without going insane.
markshead 9y ago
I drove by a closed Amazon.com warehouse in Kansas a few weeks ago. Next to it is a RV campground that is still operating. If you look around on RV websites you can find quite a few reviews from people who went there and other Amazon.com locations to work like this. Those reviews mostly paint a very different picture than what is described in the article. For many of the Amazon.com camper/workers it was a way to do a lot of work in a few months to help support their retirement travel and the people who were actually doing it seemed to think the pay was pretty good--especially with the overtime.
brandonmenc 9y ago
From a Wired article [0] about one of the couples she talks about: "Objects they couldn’t bear to part with—including Chuck’s letter from Ray Kroc, framed and hanging on the wall—went to one of Barb’s daughters for safekeeping. (Barb and Chuck each have three kids.)" They have SIX adult children. They should be living with family instead of trying to survive hand-to-mouth out of an RV. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic-retiree-army/ https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic...
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  What makes you think their children are any better off? The tech industry is engineering these kind of labor conditions for their own profit. Try blaming them instead of the families of poor people.
  - brandonmenc 9y ago
    I don't think anyone should have to live like this, and I'm not blaming anyone for being poor. But I don't believe that purchasing, repairing, and fueling an RV so you can live paycheck to paycheck is easier or more affordable than sleeping on your (yes, possibly also poor) child's couch. I get that there are people who are truly alone and have no other option - but the people with adult children seem to be indulging a stubborn desire to live independently, when what they should be doing is pooling resources. I'm not saying it's right that there are people so poor that they have to live in multi-generational homes just to survive, but I also won't be shocked into sympathy for people trying to live like this when it's not their best available option. I've seen plenty of older people refuse to move in with family when its time to, it always ends in disaster, and it's infuriating. It wouldn't surprise me if a significant portion of these poor boomer nomads didn't actually have to live like this.
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  Or maybe their kids rent a closet in Silicon Valley, with nowhere to put mom & dad.
ProCynic 9y ago
I have an aunt and uncle who do this, but they aren't desperate, they're retired. They travel around the country, visiting places they'd like to see, and taking seasonal jobs as something to do and to help defray expenses. They still own their own house, but they choose not to live there, renting it out to their kids / their kid's friends. They've worked as lighthouse keepers, Amazon warehouse pickers, and as bookkeeping/maintenance for a sugar-beet picking operation (they're a little old for field work). Currently they're wintering over at the Grand Canyon while working at the general store in an rv park. The point is not all of these nomads are forced into it by desperation or financial necessity; some of them just want to spend their retirement traveling and don't mind a little work along the way. My aunt and uncle have a blog detailing their travels if anyone is interested: https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/ https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/
- intopieces 9y ago
  I love this. Thank you for the link. Reminds me of what the Internet was going to be back in the early 2000s. Tell your aunt and uncle they have a new follower.
- avenoir 9y ago
  > The point is not all of these nomads are forced into it by desperation or financial necessity; some of them just want to spend their retirement traveling and don't mind a little work along the way. I was about to post the same thing. Not everyone is in desperate need of affordable housing. YouTube is full of channels by RVers of all ages who simply want to travel and experience adventure on the road.
- vinhboy 9y ago
  Cool blog. His dedication to blogging daily is impressive.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  I hear you, but care must be taken not to dismiss the plight of these people simply because there are those who seek a similar situation by choice. Doing something because you want to versus doing it because you have to can make the same thing a pleasure or torture. Both perspectives are legitimate. I'm currently looking for a suitable property to live off the grid, and move to more of a subsistence lifestyle (the usual stuff, veggies, few animals). But I realized that the exact same end state is pretty bleak if it's something you were born into.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
Articles like these frighten me. In my thirties, I am deeply worried about retirement, if that ever comes, and surviving in my old age. So much can go wrong. Ever since I read David Raether's story[0] of going from half-a-million a year as a TV writer, to homeless living in a van, I've focused considerable effort to make sure I am never homeless. I invest in a Roth IRA, I own a home that I rent out, I joined a church to build more ties in the community, and I spend a lot of time staying out of debt, and building savings. If you are in debt from credit cards, the single greatest thing you can do for your future is to get the hell out of that debt! [0]. https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/ https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/
lamarpye 9y ago
I wonder if there is some hidden law driving down the price of unskilled labor?
- Kluny 9y ago
  I think it's just a commodity. The price of unskilled labor rises and falls with the vagaries of the market, and anyone who relies on it too much gets burned like Alberta got burned when oil crashed.
baybal2 9y ago
Our generation of people born in late eighties and later, will not see the same comfortable retirement that a better off part of boomer generation. You effectively have to run your own pension fund to expect any much significant passive income after you retire.

162 points by joeyespo 9y ago

People not saving for retirement is a huge problem. Average 401k balance is about 1/5 of where it needs to be. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/single-post/2017/02/09/Average-401k-Balances-by-Age-and-State%3f_amp_=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/singl...

jnbiche 9y ago
Some of you are very out of touch. They're not saving for retirement because they can't. First, most of them were not even working jobs with 401k's available. Second, how the hell are you supposed to save when you don't even have enough money to pay your current rent, food, gas, medical expenses? I think some of you imagine everyone is making $80,000-$200,000 a year and they're just being irresponsible and not saving up money because they live beyond their means. In fact, the number of people who don't have enough for retirement because of this reason is quite small. Most people are there because they or their family had a catastrophic medical event, job loss, and/or some massive loss of value in their home due to the depression (from which they've never recovered).
- madengr 9y ago
  No, people are too lazy. Making $25k a year, and saving 15% ($3,750) over 45 years at 7% return is $1M. You also don’t need a 401k. You can do a traditional or Roth IRA.
  - mikestew 9y ago
    Leaving me with less than $22K before taxes. Please tell me you’re being sarcastic, and not as out of touch as parent post claims. Because if I were being sarcastic, I’d use the ridiculous numbers you came up with to make my intention clear.
    - madengr 9y ago
      I’m citing numbers for an individual. The median household income is almost $60k. The median household could easily retire with $1M. I’ll say it again, they are too lazy.
      - iN7h33nD 9y ago
        So we shouldn't start a family on 21k, but then you say that the median household income is 60k. That's because two married people making an income of 30k each before taxes gives 60k. So which is it don't start a family or do? Why should people with less opportunity not be allowed a family anyway? Even with your 60k median (basically a bit more than 21k each) is hardly enough to live on, saving for retirement is just out of the question. Your logic here is very flawed, without even getting into any other numbers/situations these theoretical people may go through. Take the average cost of health care, utilities, medical bills, dentist bills, rent, and food. Even if these people were to do no eating out and no entertainment, I think you would find that they would not have enough to save for retirement. Throwing the word lazy around is a "lazy" argument
  - jnbiche 9y ago
    What happens when you come down with an illness that leaves you with a $15,000 medical bill and a month out of work (so you probably lose your job)? Happens to people all the time. Have you tried raising a family on $21,000 a year, even in a low-cost area? (not to mention an urban area, where such earnings are quite common) Lazy? Wow.
    - madengr 9y ago
      Sure it happens to people all the time, but in average it does not. No I have not. No one should even start a family on $21k. Again, poor choices if they do. I’m tired of the mentality of victim hood.
- mikestew 9y ago
  I upvoted you, but to be fair to parent, nothing you said invalidates what they wrote. Parent made a statement, and it would seem that because they did not give the “why” you assumed that they’re being a scold. Maybe, maybe not, but the All Holy HN Guidelines suggest taking the charitable interpretation, and I’m going with that. EDIT: and just as I hit “reply”, parent comes back with a response indicating that the charitable interpretation was wrong. sigh

chiefalchemist 9y ago

> "For one thing, Amazon should pay its workers more and give them better working conditions. It’s laughable that the workers get a 15-minute break when they have to spend it walking to the break room. It’s completely insane." Perhaps the rest of society should be more aware of the darkside(s) of the business models they are supporting? Plenty of multi-nationals - Nike comes to mind - have been pressured into making changes to practices that were not socially acceptable. Why isn't Amazon being held to the same measuring stick? Editorial: Why is the public still so naive about the "hidden costs" of cheaper? Certainly, Walmart (for example) and its darkside would be fresh in the minds of the American public. Instead, it seems, the perception is Amazon is the saviour (from Walmart), when the new boss is really the same as the old boss (sans the glossy high tech paint job).

badestrand 9y ago
>> Why is the public still so naive about the "hidden costs" of cheaper? Because it is not true. Apple products are considered luxury goods and the company is known for the horrendous treatment of their workers in Asia. And ALDI is a very cheap supermarket chain in Germany but pays and treats their employees better than some more expensive ones. There might be a correlation but that means nothing for each individual purchase.
- jgamman 9y ago
  shouldn't you be quoting examples from within the same society? it seems a bit suss to quote a German budget chain acting reasonably responsibly towards its employees as a counter point to an American one. last time i looked labour laws were vastly different between the US and Germany...
  - jnbiche 9y ago
    > last time i looked labour laws were vastly different between the US and Germany... Exactly.
    - deleted 9y ago

crypticlizard 9y ago

This seems like an extension of the sharing economy where people expect less and less from a job.

convolvatron 9y ago
its seems a general extrapolation of a purely free market economy where if you cant bootstrap yourself into the bottom of the investor class by the time you get old for whatever reason, you're essentially human trash

ourmandave 9y ago

I always think of the remake of Little House on the Prairie series where Pa had to walk for 6 days to the nearest city to find work when the farm wasn't making it. Not the same thing but sometimes you have to go where the work is.

billmalarky 9y ago

"We saw in the 1980s a shift from pensions to 401(k)s; that was a raw deal for workers. These retirement plans were marketed as an instrument of financial freedom, but they were really transferring risk from the shoulder of the employers to the backs of the workers." This is misleading. 401k's are considerably lower risk since they allow you to be diversified instead of putting all your eggs into one basket (ie a company retirement pension). The problem is the amount of money going into a standard 401k is nowhere near the amount that went into a pension. You had pensions paying out amounts that would require a 401k account with $1MM+ in it. The standard company 401k match these days isn't even peanuts compared to that, and that's if the company even matches at all.

andrewvc 9y ago
The other problem is that 401ks let you do dumb stuff pensions don't. Dumb stuff like pulling most of your funds in the 2008 crisis and holding it in cash to miss out on the rebound. Or investing in borderline scam products like variable annuities. 401ks are great if you're savvy. They are massively inefficient for society in that they require all the people who use them to understand investing. This is really bad policy at a society level. People need real, unbiased investing guidance.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  At what point does personal responsibility kick in? Every 401(k) I've been on has given the option of investing in funds that ramp down risk exposure as the fund's target retirement date comes closer. Literally all you need to do is put your $1400/month in to a retirement account and not touch it. If you're upper middle class this is not hard to do (again I'm not talking about poor people here, but those with money who aren't saving). Whenever our 401(k) report comes out at work I can tell that most people are not putting nearly the amount of money they should be into savings -- and this is a tech company so most everyone aside from interns are being generously compensated.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

dogruck 9y ago

Sounds like this book has an unfortunate bias of victim hood. Lost your mortgage? Not your fault. Didn’t save for retirement? Not your fault. Only job prospect, after working and training and networking for your entire adult life, is moving boxes in an AMZN warehouse? Not your fault. I prefer a more objective view, like Studs Terkel’s classic book, Working. Finally, don’t get me wrong — I have neighbors in the described situation. I care about them. I’m just saying I’d enjoy reading an objective narrative about their hard, and unfortunate situation — something not clouded with the tone of victimization.

timthelion 9y ago
Perhaps you meant to write "bias of false victimhood". There is nothing biased about victimhood itself. Many people are really truly and objectively victims.
- dogruck 9y ago
  Yes, that’s a better phrase.
pwinnski 9y ago
People who lost their retirement investments in the 2008 crash aren't suffering from an artificial feeling of victimhood. They're victims.
- dogruck 9y ago
  That is your unsubstantiated and overly general opinion.
- markshead 9y ago
  How did people lose their retirement investments in 2008? Most of the stories I've heard where people lost all of their retirement around 2008 involved doing things were considered fairly risky before 2008 hit. Were there people who lost all their retirement who were following typical retirement investment strategies? Edit: And to be clear, I know the value of almost everyone's investments went down, but unless your money was all in a single company it seems that most diversified portfolios bounced back.

sandworm101 9y ago

There is a steady stream of these articles describing this as a problem of older people. It isn't. This is about poor people. There are plenty of non-old people living our of RVs, or worse, chasing seasonal work wherever they can find it. An RV is a huge step up from a tent. This is one slightly more pathetic version of an increasingly common story: our modern economy isn't addressing poverty. Poor people of all ages are falling off the cliff. They need help. They don't need classes on writing resumes. They don't need tax breaks. They need cash and a place to live near a reasonable job.

jondubois 9y ago

It's interesting reading this because I also feel like I've been living a desperate, nomadic life. There was a period of time in the past 2 years when I didn't have a home and stayed at various places on AirBnb while working remotely. The worst part was when I ran out of money because opportunities dried up on the work platform I was using. At the time I was in Russia with a dependent partner; we had gone there because of the low cost of living brought on by US sanctions. So I can relate to the feeling of being constantly forced to follow the money wherever it takes you. It's stressful and disorientating. I don't understand how anyone in their 50s can sustain this lifestyle without going insane.

markshead 9y ago

I drove by a closed Amazon.com warehouse in Kansas a few weeks ago. Next to it is a RV campground that is still operating. If you look around on RV websites you can find quite a few reviews from people who went there and other Amazon.com locations to work like this. Those reviews mostly paint a very different picture than what is described in the article. For many of the Amazon.com camper/workers it was a way to do a lot of work in a few months to help support their retirement travel and the people who were actually doing it seemed to think the pay was pretty good--especially with the overtime.

brandonmenc 9y ago

From a Wired article [0] about one of the couples she talks about: "Objects they couldn’t bear to part with—including Chuck’s letter from Ray Kroc, framed and hanging on the wall—went to one of Barb’s daughters for safekeeping. (Barb and Chuck each have three kids.)" They have SIX adult children. They should be living with family instead of trying to survive hand-to-mouth out of an RV. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic-retiree-army/ https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic...

alphonsegaston 9y ago
What makes you think their children are any better off? The tech industry is engineering these kind of labor conditions for their own profit. Try blaming them instead of the families of poor people.
- brandonmenc 9y ago
  I don't think anyone should have to live like this, and I'm not blaming anyone for being poor. But I don't believe that purchasing, repairing, and fueling an RV so you can live paycheck to paycheck is easier or more affordable than sleeping on your (yes, possibly also poor) child's couch. I get that there are people who are truly alone and have no other option - but the people with adult children seem to be indulging a stubborn desire to live independently, when what they should be doing is pooling resources. I'm not saying it's right that there are people so poor that they have to live in multi-generational homes just to survive, but I also won't be shocked into sympathy for people trying to live like this when it's not their best available option. I've seen plenty of older people refuse to move in with family when its time to, it always ends in disaster, and it's infuriating. It wouldn't surprise me if a significant portion of these poor boomer nomads didn't actually have to live like this.
sliverstorm 9y ago
Or maybe their kids rent a closet in Silicon Valley, with nowhere to put mom & dad.

ProCynic 9y ago

I have an aunt and uncle who do this, but they aren't desperate, they're retired. They travel around the country, visiting places they'd like to see, and taking seasonal jobs as something to do and to help defray expenses. They still own their own house, but they choose not to live there, renting it out to their kids / their kid's friends. They've worked as lighthouse keepers, Amazon warehouse pickers, and as bookkeeping/maintenance for a sugar-beet picking operation (they're a little old for field work). Currently they're wintering over at the Grand Canyon while working at the general store in an rv park. The point is not all of these nomads are forced into it by desperation or financial necessity; some of them just want to spend their retirement traveling and don't mind a little work along the way. My aunt and uncle have a blog detailing their travels if anyone is interested: https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/ https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/

intopieces 9y ago
I love this. Thank you for the link. Reminds me of what the Internet was going to be back in the early 2000s. Tell your aunt and uncle they have a new follower.
avenoir 9y ago
> The point is not all of these nomads are forced into it by desperation or financial necessity; some of them just want to spend their retirement traveling and don't mind a little work along the way. I was about to post the same thing. Not everyone is in desperate need of affordable housing. YouTube is full of channels by RVers of all ages who simply want to travel and experience adventure on the road.
vinhboy 9y ago
Cool blog. His dedication to blogging daily is impressive.
FooHentai 9y ago
I hear you, but care must be taken not to dismiss the plight of these people simply because there are those who seek a similar situation by choice. Doing something because you want to versus doing it because you have to can make the same thing a pleasure or torture. Both perspectives are legitimate. I'm currently looking for a suitable property to live off the grid, and move to more of a subsistence lifestyle (the usual stuff, veggies, few animals). But I realized that the exact same end state is pretty bleak if it's something you were born into.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

Articles like these frighten me. In my thirties, I am deeply worried about retirement, if that ever comes, and surviving in my old age. So much can go wrong. Ever since I read David Raether's story[0] of going from half-a-million a year as a TV writer, to homeless living in a van, I've focused considerable effort to make sure I am never homeless. I invest in a Roth IRA, I own a home that I rent out, I joined a church to build more ties in the community, and I spend a lot of time staying out of debt, and building savings. If you are in debt from credit cards, the single greatest thing you can do for your future is to get the hell out of that debt! [0]. https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/ https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/

lamarpye 9y ago

I wonder if there is some hidden law driving down the price of unskilled labor?

Kluny 9y ago
I think it's just a commodity. The price of unskilled labor rises and falls with the vagaries of the market, and anyone who relies on it too much gets burned like Alberta got burned when oil crashed.

baybal2 9y ago

Our generation of people born in late eighties and later, will not see the same comfortable retirement that a better off part of boomer generation. You effectively have to run your own pension fund to expect any much significant passive income after you retire.