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Yes, it is a grift through and through. Van living (and therefore tiny homes) are incredibly expensive. Storing things you need for later, having room for certa

Yes, it is a grift through and through. Van living (and therefore tiny homes) are incredibly expensive. Storing things you need for later, having room for certain activities, actually has a cost savings that these people are unaware of. Part of being born in America and not having a very intelligent parent to guide you through involves being an easy target for an ever growing and complex series of grifts.

notch656a 4y ago
huh? I lived in a subaru outback in the forest for some time. I bought the car for $1500. It lasted ~6 months, I spent a few hundred registering and bare-minimum insuring it and when it died I called a junkyard and they hauled it away and gave me $100. It's not like it cost anything to park it in national forest. When I was homeless in North Dakota I met a guy with a Ford E350 ho bought for about the same price. He was handier than I was and as far as I can tell he could keep it running indefinitely from junkyard parts for almost nothing. The grift is overselling what goes into the van, or a new and overbuilt van. The bigger issue is van-life dumps your externalities on everyone else -- you aren't paying property taxes but you probably still avail yourself of local public services and utilities as part of the cheap living. It doesn't scale.
- jansan 4y ago
  You are an individualist, maybe even a trendsetter. We are talking about a trend that has reached the well-off yuppies (does that word still exist?). A friend of mine was just about to shell out 70,000€ for a small van, without really knowing what to do with it, because some of his neighbors bought one recently..
  - klyrs 4y ago
    yuppies and hippies are all just boomers now
- jklinger410 4y ago
  The grift I'm talking about is not the up-front price of the van, but the price of the lifestyle.
cpsns 4y ago
Tiny homes didn’t start out expensive. I remember years ago when it was just something eccentric people did to get away from society which they talked about on very obscure forums. Those tiny homes were not luxurious, they were spartan and not the sort of thing the average person would have liked. The idea of having them on trailers wasn’t really a thing yet at that point. Of course at some point someone saw dollar signs and the rest is history.
- 22c 4y ago
  I believe at one point they were called "cabins" ;)
kragen 4y ago
IIRC I spent about US$6000 (not US$60k, US$6k) on a 24-year-old Volkswagen Vanagon with an aftermarket camper conversion kit. My wife and I lived in it for about three months as we traveled around the US visiting people. We had to rebuild the engine twice and are damn lucky it didn't catch on fire due to a copious fuel-line leak, so we spent about US$10000 on repairs, gas, renting an auto transport, renting an alternative car, etc., and I think we sold it for about US$4000. So in a sense we spent US$12000 on three months' rent, which is quite a bit more than we were spending on our apartment in San Francisco. This was in 02006 so add 50% to all these numbers; the dollar has lost a third of its value since then. https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/129519600 https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/129519600 But we also drove about 10000 km during that time, a quarter of the way around the world, and that was the expensive part; something new would break on it every day. And the auto transport was a big expense caused by needing to meet a deadline even though I still had the engine apart. (The first time I paid someone else to rebuild it; the second time I did it myself.) There were three weeks we were parked in a campground with a cracked cylinder head when I think we spent about US$600. If we'd been driving 30 km once a week, or 3 km every day, instead of over 100 km a day, and if we hadn't abused and overheated the engine, it would have been a pretty cheap way to live. I don't know if we could have gotten below US$100 a month but I think US$300 would have been within easy reach. And it was the most pleasant place I've ever lived, but it didn't have a toilet. There wasn't room. But it had a propane refrigerator, a stove, a sink, a bed, storage space, a pop top, and a propane space heater. That was 16 years ago, I think cars are better quality now. Finicky air-cooled engines are few and far between nowadays — the guy who bought the van from us sent a rod through the crankcase a few years later after driving 100km down the highway in second gear — and cars generally have better metals, more sensors, and less risk of bursting into flames. If you were just looking for something that would safely provide shelter you wouldn't need something that was the most pleasant place I've ever lived. One night I slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot on an airbed in the bed of a pickup truck with a hardtop. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ctd/7553195670.html https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ctd/7553195670.html is a 23-year-old pickup with hardtop for US$8000, with a 2.5-meter-long bed, and it's a Toyota, so you wouldn't have to fix something new on it every day. Oh, about toilets. Piss is easy enough to manage in Gatorade bottles but shit requires more care. An ecovillage I used to spend a lot of time at, years after the Vanagon, used 20-liter plastic paint buckets for the shit. After shitting in the bucket you would throw in enough wood ash to raise the shit pH into a sterile range and also increase its osmotic pressure into a sterile range, preventing fermentation either aerobic or anaerobic, similar to a chemical toilet. They didn't keep the shit buckets in the living shelters but there was so little smell that I think it wouldn't have been a problem as long as you never spilled one. Later they switched to composting the shit, replacing the ash with dry leaves, which are reasonably effective and easier to get. I have used this solution, with the addition of a black garbage bag, when housesitting for a friend whose toilet was broken; at least over a short period of time there is no smell. These buckets cost US$6 new with a totally airtight lid. For hygiene, we had wet wipes, rubbing alcohol, and clean cotton clothes. It's surprising how far those can get you, even if you aren't stopping in at truck rest stops and the houses of friends and relatives.
ptudan 4y ago
Lol I don't really disagree with the fancy vans being outrageously overpriced but this reads as super patronizing
- jklinger410 4y ago
  Sorry, I re-read it with that perspective and I see how it could come off that way. I am actually empathetic to children raised with dumb parents and yuppies who were grifted into selling their belongings to follow the tiny life trend.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
brokenkebab2 4y ago
Overgeneralization detected! I live tiny, and spend less than I used to. I'm not in US though. But I think the general principle is the same everywhere: many of those who come to alternative homes do it not to save (especially from IT crowd), but for the fun of trying something different, and they happily spend a lot. But some do it to practice self-restraint. Others to keep themselves busy with DIY. Many different goals, many different compromises, all of that leading to different budgets.
Dig1t 4y ago
I’m not sure it’s a grift exactly, it’s a fairly new trend and I just don’t think the market has responded to the demand yet. Given enough time and consistent demand for livable vans, I think prices will come down. This is big business and it’s just starting to be tapped by big players who can bring the cost down.

notch656a 4y ago

huh? I lived in a subaru outback in the forest for some time. I bought the car for $1500. It lasted ~6 months, I spent a few hundred registering and bare-minimum insuring it and when it died I called a junkyard and they hauled it away and gave me $100. It's not like it cost anything to park it in national forest. When I was homeless in North Dakota I met a guy with a Ford E350 ho bought for about the same price. He was handier than I was and as far as I can tell he could keep it running indefinitely from junkyard parts for almost nothing. The grift is overselling what goes into the van, or a new and overbuilt van. The bigger issue is van-life dumps your externalities on everyone else -- you aren't paying property taxes but you probably still avail yourself of local public services and utilities as part of the cheap living. It doesn't scale.

jansan 4y ago
You are an individualist, maybe even a trendsetter. We are talking about a trend that has reached the well-off yuppies (does that word still exist?). A friend of mine was just about to shell out 70,000€ for a small van, without really knowing what to do with it, because some of his neighbors bought one recently..
- klyrs 4y ago
  yuppies and hippies are all just boomers now
jklinger410 4y ago
The grift I'm talking about is not the up-front price of the van, but the price of the lifestyle.

cpsns 4y ago

Tiny homes didn’t start out expensive. I remember years ago when it was just something eccentric people did to get away from society which they talked about on very obscure forums. Those tiny homes were not luxurious, they were spartan and not the sort of thing the average person would have liked. The idea of having them on trailers wasn’t really a thing yet at that point. Of course at some point someone saw dollar signs and the rest is history.

22c 4y ago
I believe at one point they were called "cabins" ;)

kragen 4y ago

IIRC I spent about US$6000 (not US$60k, US$6k) on a 24-year-old Volkswagen Vanagon with an aftermarket camper conversion kit. My wife and I lived in it for about three months as we traveled around the US visiting people. We had to rebuild the engine twice and are damn lucky it didn't catch on fire due to a copious fuel-line leak, so we spent about US$10000 on repairs, gas, renting an auto transport, renting an alternative car, etc., and I think we sold it for about US$4000. So in a sense we spent US$12000 on three months' rent, which is quite a bit more than we were spending on our apartment in San Francisco. This was in 02006 so add 50% to all these numbers; the dollar has lost a third of its value since then. https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/129519600 https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/129519600 But we also drove about 10000 km during that time, a quarter of the way around the world, and that was the expensive part; something new would break on it every day. And the auto transport was a big expense caused by needing to meet a deadline even though I still had the engine apart. (The first time I paid someone else to rebuild it; the second time I did it myself.) There were three weeks we were parked in a campground with a cracked cylinder head when I think we spent about US$600. If we'd been driving 30 km once a week, or 3 km every day, instead of over 100 km a day, and if we hadn't abused and overheated the engine, it would have been a pretty cheap way to live. I don't know if we could have gotten below US$100 a month but I think US$300 would have been within easy reach. And it was the most pleasant place I've ever lived, but it didn't have a toilet. There wasn't room. But it had a propane refrigerator, a stove, a sink, a bed, storage space, a pop top, and a propane space heater. That was 16 years ago, I think cars are better quality now. Finicky air-cooled engines are few and far between nowadays — the guy who bought the van from us sent a rod through the crankcase a few years later after driving 100km down the highway in second gear — and cars generally have better metals, more sensors, and less risk of bursting into flames. If you were just looking for something that would safely provide shelter you wouldn't need something that was the most pleasant place I've ever lived. One night I slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot on an airbed in the bed of a pickup truck with a hardtop. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ctd/7553195670.html https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ctd/7553195670.html is a 23-year-old pickup with hardtop for US$8000, with a 2.5-meter-long bed, and it's a Toyota, so you wouldn't have to fix something new on it every day. Oh, about toilets. Piss is easy enough to manage in Gatorade bottles but shit requires more care. An ecovillage I used to spend a lot of time at, years after the Vanagon, used 20-liter plastic paint buckets for the shit. After shitting in the bucket you would throw in enough wood ash to raise the shit pH into a sterile range and also increase its osmotic pressure into a sterile range, preventing fermentation either aerobic or anaerobic, similar to a chemical toilet. They didn't keep the shit buckets in the living shelters but there was so little smell that I think it wouldn't have been a problem as long as you never spilled one. Later they switched to composting the shit, replacing the ash with dry leaves, which are reasonably effective and easier to get. I have used this solution, with the addition of a black garbage bag, when housesitting for a friend whose toilet was broken; at least over a short period of time there is no smell. These buckets cost US$6 new with a totally airtight lid. For hygiene, we had wet wipes, rubbing alcohol, and clean cotton clothes. It's surprising how far those can get you, even if you aren't stopping in at truck rest stops and the houses of friends and relatives.

ptudan 4y ago

Lol I don't really disagree with the fancy vans being outrageously overpriced but this reads as super patronizing

jklinger410 4y ago
Sorry, I re-read it with that perspective and I see how it could come off that way. I am actually empathetic to children raised with dumb parents and yuppies who were grifted into selling their belongings to follow the tiny life trend.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

brokenkebab2 4y ago

Overgeneralization detected! I live tiny, and spend less than I used to. I'm not in US though. But I think the general principle is the same everywhere: many of those who come to alternative homes do it not to save (especially from IT crowd), but for the fun of trying something different, and they happily spend a lot. But some do it to practice self-restraint. Others to keep themselves busy with DIY. Many different goals, many different compromises, all of that leading to different budgets.

Dig1t 4y ago

I’m not sure it’s a grift exactly, it’s a fairly new trend and I just don’t think the market has responded to the demand yet. Given enough time and consistent demand for livable vans, I think prices will come down. This is big business and it’s just starting to be tapped by big players who can bring the cost down.