Making a Living While Backseat Living

So guys, I’ve been talking to quite a few of you lately and it seems like there are some serious reservations about making the leap to mobile living. One of the questions that keeps coming up is the making of the mulla.  I figured I'd take a moment to address a couple of concerns about:

Working

Awesome Book

One of the the scariest parts of mobile living is paying for it! I have a short attention span with both locations and careers, so this comes up often. There are a few sources that have really come in handy for me and some fellow vagabonds.

1. First and foremost, go buy “The Back Door Guide to Short-Term Job Adventures” by Michael Landes. Get the 4^th edition, while some of the contact info may be outdated, it’s still bigger and better than the newer versions

2. Check out the forestry department and other government agencies. They have a lot of jobs for people who are not tied down by home ownership.

3. Don’t worry about whether you’ll be “presentable” for work; you’re not moving into the sewer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle style. You’ll get a cheep gym membership or find a college to shower at, you’ll have a laundromat, and will not be wearing the same cloths for days at a time (unless that’s your thing and then, hey, you’re on your own).

4. Stigma. Weird that this should come up so often, but we are social beings and most people worry about what other people will think. I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't care, because you still will, but begin to think of your nomadic living as a life choice, not as a failure to live within the social norms.

5. Talk to people. I can't stress this enough! There is a whole world out there of people, just like you, who have been living like this for years and have some great ideas, suggestions, and stories. There are whole nomadic communities, people you may never meet otherwise because they live outside the average social sphere. I guarantee that any questions or reservations you have, they have stumbled on before.

It's only scary because you haven't done it before. In the past when I've had apartments and was having trouble making rent, I was looking at coming up with $500. Now, if I’m having a cash flow problem, all I need to buy is food. $10 is easy to get and that takes a lot of the pressure off. It also means that instead of getting a job just to support a mortgage or rental payment, you can get a job you really love that may not pay as much. Good Luck!