Howard, the main character in my film, finds himself in a predicament — he moved down to Olympia after losing his job to start anew, and after a few weeks of no luck he finds himself still living in his car. With no motivation and only a job at ChaCha, he tries to find meaning in his now completely mundane lifestyle to no avail. He’s been sort of forced to live this way, but it could probably be said that if he just put in the time required — he most likely would be able to pull himself out of this deep rut.
I read a lot of articles about living in your car for this project, some of the ones that stuck out to me dealt with people who are simply choosing to live in their cars out of convenience and budget constraints. A Businessweek article in 2012 said that there was an informal estimate that out of all homeless Americans, 59% live in their cars, vans or trucks. A lot of people do it because the simply cannot afford the payments on their houses, some do it almost right off the bat because they see the frugality of living in a motor vehicle. You can even live a pretty posh lifestyle by getting an RV. In the same Businessweek article, however, there was a piece about a Californian woman who had lived in her Toyota Prius for 5 years while working part time and going to school in different cities. My god, that is crazy.
I’d always thought about buying a big van and living in it. It definitely would be more affordable and I would really enjoy being that mobile all the time. I also love decorating spaces, so making a van a nice place to live would be an interesting opportunity to be creative. I actually thought pretty seriously about moving into a motor vehicle instead of an apartment or a house for the summer and came across this awesome wikiHow article that pretty much lays it all out for it. Give it a read, couldn’t hurt to consider some options if things go south/you want to have a little adventure! The links to the Businessweek article and another Shareable article are at the bottom.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-02/living-in-your-car-no-longer-just-for-bums
http://www.shareable.net/blog/Is-Living-in-Your-Car-A-Viable-Way-to-Save-Money%3F
Posted In: Journal Entries
Kate
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wow, this is crazy because I swear I was thinking all about this recently. The idea of moving and seeing new things all from the comfort of your home, with your personal effects surrounding you at all times sounds amazing. I agree that living in an RV or motor home sounds amazing and I am very interested to see what happens in your movie. Thanks for the links, I will definitely check them out.
Day Moor
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that wiki article was really helpful, if I could drive I would probably live in an rv or something
Brooke
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I have never really thought about living in a car or even thinking about people who live in cars. It is definitely an interesting topic to explore. I am looking forward to seeing your film.