Cattle shouldn't be fed grain in the first place.

Not simply enough. I commute by bike, but I do have a car, albeit an older paid-off one. I spend a lot of money eating out and fixing up my house. I must have a smart-phone, but I buy mine used so I can keep my inexpensive plan. I buy all my clothes at the thrift store and all my furniture was used as well. I have four bikes, all purchased used, but have put plenty of money into them too.

I'm one of the people that actually own a car here. However, I rarely really use the thing. I car share it with my parents (who I feel are horribly indebted into the car culture). I use it solely driving to and from work (I have to fly to work, so airport.....). I've done the math a few times now, its cheaper for me to run a car than it is to use the bus system, which is brutal around here and very expensive. It is what it is.

Use to own a big house, many cars, too much stuff. Sold 95% of it, began travelling around extensively, and now choose to own minimal amounts of things.

I have:
Cellphone
Macbook
3 backpacks....
Lots of tools (I'm in the construction industry)
Work clothes (biggest item I own, big duffle bag of winter gear)
Coffee cup
Water bottle
2 bicycles (1 to be recycled/sold soon)
Couple paintball markers (the other hobby)
Camera (the money pit)

About it. I'm just as happy as before with tons of stuff.

My spending habits are a work in progress. I'd like to spend less money, but I really like good food, staying wired, and owning a few nice things (camera, bicycle). Traveling is a big part of my life to the point where I do more of it than anything else. It's cheap too compared to living in Alberta Canada. And my job covers most of my food and living expenses :)

I strive to live very much under my means. My expenses are 1/5 my income at worst. The rest hits the bank account. People wonder how I afford to live so cheaply and work very little LOL.

We used to have a 5 bedroom house, 2 cars and international vacations. We had a lot of stuff. We moved into a 3 bdrm house (family of 5), we're down to one car we use about once a week and camping. I don't want my kids getting too fixated on stuff. I don't want their self-worth tied up in their belongings, which is what I see happening around me. It seems like 'he who dies with the most toys wins.' We've cut back on a lot and I'm seeing improvements in our home.

Just wondering, what kind of improvements have you seen? :)

Thought you guys would find this article interesting. It is an Interesting idea that I could possibly try at my college because I am about to invest in a camper shell for my tacoma.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb...cal/me-truck19

I guess it depends on your major. You better get your P.O. Box before you give up your address, and you might want to get a self store bin to put stuff that you don't have room for in the truck. This being a bicycle forum, where would you store your bicycle?

Well for mail I have a Campus Box which i only get packages that I order so I could always just ship them home or to a friends box. Showers and a Bathroom would be the problem. I would have to use our student centre for that or a friends apartment. They guy in the article used the student centre for studying. Was part of a Rock Climbing gym for showers and had a PO box for mail. I would not do this for a semester. Partly because I'm at a small school and town. I may try it for a week or two. For the bicycle i would store it on the roof rack on top of the camper shell or on a rack on campus.

That guy lived in his truck for over five years. He was a fool to stay in school so long. He should get any type of job and purchase a better motor vehicle in which to live. It would be so much better and he could continue his mobile lifestyle.

A van conversion with a high roof would be better than the bed of a small truck. Perhaps he could buy a full size truck and put an RV camper on the back. That way it would be like a small apartment with all of the things he would need to live a comfortable life.

I admire his ability to stick it out for so long yet I don't admire his method. I definitely would need a nicer setup to continue that life. I'm looking for a better job so I can purchase a box van to turn into a stealthy RV. I've got another interview tomorrow. If I'm hired, by the end of next summer I should be living in my own portable house.

Doesn't this go against the idea behind Simple Living ? He used what he had and lives comfortably, instead of getting a job to buy something bigger and losing a lot of free time. I actually admire his method.

We all come to simplicity from our own view point and "Level". Simplicity does not have an end all, we are not all striving to be legalistic Minimalism (not trying to degrade that choice). Simplicity focuses on Simplifying your life from where you are at. Some of us take it in strides and for some it takes years to make a dent. Also Simplicity focuses on our mindset. We start to look at why we own the things we own, why we put the money into what we put our money into, why we worry about the things we worry about. The guy was in debt while living in a shared apartment but he saved so much by living in his truck to where when he received a parking ticket for $177, he did not worry about it. For Smallwheels he seems to want a bit more luxury but with the expenses of van conversion would be better than having to deal with the expenses of even a small apartment. For Smallwheels, he would like the luxury of being able to have something he could fully stand up in instead of something you can barely sit inside of. Since I am a college student right now and do not truly have a place of my own, I am focusing more on possessions than my actual living space. To reiterate, we all come to simplicity differently and all like to implement simplicity to certain degrees. Some like to take it to the full on Ghandi where he had about 10 possessions and for some we are lucky if we get rid of half of our hundreds of t-shirts. It also takes time and everyone at some point reaches a point to were we say its enough or we are still trying to simplify and some may even try to simplify beyond what they think is their point and find that they like it or they may go back to how they were. The point of simplicity is to get the unnecessary/ not needed out of life so that the important can be given more time and that comes in all shapes and view points.

^^ Good point. :) It would be great to know if the guy in the article actually likes it this way or if he would go to something bigger if he could afford it. We may never know but oh well. :)

He has a blog at gotruckyourself.blogspot.com which he is still running (the article is from 2007). His truck life just ended recently. I guess he was going to do it till he could not. He definitely probably by now has plenty of money for shelter.

17 years ago, we started on raw land, in the mountains of Montana, in a tent. Never in debt. Doesn't get more "simple" than that. It's been a hard 17 years.

Are you still there? What's it like now? A hard 17 years, but are you glad you did it that way? Sometimes living "hard" wears you down, sometimes it builds you up....

Wherever I live I do want the ability to stand up while inside.

Living in a conventional van would be better than living in a truck bed with a camper top because there would be access to the radio, the air conditioning, and the electrical socket for the cigarette lighter. It would have at least two seats in the front. There are van seat mounting kits that allow the front seats to swivel.

My reasons for wanting to live in a stealthy RV are so I'll always have a home that nobody can kick me out of, and to have my home wherever I travel. If in time I find that I like a certain city or perhaps I prefer to stay in a city for a year or so at a time, I'll build a Tumbleweed tiny house and find places to park it. There are probably plenty of people who wouldn't mind renting their driveway to somebody along with a little bit of water usage.

In 2006 my landlord kicked me out so he could put his daughter in the house. Luckily there was a suitable apartment nearby. I actually like it better. I don't want to be at the mercy of a landlord. Even with a lease I don't know if the owner is making payments on this property. One day the bank might decide to evict us all if the owner messes up.

Simple living will be a necessity in an RV, at least from the standpoint of possessions.

This happened to me in 2008. The bank foreclosed on my landlord. He continued to try to collect rent from me! It turned out pretty good for me. I lived in the place rent free for eight months, although I did pay out of pocket for maintenance and repairs. then the bank paid me $2,000 "cash for keys" to clean up the place and move out within 30 days. It only cost me a couple hundred bucks to have the trash (left by the landlord) hauled away. so I did pretty good.

If you do find yourself in this situation, hang tough. As a tenant, you don't have a lot of rights, but the bank at least has to go through the court to get you evicted--even if you are, in effect, squatting. To avoid the hassle, they'll often pay you cash for your keys. If you're lucky (like I was), this cash will pay your moving expenses.

Stress levels going down. More time. Less noise.

I have been living a cluttered life for over 40 years, I rode into this town on a motorcycle. I wish to ride out on a bicycle, and NEVER come back.
But I have all this stuff, is there any hope for me?

I am looking at the van with utility trailer, my van is my business office, it full already.

I think I've mentioned in the past that one of my ideas was to live in a utility trailer. It is still in consideration though a box van might be more advantageous while parking within a city because it's shorter than a truck pulling a trailer.

Here are a couple of web sites by a guy who lives in a small cargo trailer. There are also several other pages on one of these sites with different versions of living in vehicles. I think I could do better with an interior design but it doesn't take away from these people and what they have achieved.

This guy lives in a tiny cargo trailer.
CheapGreenRVLiving
CheapRVLiving
This is a brief box van story without photos.

These sites don't render well on a Mac computer. The owner says they look fine using Windows. I don't know if that's true. If you use Firefox you can remove the photos to read the full articles by right clicking on the page. Select page info. Then in the box that pops up, click the media tab and check the block images box. Then refresh the page. When you're done at the site just go back and undo the block images box.

Well, sooner or later you're going to have to leave it all behind. What's stopping you now?

Probably the logistics of getting rid of it all.

I am doing a bit of this currently. Trying to make sure that my surplus gets re-cycled and not landfilled.

Craigslist and the Salvation Army are your friend.

Nothing in life is ever certain, not even that you will be alive five minutes from now. Simplicity doesn't mean not having stuff; it means not being owned by stuff. If you can walk away from your stuff with only some temporary regrets, you're fine. On the other hand, if you're so worried about having stuff because you can't bear to think of losing it someday, it already owns you.

What's it like to be owned by stuff you don't even have?

I've got my list of less than two-hundred things to keep. All of the other stuff is up for sale. I've got a guy coming by today to buy a motorcycle helmet. Sure I could give all of my stuff away but I want some value from it. I can use that $30 from the helmet sale.

Dreams are what make life worth living. If we all were perfectly happy with what we have then everybody could just sit down and die. If we didn't want to change a thing then we all would have no desire. Desire is the cause of all suffering according to Buddha. Life is change. So I suppose I'm owned by my desires for a different life within a stealthy RV. I don't have it now but it is a dream to which I'm attached. Dreams and desires are motivation for change.

I wouldn't suffer too much if all of my possessions were lost in some disaster. As long as my landlord would refund my security deposit quickly I'd get by OK. I'd find a room to rent. Then I'd buy a new cheap laptop computer, some clothes, food preparation supplies, a used bicycle, and get on with my life.

To me part of simple living is not owning too much stuff. Last week I sold two 20" studded tires for only $40. It is good that they are out of my living space and the money is in my bank.