mrbike27

is it possible to living without a home and a car and ONLY have a bicycle with just the clothes on your back. i thaught about trying this experment by just traveling to work and around on just a bicycle for a month to see how much money i would save not worying about bills. i realize i will have to sleep in a storage bin and bathe wearever

acroy

sure it is. head to "living car free" for how. I did it for much of my college career. Living now "car-lite" - own a car but only use it once a week or so
Cheers

mrbike27

how long would someone last in this kind of spot. all you have is your bike and clothes on your back. just biking to work and back to whereever. i am gonna try this for a month to see how much money i can save while not paying bills.

Niles H.

If you poke around on kenkifer.com, you can find places where he describes such lifestyle. You might try some of the touring sections, where he describes styles or types of bicycle touring.

If you get some racks and panniers, you can just be on tour. You can pick up basic supplies at thrift shops and garage sales. I just bought a down sleeping bag plus a tent, both in fine condition, for ten bucks. I've also found water filters, cooking utensils and many other useful items, all priced very reasonably.

It makes sense to spend some (it can be very few) dollars on a touring setup. That way you don't have to sleep in dust bins, etc., and you aren't so much at the mercy of weather.

You might find some helpful threads on the touring subforum.

(However, most people there spend a lot more money.)

You could try posting on the touring forum -- find out there what to get for a very basic touring setup, and how to do it inexpensively.... You might get some useful tips.

Blue Jays

Make sure to drink lots of wine and don't bathe for full-effect. Your fixed expenses will remain in place, so you'll save far less money than you think.

timmhaan

it would probably be wise to get a membership at a local YMCA. that way you can shower, shave, use the bathrooms, etc.

you can use landromats to wash your clothes.

can you keep stuff at work?

mrbike27

i dont drink sorry. im doing it just to save any amount i can. if i have to ill live in the woods in a lean-to

evblazer

You might want to check the touring forums they have experience living off a bike even if it is only a short time. I think there are a couple people out there that have been touring for years that aren't on the forum but that is their life now. They don't even go to work This guy just started https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?...c_id=1158&v=BO


I'd think food/clean water would be much of your problem as long as you have somewhere safe to sleep. If available nearby a campground would be a legal and possibly cheap way to do it.

How are you getting out of paying for your current housing/insurance/items or are you just leaving it all behind permanently?

jamesdenver

Uh - yeah. If you plan on maintaining a job then bathing and sleeping somewhere secure are a necessity. What's the point? By the time you pay for a cheap roach infested motel with grimy showers you can rent a room off Craigslist for $300 a month. That's pretty cheap to live.

Unless you're just doing it for fun. Like when I see a train going by real slow and think "Why not just hop on and see where I end up?" (I'll post on that when I do it)

cerewa

Think about the basics. If your job provides a place to shower, you've got one thing covered. Otherwise you need to find somewhere else to bathe. Water heated on a campstove might work, if you have a campstove.

You'll need to cook unless you plan on just paying for food cooked by someone else. (do you have a campstove?)

If you cook for yourself you'll need to buy food and probably need to figure out how you're going to transport it and store it with no car/house.

And of course there's the huge issue of where you'll spend your non-working time, which will hopefully not involve being inconvenienced by irate people (cops possibly) telling you "you can't be here." A site in a campground would be one possibility, which would probably have provisions for drinkable water, plus outhouses or toilets.

It's hard for me to tell by what you've posted, whether you have thought much about these needs.

I also don't know where you might find a forest to live in with a lean-to.... if you live far from any big cities it might be easy but near big cities it's not so easy.

Artkansas 

I know a guy who used to live under his desk at Borland while he was trying to save money like your are, though I think he had a car. When I lived in San Diego, there were camps of migrant workers off in the bushes near my neighborhood. They would walk into town to do their grocery shopping and walk out to the fields in the morning. From the reports I read, it was a pretty rough life.

Seems like staying clean is your biggest challenge. Commuting forum might have some hints that way too. Staying safe would be your number two challenge.

Blue Jays

mrbike27, what kind of work do you do? Is it something where you could shower every-other-day and still get away with it? Do you work in an office with formal attire?

DataJunkie

I think the term is homeless.

mandovoodoo

I've toured that way. Self-contained. Costs very little. Minimum shelter. Keeping clean is indeed the hard part. I've bathed in lots of streams! Security for one's bike and stuff is more difficult than might be initially apparent. I'd think about a little trailer I could use as a shopping cart. Take all my goodies with me. Some people will mess with your stuff purely out of spite.

Tabor

Where... exactly... would you sleep at night? It is easier if you own a van.

gwd

I did this when I was younger for a few months at a time. But I had more than the clothes on my back. You can save a lot of money if you have a safe place. Let us know how you do. I did odd farm jobs and lived out in the woods. I had no bike and just walked everywhere. I didn't ask for money when I worked so the people in the area got this huge guilt trip going and fed me and looked out for me. In the end they insisted I take money. It makes me smile to remember those days.

Bizurke

I've spent my fair share of time with out a home so I'll try to give some tips. If you want a place to shower and a safe place to keep some clothes/belongings I suggest getting a membership to a gym that lets you have your own locker. This gives you a place you can go when it rains during the day, a shower, people to talk to, tv to watch, and all sorts of things for a relatively small price. One of the biggest problems of being w/out home is that you spend a lot of time by yourself with out entertainment, this can drive you crazy being alone all this time. I suggest you pay regular visits to your library as a free source of entertainment, internet, etc.

Make sure NOT to squat in someone elses area, there are other people out there who don't have a place to live and some of them take the meager place they sleep at night very seriously and consider it home, it would be the same as if some bum just walked in your house and started sleeping in your bed.

Don't be scared to ask other "street people" you see around for some tips on where to go for shelter and other things, for the most part they take care of each other but you will get the crazy ones here and there.

Don't have a bike that looks nice in the least bit, if it is nice then make it look as bad and undesirable as you possibly can. The last thing you need is your bike stolen or to get jumped because of your bike.

As far as living in the woods goes. You can get a small 1 person tent that has an area to keep your gear (bike) out of the rain for pretty cheap, they roll up to fit in about 1/3 of a panier. Visit your local military surplus store for all sorts of great items for living in the woods. If you're trying to find a place that is wooded enough to not be seen (have the cops called on you) and still want to remain close to town I suggest following the train tracks. Though it is trespassing I've learned that railroad employees are pretty used to people living on their property and for the most part will just ask you to leave. Generally though, they don't want to go out of there way to deal with it.

notfred

Why bother having a bike? It's not like you'd need it to get home from work.

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure it is possible, but you knew that already. Go for it! You know it is what you want to do.

Dahon.Steve

Once you move to living outdoors, it will be very difficult to go back to living indoors. Once you get used to living outdoors, it may become permenant. If you need extra money, move into a studio and get another part time job. If you life is hard now, it's about to get much harder once you live outdoors.

UmneyDurak

Yeah it's called being homeless, millions of Americans do it.

Conveyor Belt

+1 on the homeless... I see plenty of homeless everyday, tooling around on their bikes with baskets full of cans their taking to the recycling center to get some money for alcohol.

billew

You don't say if you are in a populated area or not but there are many resources in one like soup kitchens at chuches.

AStomper

I've been thinking of doing something like that next summer. I plan on paying rent at my home ahead of time and starting off with like 500 dollars.

+1 on jumping on a train, I started hanging out at a little train yard recently and it is very tempting.

orange leader

Just a month? If you want to know, then just add up all your house-hold associated bills: Rent, heat, electricity, phone (unless you have a cell, then you might keep that), renters/homeowners insurance, etc.

You might find the cost of eating out, or cooking fuel, and camping gear might make the cost of a permanent abode a wash, especially if it's only a month. If it were longer term, then the cost of the equipment could be stretched.