Realistic to get a room for $60 per week? (Orlando, Melbourne: luxury, apartment)

[carlos123]

Hi everyone,

Is it realistic for me to move to Orlando and get a simple, plain, unfurnished room in someone's home for $60 per week or less? I don't need shower (I will take showers at the gym), kitchen privaleges, or otherwise. Just a going to the bathroom once in a while. No cable. No TV is perfectly fine.

Will work a lot till I can afford to buy a UPS style truck which I will convert into a one bedroom "apartment" to live in.

Is $60 per week realistic in Orlando? Even for just a space on the floor - no bed (will use a camping mattress).

When I lived in Melbourne ten years ago, $50 dollar a week rooms were plentiful. With the poor economy I would think they still are. Not sure.

Carlos

[**NoodLes**]

Nope

[Alphaman]

Why would you want to move down here and live in a truck? I don`t understand, where are you now?

[carlos123]

I am living in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. WINTER is a coming. And WINTER is a big time WINTER up here. Anybody care to live in a freezer?

I HATE, HATE, HATE winters!

I moved from Michigan to Florida years ago to get away from winters. I came up to Canada and married a Canadian (my wife) from whom I am now seperated. So it's get away from here and down South as far as I can go LOL.

As to why I want to live in a truck? Well it's a long story but essentially I don't like giving up my life in the form of having to work long hours to pay rent to someone else. I would rather live in a truck and save the rent or not have to work as much.

I've lived in my vehicle successfully so for almost four years. I converted an old Suburban by ripping out the seats and putting a bunk bed in it. Take showers at gyms. Eat out a lot or use Safeways as my personal refridgerator picking and choosing what to eat each day (cheaper than eating out every day).

I window clean as a living and can take my equipment with me.

But to move down I will have to give up everything. It's too expensive to go down by vehicle - gas wise. It's cheaper for me to fly down, rent a cheap room or spot on the floor, get any job I can - dishwashing or whatever, work lots of hours, add to my savings and buy a UPS style truck down there. Converting it into a Taj Mahal one bedroom "luxury" apartment on wheels. It will be decked out just like a work truck with my business ad on the sides and back. No one will know I live in it.

I've already checked on the legality of what I hope to do with Florida and it's okay statewide though various cities might have ordinances against it - don't know. It's all perfectly legal up here.

I just want warm weather so that I can get back into window cleaning and continue to pursue trying to make a living over the Internet so that I can eventually return to Chile where I am from - where it's really, really, really hard to make a living - never mind Florida . If I can make a living over the Internet I can live anywhere I want. I can even visit countries and not violate visa requirements while making a living.

In short that is why I want to live in a truck. To be completely frank I think it's nuts to pay upwards of $900.00 a month for rent. I mean one would have to work at least a week or even two at a good wage to make that - after taxes. That's half a year of one's life spent working to give money to someone else just to have a roof over one's head. They used to call it the rat race. I see why.

I don't watch TV - most shows are junk. I go to movies that I like at the theater or watch movies on my laptop. Laundromats are fine for my needs. Gyms are good and I don't have to clean the showers after I use them . I don't need a fridge. I don't invite girls over and could care less about getting into another serious relationship with a woman. I don't really need an apartment for anything. So why bother giving half my life to work to pay someone for one. Makes no sense.

By the way when I say live in a truck I don't mean as in recline the seat and go to sleep. I mean living in one by building a bunk bed in it and setting it up to live as comfortably as possible.

Carlos

[Alphaman]

Well you sound like a really smart person and I wish you luck and unlike the other poster said you can find people to rent rooms for 60 per week back in the day I would have done it but now have children and no rooms.

Good luck on your move.

[Fnix]

Most rooms here the cheapest I can find is $400 per month. Maybe if you find a place in the ghetto.

Where would you put your vehicle so you could sleep in it?

[carlos123]

Originally Posted by Alphaman

Well you sound like a really smart person and I wish you luck and unlike the other poster said you can find people to rent rooms for 60 per week back in the day I would have done it but now have children and no rooms.

Good luck on your move.

Thanks for your kind words Alphaman. Appreciate it.

I didn't know my intelligence came through so well LOLAROTF (Laughing Out Loud and Rolling on the Floor for anyone who doesn't know what that means).

Yeah...I figure somewhere wherever I move in Florida there's got to be somebody willing to rent me a room for $60 a week or less. Still, I was trying to check when I posted my question. Even just a 3x10 foot section of their garage will do me just fine. Just a place to rest my head at night and perhaps use the bathroom once in a while to keep me from being disturbed by the police, vagabonds, punks, homeless people and otherwise (all not equally lumped together mind you ).

Mostly I will be working. Dishwashing. Even being a bus boy. I don't care. I have the long term goal in mind so I will swallow my pride at 50 and do menial jobs. So long as I can add to my savings and buy a UPS truck eventually and get back into lucrative window cleaning.

Edmonton, where I presently live is very good economically. I have some friends who are not exactly well to do or highly skilled yet they are getting paid $17 an hour and up (the CA and US dollars are about par right now). One is just doing construction clean up at that wage. Fast foods are paying upwards of $10 per hour. They can't get anybody to work at less. It's great for making money but money is not everything.

Quality of life or should I say weather is much more important to me. I don't care too much about beaches or mountains as an all important criteria for moving (toward the tail end of when I lived in Florida prior to 1999 I went to the beach all of once or twice a year - mountains are great too but I haven't been to them in about 2 years). I could care less about arts and hip hopping night life. I just want a nice, quiet place with reasonably great weather most of the year so that I can work and mind my own business, preparing for the rest of my life.

I'm still not sure about going to Florida. Maybe Texas is better. Don't know yet. Temp agencies that pay daily for daily work are my stand by when I need quick money and I can't wait two weeks for my first paycheck but in Florida, construction jobs go way down in winter anyway (main job category for daily pay, daily work agencies). With the construction woes I am hearing in this forum that's going to be even worse and there may not be much daily work, daily pay work available at all. Or at least I will be sitting there competing against 100 other guys waiting for work for 6 or 7 jobs on any given day. Not good.

I need to go somewhere where I can get a job quickly. Just a job. Not a professional or career position. Just a plain ol job. And where they won't care too much that I have been self-employed for four years or that I am a transplant coming from Canada. Where being a body that does good work will be enough as long as I am there.

Thanks again for the input ya all.

Maybe I will contact pastors of churches and find out if anyone cares to rent me a spot on their garage floor or go door to door when I get there and ask about such . The biggest problem I see in renting such is that people have so many misconceptions that will interfere with their willingness to rent me a spot. They will think I do drugs, am lazy, a loafer, a criminal hiding out...who knows. The truth is that I am honest, hard working, clean cut, and a lot of other nice things. But convincing people of that so that they will happily rent to me and make more money for themselves for the time I rent a spot on the floor from them is tricky. Not to mention that people tend to initially think I am some kind of weirdo for wanting to sleep on the floor (without understanding the bigger picture of what I want to do with the money I save).

Sometimes when I just flat out and tell people I live in my truck...they look at me with sympathy and say something like "Yeah...I've been there too.". Meaning that it was rough in their life too and they had to live in their vehicle too. Living in a vehicle is my -chosen- lifestyle. Not because I have to or because it's rough in my life but because I want to take advantage of the benefits that lifestyle offers me (i.e. save money).

Sorry for the long post but I like to write and figure...why not. I mean people will read this post or not as they like but on my end it's giving me a chance to express myself...even if it's through a little square box on my laptop screen LOL.

I sure hope this post doesn't resurface if I ever run for President or something LOL.

Carlos

[carlos123]

Originally Posted by Fnix

Most rooms here the cheapest I can find is $400 per month. Maybe if you find a place in the ghetto.

Where would you put your vehicle so you could sleep in it?

Hmmm...Orlando might be pricier than Melbourne (East coast) where I lived before. I once had a nice shack by the ocean in Melbourne. $150 a month! The rich used to come there in the 1920's and such. It was little more than a shabby cabin among many such cabins but it was one the best places I've ever lived at!

$50 a week rooms were plentiful in Melbourne before I left. Lots and lots of people renting for that. That was back prior to 1999.

I would think with the economy hurting people there will be more renting at that price.

Who knows...if I come to Orlando maybe I will just buy an ol beater of a vehicle and sleep in the seat or something. It will be winter so it being too hot won't be a problem.

Don't know what I am going to do yet. One thing I don't want to do is get stuck in the middle of a large city like Orlando without a place to rest my head at night such that my savings will go down the drain on hotels and such.

I won't have a vehicle at first by the way. The whole point of getting real a cheap spot on the floor is that I can then work to save up enough to get what I want. A UPS style truck that i will turn into a one bedroom luxury apartment on wheels .

Maybe I will have to buy a cheap tent and set it up in whatever spot on the floor I rent and zip it up. I don't like the idea of a big fat palmetto bug crawling into my nice, dark, moist cozy mouth while I snore LOL. I remember them things....without any fondness mind you.

Once I get a vehicle I will park it on city streets in industrial areas of town where it will look like any of the number of UPS style cargo vans that park there with lil' ol me sleeping comfortably inside. It's called stealth camping I think. So that I won't attract attention though I am not sure what I will do about my snoring. It's quite loud. Maybe I will sound proof the truck or see if I can sublimilly train myself to sound like an idling diesal when I snore LOL.

Carlos

[beckycat]

Check craigslist and also the Sanford Herald. I think I've seen places there for $75/ week.

[beckycat]

I picked up a Sanford Herald and got a couple numbers for cheap rooms for rent.
1)407-416-5242
2)407-321-4900