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I bummed around Europe ( mostly France) for 8 months last year. I surf maybe 3 to 4 times a week and... I live ( and own a home) about 4 blocks from the beach. Haven't had a job since November 2016.
I live in SoCal and am very curious in how you manage to own a home near the beach w/o a VERY high paying job or extremely fortunate inheritance. You can't post things like that without an explanation because it's not even remotely possible for the vast majority of Americans. I also live 4 blocks form the beach in an awesome neighborhood but I pay an insane amount of money in rent to do so, almost 4x the mortgage I paid for a large beautiful house in MI. The house I rent is nice, but it's small and old but would cost nearly a miilion dollars to own. I love living in SoCal and wouldn't move back for anything but I won't pretend it doesn't come at a very high cost.
I bummed around Europe ( mostly France) for 8 months last year. I surf maybe 3 to 4 times a week and... I live ( and own a home) about 4 blocks from the beach. Haven't had a job since November 2016.
I think your post is rather misleading since you're bragging a bit and making it sound as though you're doing this relying on your own resources, while witholding information about your lack of employment or earning status. I don't believe your carefree privileged trust fund lifestyle is quite the same thing as the kind of frugal penny-pinching "bumming around" that this topic is about.
You've posted an awful lot of personal information about yourself in several forums on City Data stating that you're a late 20's female trust fund baby who doesn't have to work. You don't personally own it but do have access to a nice house, cash and a s---load of expensive toys, vehicles, clothing, jewellery, vacations and other high-end assets afforded by your trust fund. You have a wealthy lawyer daddy and a wealthy older sugar-daddy type of "friend with benefits". You are the well off exception, not the norm, and you can afford to bum around 24/7/365 in high style for as long as your trust fund holds out for you.
But I don't think it's fair for you to be flaunting and boasting about your lifestyle to people who have to work hard and be so careful with their money and their time, and leading them on is wrong when the reality is you cannot or will not afford on your own merit the privileged lifestyle that you take for granted. It's a good thing that you are well enough educated (at least you sound like it) since you might be forced to fall back on that education some day and get an honest job.
It sounds like you are living the digital nomad lifestyle .
I'm guessing you have pretty strong tech skills ?
There seem to be more people doing this now with high speed internet being more common although overall I'm sure it's a tiny percentage of the population .
It does sound like a lot of fun .
Not necessarily strong tech skills. I do a little tech-related freelancing here and there, but I also do some copy editing and a lot of babysitting (my son). My wife is Chinese travel writer. We also make some money with our travel vlog.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Quote:
Originally Posted by detshen
I live in SoCal and am very curious in how you manage to own a home near the beach w/o a VERY high paying job or extremely fortunate inheritance. You can't post things like that without an explanation because it's not even remotely possible for the vast majority of Americans. I also live 4 blocks form the beach in an awesome neighborhood but I pay an insane amount of money in rent to do so, almost 4x the mortgage I paid for a large beautiful house in MI. The house I rent is nice, but it's small and old but would cost nearly a miilion dollars to own. I love living in SoCal and wouldn't move back for anything but I won't pretend it doesn't come at a very high cost.
It's a far higher cost to spend your life living somewhere you don't like doing something you don't want to do.
I think COL is forcing people to be more creative in leeching off of others.
e.g. I rented a room from a drunk who paid house rent to his out-of-town buddy. The drunk lived in the house for free by renting out rooms at a price high enough to cover his house rent, plus a surplus. When I moved in he was collecting unemployment benefits. As a trade union member, he did not have to actively look for work because that was supposedly a responsibility of the union. He used his full 99 weeks of unemployment and then got a 50% VA disability benefit. Then he discovered he could get more money on SS disability and switched to that.
After that I rented a room from a guy who also pays house rent to an absentee landlord, and lives in the house for free by charging higher room rents.
This type of trend is actually more common than one might think (but people obviously don't mention it out of shame/embarrassment). I know a woman acquiantance that's 32 and still lives at home in one of her parent's spare rooms.
She pays no rent, no food, no utilities, etc. She also has a daughter. Because she has so much surplus income from not paying any bills, she recently went out and got herself a brand new car and a $550/month car payment She also spends a TON on designer clothes and random superficial stuff like jewelry and outer-wear.
But if you ran into her, you would think she's wealthy or "upper-middle class".... but nope In reality she's fairly broke at the end of each month as evidenced by her "i'm broke" whining on Facebook. I guess what i'm saying is appearances are deceiving, and people will go OUT OF THEIR WAY to put on this "front" of normalcy/wealth despite for all intents and purposes being poor.
The UNREASONABLY high cost of living/rents is forcing people into all sorts of strange arrangements. Living with parents well into adulthood is the big elephant in the room that people avoid talking about.
Not necessarily strong tech skills. I do a little tech-related freelancing here and there, but I also do some copy editing and a lot of babysitting (my son). My wife is Chinese travel writer. We also make some money with our travel vlog.
Oh interesting . That's cool you guys are making money from travel writing .
I'd like to see your blog if you want to post it or PM it to me .
This type of trend is actually more common than one might think (but people obviously don't mention it out of shame/embarrassment). I know a woman acquiantance that's 32 and still lives at home in one of her parent's spare rooms.
She pays no rent, no food, no utilities, etc. She also has a daughter. Because she has so much surplus income from not paying any bills, she recently went out and got herself a brand new car and a $550/month car payment She also spends a TON on designer clothes and random superficial stuff like jewelry and outer-wear.
But if you ran into her, you would think she's wealthy or "upper-middle class".... but nope In reality she's fairly broke at the end of each month as evidenced by her "i'm broke" whining on Facebook. I guess what i'm saying is appearances are deceiving, and people will go OUT OF THEIR WAY to put on this "front" of normalcy/wealth despite for all intents and purposes being poor.
The UNREASONABLY high cost of living/rents is forcing people into all sorts of strange arrangements. Living with parents well into adulthood is the big elephant in the room that people avoid talking about.
I know this is very common in L.A many figure they'll never own a home or have their own place so might as well "enjoy themselves".
I've had long stretches of unemployment. I'm employed now and seek to remain that way. When I was unemployed, it rarely crossed my mind to go "bumming around". Why? Fear. It was either go back to living with my parents or be homeless. Being dirty, cold(or hot in the summer), not knowing where you'll sleep that night. And then let's bring up the vagrancy laws. Places with vagrancy laws will gladly arrest and lock up those "bumming around".
I know this is very common in L.A many figure they'll never own a home or have their own place so might as well "enjoy themselves".
Not if they want to remain in LA, but they could most likely own a home or condo somewhere else in CA or in another state. Same with NYC, SF, etc. If they never save their money they will probably still have problems later on.
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She also spends a TON on designer clothes and random superficial stuff like jewelry and outer-wear.
In reality she's fairly broke at the end of each month as evidenced by her "i'm broke" whining on Facebook. I guess what i'm saying is appearances are deceiving, and people will go OUT OF THEIR WAY to put on this "front" of normalcy/wealth despite for all intents and purposes being poor.
