By the Numbers: One-Year Retrospective
This past Sunday (May 8) was Mother’s Day this year, but it also happened to be my one year (v)anniversary of living full-time and continuously in van v2.0. Counting the time I lived in v1.0 (September–December 2020), it’s been 16 months. So it seems like a good time for a very math-y perspective on how it’s going so far.
I had to start by thinking about miles traveled. Since I bought the van with (I think) about 298,000 miles on the odometer, I’ve put about 31,000 miles on it, averaging 1,937.5 miles per month. Given that the average driver covers a little over 1,100 per month, that’s a lot.
It also means I’m generating about 2,700 lbs of CO2 emissions each month, which—well, I’d really rather not. (I’m paying a shockingly low amount ($23) per month to offset 5,000 lbs of CO2 through Terrapass, though I’m not sure how effective this carbon offset program or any other program is at compensating for the damage I’m doing.)
I tried to use Google Maps and then Mapquest to draw my approximate route since May 2021, but Google Maps wouldn’t let me add enough stops and Mapquest failed to compute the route past November 2021. So you’ll just have to imagine it:
I’ve been as far northwest as Seattle; as far southwest as Death Valley, CA; as far southeast as metro Tampa, FL; and as far northeast as South Jersey. Colorado would end up looking like a hub: and I’ve looped around the mountain ranges in the north and south of the state. I’ve also made sort of a Y-shape in New Mexico and visited Capitol Reef and Arches National Parks in Utah.
Am I Better Off?
When I decided to move into a van, I was hoping for a couple of things: a) that it would help me save money, or at least break even, and b) improve my quality of life.
So it’s time for some van-cost calculations that I’ve put off for a year, simply out of dread of what I’ll see when I look through my old credit card statements: the fast-food breakfasts; the four single-serve kombuchas in a two-week period when a large bottle would have been cheaper and buying none at all would have been more responsible; all the orders from mega-retailers that are destroying individual lives and the world in general and profiting space billionaires; and my general moral decline from my financially-disciplined, I-know-where-every-cent-is-going teens and twenties into my weak-willed, effete, flabby middle age.
But deep breath. Here goes.
Did I Save Money on Housing?
Base cost of van (purchase, registration, initial repairs): $2,801.17
Professional help with build (solar, removing rear AC/heat units): $1,898.72
Build supplies (including lumber, battery, fan, insulation, hardware, mattress, etc.): $6,764.54
Repairs, maintenance (not counting oil changes), upgrades (fancy tires): $3,685.39
TOTAL: $15,149.82
Honestly, despite my initial hope of keeping the whole van under $10k, $15k is about what I was suspecting. And I’m guessing it’s more than I’ve spent, total, on all the other cars I’ve ever owned in my life. (Which were all compact sedans or hatchbacks that I bought used and drove until the wheels fell off, metaphorically speaking.)
So to me, $15k sounds pretty cheap for a house… but a LOT for a car… but cheap for a house! I don’t know what to think!
But I still need to factor in travel costs. Some Googling and some very loose math tells me that the average cost of gas since September 2020 has been $3.50.
Doing another calculation I’ve been dreading, I find that the van gets an average of 13.24 miles per gallon, which is not as bad as I was afraid of, but not great.
31,000 miles @ 13.24 per gallon = 2,341 gallons x $3.50 = $8,193.50
So here’s the grand total cost of living in a van since September 2020:
Van total: $15,149.82
Driving all over the place: $8,193.50
Campgrounds (estimate): $520
—————————————————————
TOTAL: $23,863.32
Now let’s compare that to what it would’ve cost me if I stayed in my Denver condo. I’m assuming that I’m spending about the same on food, entertainment, healthcare, laundry, car insurance (the van is a little more than my old car, but not that much), etc.
Condo mortgage + HOA fees + average electric, September 2020-present: $715 x 16 = $11,440
OK, so that sucks. Living in a van has not saved me money on housing.
In fact, it’s cost me $12,423.32 more.
But the van had some big initial costs that I hopefully won’t encounter again, like the initial purchase price and all the stuff for the interior build. So is there ever a point where I’ll break even financially?
Yes, there is. But—assuming that I continue to drive an average of 1,937 miles/month, that the price of gas stays the same as it is right now ($4.10), and that my condo HOA fees would not have gone up—the break-even point won’t be until 2031.
:/
But what if I drove less? Say I could reduce driving by 1/3. That moves the break-even point to 2026. Which is better than 2031… but still not super.
Things become slightly better if I reduce driving by 1/2: I’d break even in early 2025. The same could happen if I reduce driving by 1/3 but gas goes down to $3.50/gallon.
So the news here is not great: If I ever want to break even, I need to start driving less.
Did My Quality of Life Improve?
So all my cost estimates assume that nothing major will go wrong with the van (knock on wood) and that nothing major would have gone wrong with my condo. It also assumes that if I’d stayed in the condo, I wouldn’t have traveled beyond some occasional day trips or camping trips into the Colorado mountains.
Which brings me to the next question: has living in a van been better, in other ways, than living in a condo?
I wish I could do math for this too. (And if you know of a more rigorous way to measure quality of life, message me!) But all I know to do is make an old-fashioned pros and cons list:
Living in Condo
Living in Van
It’s tough to make a meaningful comparison here without the ability to see into a parallel universe where I’d stayed in the condo. Maybe, in the last year-plus, I would’ve found some ways to alleviate the negatives of staying in the condo: maybe an amazing career opportunity would have opened up, quieter neighbors would have moved in, or something totally unexpected and great would happen.
Also, it wasn’t a binary choice between van and condo. I was considering some other options, like moving onto a boat in Baltimore or a small house somewhere in the desert or the rural midwest. Maybe those options would’ve been much better than the van… or much worse.
All I know is that even though I’m pretty disappointed that I’m not saving a ton of money over the condo, I feel like my quality of life is better than it would’ve been if I’d taken the other, obvious path of staying put. Even though the van has a ton of drawbacks, the positives have some heft to them. My stress level seems lower than it was when I lived in more “normal” places. I think I’ve gotten healthier and am in better shape. And I enjoy being “at home” more. (And if I decide that I need to make cutting costs more of a priority, I can quit at any time! Really! (Do I sound convincing? I’m not so sure that I do.))
I’ll end with a caveat, if anyone is reading this out of curiosity about what a nomadic life costs: this blog post uses a sample size of one to obtain its data. I imagine that some people spend much more every year; I know for a fact that many spend far less. The Homes on Wheels Alliance (HOWA) is a great resource for nomadic life on a budget. One of their videos features a guy whose total expenses (minus the initial cost of his RV) are under $4k/year, and other folks talk about how they live within their means on fixed incomes like social security. (The Glorious Life on Wheels channel also features folks on fixed incomes and talks about how that works.) So low-budget vanlife can be done… I’m just not doing it.