Crazy things you've done to save money

Cardboard box guy wrote:

Storage unit is not a chain, however, they are an authorized U-haul dealer if you count that. I have 100% control of the climate setting and leave it at 72 degrees. Regardless of what i set it at, my bill is $85 a month.

A secondary positive of this is that it really forces you to be much more social. Instead of a typical person that may shut themselves in their room from 8pm to bedtime and watch TV, I find myself hanging out at all my buddies houses 3-4 nights a week just to hang out.

How do you avoid getting caught by management? Usually these places have on-site management who also live on the property or other ways like cameras and keycodes to detect who is accessing the facility. I don't think it would get noticed right away but after seeing the same person enter and leave the property everyday, I would think someone would pick up on it. I used to rent a storage locker to store stuff in a few years ago and I always had to enter a code to get through the gate and even then I always had to pass by the manager's office/home.

bldwg wrote:

How do you avoid getting caught by management? Usually these places have on-site management who also live on the property or other ways like cameras and keycodes to detect who is accessing the facility. I don't think it would get noticed right away but after seeing the same person enter and leave the property everyday, I would think someone would pick up on it. I used to rent a storage locker to store stuff in a few years ago and I always had to enter a code to get through the gate and even then I always had to pass by the manager's office/home.

Agreed. Curious if he's just lucky or they don't care.

This girl and I were about to partake in the coitus. Neither of us had protection. Rather than going and purchasing 3 condoms for 7 bucks at the gas station, I watched some TV.

I had a similar experience in Madrid, only I walked not ran. Total time was around three hours. I walked from Kapital near Atocha to Foxa 25, near Chamartín

I don't get caught by management because management knows about it. I wouldn't have been able to pull this off without them, because technically I'm not supposed to have my car parked on the inside of the gate, or else I'd be paying for a "car storage fee", which is another $50 a month.I'm stationed in an area where they're desparate for any business they get, so once I told him what I was planning to do, he couldn't refuse as it's guaranteed revenue for him. My contract is a month by month lease, which is much more flexibile than a regular apartment. By default, I have "renters insurance" since the storage unit covers any damages to my property (built in to the $85 a month). It's really a GREAT deal, but you have to get luck to find someone willing to work with you. For full and open disclosure, I got rejected from over a dozen storage facilities when I proposed this to them, but this guy was cool with it.

Dude, you are my hero. I am trying to talk my wife into doing this, but she's giving me some pushback on it.

Wow Unbelievable wrote:

Reading back to the first page, I'm not sure why the guy who got his medicine in sample form from his doctor was "not proud of it." I did the same thing and I was quite proud of it. The doctor had tons of the stuff and saved me hundreds of dollars.

I had recently gone through a divorce, I kept the house, and the kids. I was working two extra jobs (delivering news papers in the morning and maintenance during the summer). The samples helped a bit on the co-pays, but I felt bad because I am sure there were others who were worse off than me.

The storage unit guy has trumped everybody else in this thread but I'll give it a try.

After college, I decided to work for a conservation corp for a year. I could have lived in a city, worked and camped for the workweek in the field, and then spent my weekends in an apartment. Instead, I decided to work and live in a national park, which required me to live in a tent for the entire summer. I saved hundreds of dollars per month on rent, utilities, commute to work, all that stuff. Total cost of rent=$0. I was making about $900 a paycheck, and probably saved up 2/3 of that per paycheck. Hell, right now I'm making $10000 more per year than on that job, but I saved a shit ton more money with the rustic lifestyle.

During the winter months, we had to move south to the desert to continue working outdoors, and I had to get an apartment. However, a friend of mine that loved to rock climb, drink beer, and smoke weed decided to just go six months without an apartment. Our job required us to spend the workweek in the field camping, and then he spent the weekends either: 1) mooching off other people and sleeping on their floors 2) traveling to go rock climbing and camping 3) sleeping at a $15/night campground on the edge of the town so he could easily access the rocks. Last time I talked to him, he got fired from the job in September and had been living out of his car since mid-June just continuing to drink beer and rock climb.

And either because he was a complete idiot or just cheap, he decided to drive with expired license plates and registration for the whole year. While constantly driving drunk or high with plenty of empty beer bottles and paraphernalia in the car. Yea, he just was an idiot.

But storage unit guy still takes the cake.

My nephew spent an entire semester living out of his old Subaru station wagon. He ate in the dining hall and showered at the gym. Total rent was the cost of the parking pass. This was probably cheaper than the storage building but way less comfortable.

There was a blog about a guy who lived in a van while he went to Duke. His last year everyone found out about it and the administration didn't want to allow it. But he had some pretty good posts about how he dealt with certain things.

http://www.spartanstudent.blogspot.com/

He isn't doing it anymore so you might have to go back pretty far on the blog to find it.

cardboard box guy -

I'm curious how you decided that you definitely wanted to live in a storage unit. What gave you the idea? Did you rent a unit, walk in and decide that it was nice enough to live in? What were you going to do if you didn't find a place that would let you do that?

By the way, I think it's a brilliant idea to buy up a storage unit building and rent the "rooms". I read about an apartment building in Shanghai or some other super crowded city that rented rooms as small as 40 square feet. Just big enough for a mattress that you could put against the wall and a chair.

Yeah you actually nailed it. This started when I bought a 1978 Jeep CJ-5 about a year ago and decided to start working on it as a project car. It has no top, no doors, just a bare bones jeep. I kept the jeep in my garage (was renting a house with 3 roommates at the time), however, when the lease ended, I had to find a place to store the Jeep. I had never rented a storage unit before and fully expected to pay $200-300 a month for one big enough to fit a jeep in it. When I shopped around and found that I could get a 10x15 unit, climate controlled, for $85 a month, I was astonished. I'm as cheap as they come (i'm posting under a different name, but you'll find me on all of Flagpoles threads as the guy who does nothing but saves money in Vanguard mutual funds) and the first thing that came to my mind was "this would be some cheap ass rent to pay!".Coming to the decision to live here was actually very easy for a couple reasons:1) I deploy regularly and having my stuff in storage pre-deployment is a huge plus2) All my friends were more pumped up about this than I was, so I wasn't afraid of the "what will my friends think" dilemna3) I don't have to maintain a yard or any other houselhold appliances4) No solicitors, trick or treaters, burglars, etc.. come to the unit5) HUGE MONEY SAVINGS!Not to toot my own horn, but I'm 25 and a half years old, in the military, and have $111,000 in my Vanguard account between my Roth IRA and all my mutual funds. People knock the military for the low pay, but I challenge you to find another 25 year old who has that much saved up (who isn't a trust fund baby). I've got 2 more years at this base, and at this rate, I'll break the $200k mark before I'm 27!Flagpole, eat your heart out brother!

categorically wrote:

cardboard box guy -

I'm curious how you decided that you definitely wanted to live in a storage unit. What gave you the idea? Did you rent a unit, walk in and decide that it was nice enough to live in? What were you going to do if you didn't find a place that would let you do that?

By the way, I think it's a brilliant idea to buy up a storage unit building and rent the "rooms". I read about an apartment building in Shanghai or some other super crowded city that rented rooms as small as 40 square feet. Just big enough for a mattress that you could put against the wall and a chair.

No need to eat my heart out brother...seems you've found a great deal. I ENJOY seeing others win financially, so pile up the cash brother! I hope you eventually save more than I have...good luck and great job!Also, thanks for serving. You military people ought to all be able to retire at age 40 with today's equivalent of $100,000 per year until you die with benefits, and even that wouldn't be enough.

The real secret is to buy a big bag of dried beans and brown rice - the bigger the better. On Sunday of every week cook a week's worth of beans and rice and just eat that twice a day. I figured out the cost one time at around 20 cents/meal. I did that for a year in college when I didn't have a meal plan.Make sure to soak the beans overnight though.

rice cooking fiend wrote:

The secret is to to get a rice cooker. I live off beans and rice a couple times a week, I'll get back from a run, put the rice and some veggies in the rice cooker, stretch, take a shower, open a can of beans, toss it in the finished rice, and I'm ready to eat

Flagpole wrote:

Also, thanks for serving. You military people ought to all be able to retire at age 40 with today's equivalent of $100,000 per year until you die with benefits, and even that wouldn't be enough.

Why? Most of them never do anything dangerous or heroic. Many of them just chose to serve because that's what their high school guidance counselors told them to do when it looked like college wasn't a viable option. Should we afford the same luxury to police officers or firefighters? And what about fast food workers? More fast food workers are killed in the line of duty each year than police officers or firefighters.

For the record, I have many friends and relatives in the service. They all chose this path for one reason or another. I respect them, but not any more than I respect anyone else who has a job and works hard.

compleatidiot wrote:

There was a blog about a guy who lived in a van while he went to Duke.

Did he live in a van down by the river?

Please tell me your studies weren't in English either; your 'close critical reading' sucks. The 'author' said he is a student in city planning.

compleatidiot wrote:

fdfdfdfdfd wrote:

Living in Spain on a tight budget in 2009-2010. On New Year's day 2010 at 7 AM after many drinks and being in a discoteca for a couple hours, i ran home 6.5 miles from town to my host family's house so i wouldnt have to pay 30 euro for a cab. i threw up and took a dump on the side of the road behind some bushes on the way. i remember thinking my body was just going to fail me at some point because i was so exhausted. at the same time, i was already looking forward to telling my friends about my epic new years.

i was shitting in some bushes on the side of the road and thinking "new year's 2010. f++k yeah."

You are on a running site and the "crazy" thing you did was run 6.5 miles.

Well i was still very drunk at the time, it was 7 AM after drinking and dancing since 8 PM the day before, I knew I was likely to get sick on the run, and I was in jeans and a dress shirt and some brown casual shoes/not running shoes. I've run 2 miles home from a bar in dc before, but 6.5 in jeans and such was a stretch