Hi Marie, Many Seniors these days are buying much older RVs and Vans for a song and then renovating the interior to live in them to afford basic necessities. I even saw how a young woman did that, while working remotely from her RV and traveling the country. If you have a laptop and a cell phone, you can work anywhere. The RVers tend to know where to park and along the way they make good friends. One group parked their vehicle near an large Amazon warehouse and lived a normal life while working at amazon during the day. In fact that RV area was home to many RVers that did that. Its an interesting lifestyle. I have a friend that is putting together a Golden Girls Situation in her house by renting rooms out for an affordable rent with everybody pitching in to do basic household chores. Plus, I know a woman who bought a 45 foot Hatteras boat to live on and renting a slip at a private Yacht Club. Living in a good climate like Texas, Arizona, or Florida iis recommended. By the way, I also help seniors find money especially if they have credit card debt. I had that problem a few years ago and found a great company that I've been with for three years now. One more year to go and my 25K debt will be totally paid off. I can't say enough about them. I'll be happy to pass on their name and phone number to you. I'm also licensed to assist seniors to sell an unneeded and unwanted insurance policy for a lump sum cash settlement. I'm affiliated with a well established Life Settlement firm with along track record since 1993. Check out my website to learn more. It's easy...just type (all lowercase they together) my first and last name Joyce Bidwell and add a .com to it. If you click on the Life Settlement page and scroll down a bit, you'll then find a short animated video to view that simply explains a Life settlement. I have a ton of information to share. And if you have questions, I'm always available for a friendly phone call or email. Best regards, Joyce
It is definitely an interesting time to be a senior. Sometimes I worry and sometimes I laugh at situations. The tiny house movement put living in mobile homes of all sorts out into the mainstream. Creativity is our best tool. Welcome to the board, Joyce!
I'm always amazed by those living in a converted van. I like your profile photo. Delicious! Happy Thanksgiving.
This is not actually the place to advertise your life insurance settlements, @Joyce Bidwell . I see that you have a website, and there is a place on the forum that Admin has designated for member websites, at the top of the main page, under Forum Notices and Announcements. You are welcome to put your business information there, in case people want to contact you; but please do not promote sales here in the discussion part of the forum.
Your friend who is setting up a 'Golden Girls' situation; could you let us know how that goes? I thought of 'renting' a room to a person to help around the house or the farm but what if it does not go well? What if you don't get along or the renter steals, breaks, ruins stuff, sleeps around....? Here in Wisconsin you would probably have to go through the eviction process which, although is not as hard as some think, could cause more problems until the person leaves. In Vermont they have an organization which puts the principles together and has a negation clause for the first so many days/months.
I remember camping in our little trailer when I was a kid and hearing the sound of televisions coming out of other campers and wondering "Why?"
Why would anyone construct a bridge that low? I think they have to be 16 feet here, and even those have warning signs when you approach them.
"Designed in the 1920s and built in 1940 – long before height requirements considered things like box trucks and tractor trailers – the Norfolk Southern-Gregson Street Overpass is better known as The Can-Opener Bridge. The Norfolk Southern–Gregson Street Overpass, also known as the 11-foot-8 Bridge, is a railroad bridge in Durham, North Carolina, United States." Our RV was 12'10" tall, so we paid very close attention to overpass clearance signs.
The RV street living, with seniors making up an alarming percentage of the vagabonds, is mainly in Portland where miles of RVs and trailers can be seen along the streets of the lower middle class and poor areas. This has forced many homeowners to sell their residences cheap or just abandon and default on their taxes. Most of these places are soon taken over by squatters and not even the state with a tax lien, can evict them. We have it here, way out east, when the nomads, many of them young seniors, can't afford an RV spot for a few days stay, so they park behind the shopping center. It usually takes a few days for the property owners to get them to move along. There must be "travel agents" on CB that tell these RVer's with old rigs where to park. One such a couple set up their trailer in a back lot where employees were supposed to park and it took 2 weeks to get them to move. They had lawn chairs and even a BBQ out under their roll out canopy. They had mechanical problems with their old rig and finally some local charity paid a mechanic to go fix their rig. We still have one senior that lives in a tent (since his old broken down pickup and camp trailer were hauled off) and tows two trailers behind his bicycle. After he got ran out of the parks, he stays in the trees behind the shopping center. These nomads like the shopping center as they can collect a lot of money from soft hearted folks and also the trash cans and dumpsters are a great source of cans and bottles with a 10 cent deposit. The amazing thing is, I don't think these vagabonds, nomads, hobos, or just plain bums, ever cash in their deposit containers. It is a sign of wealth. The one with the most shopping carts over filled and with bags tied all over it, is the king, I suppose. One guy was up to six carts, piled high, tied together before he was robbed. I called him the engineer since he acted as the locomotive pulling the train and his female accomplish, wife, partner, or whatever, helped guide the train, working as the caboose. What is really amazing, is how many of these poor nomadic seniors have cell phones. I suppose their SSI is enough to cover that expense.
Even though this is a fairly warm state, we really do not see homeless living in vans and RV’s here, although there are definitely homeless, and some that go through the parking lots hoping for a handout. Just about all of the people we see wandering the street (homeless or otherwise) have a cell phone now, since they can get a free “Obama phone” and pretty much unlimited minutes for talk/text each month. They used to be a Tracfone, but I believe that they now have smartphones and can go online with them. We have a lot of the Hispanic illegals here, and they have phones, too; also probably a benefit from the government.