When Brandon headed from Massachusetts to the Bay Area in mid-May to start work he thought he would have to pay exorbitant rent for settling into an overpriced San Francisco apartment. Instead why not live in a truck. The idea started to formulate while Brandon was interning at Google last summer and living in the cheapest corporate housing offered: two bedrooms and four people for about $65 a night (roughly $2,000 a month), he explains to Business Insider. “I realized I was paying an exorbitant amount of money for the apartment I was staying in – and I was almost never home,” he says. “It’s really hard to justify throwing that kind of money away. You’re essentially burning it – you’re not putting equity in anything and you’re not building it up for a future – and that was really hard for me to reconcile.” He started planning for living out of a truck immediately, as he knew he’d be returning to work full-time in San Francisco. A school-year later, purchased a 16-foot 2006 Ford with 157,000 miles on it for $10,000. He says that he was able to pay the previous truck owner upfront with his signing bonus. His projected “break-even point” is October 21, according to the live-updating “savings clock” he created on his blog, “Thoughts from Inside the Box.” His one fixed cost is truck insurance — $121 a month — as he doesn’t use electricity, and his phone bill is handled by Google. “I don’t actually own anything that needs to be plugged in,” he explains on his blog. “The truck has a few built-in overhead lights, and I have a motion-sensitive, battery-powered lamp I use at night. I have a small battery pack that I charge up at work every few days, and I use that to charge my headphones and cell phone at night. My work laptop will last the night on a charge, and then I charge it at work.” The space is sparse and minimal, he says: “The main things that I have are a bed, a dresser, and I built a coat rack to hang up my clothes. Besides that, and a few stuffed animals, there’s pretty much nothing in there.” His expenses for living in a truck are minimal. He has to pay one fixed expense,truck insurance @ $121 a month — as he doesn’t use electricity, and his phone bill is handled by Google. “I don’t actually own anything that needs to be plugged in,” he explains on his blog. “The truck has a few built-in overhead lights, and I have a motion-sensitive, battery-powered lamp I use at night. I have a small battery pack that I charge up at work every few days, and I use that to charge my headphones and cell phone at night. My work laptop will last the night on a charge, and then I charge it at work.” The space is sparse and minimal, he says: “The main things that I have are a bed, a dresser, and I built a coat rack to hang up my clothes. Besides that, and a few stuffed animals, there’s pretty much nothing in there.” As for food and showers, that’s all on Google’s campus. He eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner at work, and showers every morning in the corporate gym post-workout. So few expenses means significant savings: “I’m going for a target of saving about 90% of my after-tax income, and throwing that in student loans and investments,” he says.
