Posted on 10/20/2015 12:09:31 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
When 23-year-old Brandon S. headed from Massachusetts to the Bay Area in mid-May to start work as a software engineer at Google, he opted out of settling into an overpriced San Francisco apartment. Instead, he moved into a 128-square-foot truck.
The idea started to formulate while Brandon who asked to withhold his last name and photo to maintain his privacy on campus 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 told 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 laying the groundwork 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, he was purchasing a 16-foot 2006 Ford with 157,000 miles on it.
It cost him an even $10,000, which he paid up front 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Good for him. He’s learning to save and to economize. People like this eventually get ahead in life and end up in a pretty good place, relative to their peers in their age group, 10 or 15 years down the road when he has a big pile of money in the bank. Sacrificing when you are young always pays off. Its good to see some kids still understand it.
My first thought was shady truck out of place equals truck bomb. I suppose that’s a reflection of our times, or my paranoia lol.
Most people have no idea what the housing is like in this liberal bastion.
A) There is not nearly as much buildable land than a map would suggest engineering wise.
B) Very few buildings are taller than the trees, “to maintain the feel”, this is in the building codes.
Logically with very little area and a restriction on the height housing volume is limited.
Private property. Google lets their employees do anything.
Except now there’s a picture of the truck in an article going viral on the Internet. And is certainly making the rounds within Google’s internal electronic communications systems.
OPSEC Fail.
My first “home” after moving out of my parents house was a Chevy van. I lived out of it for a year. I wouldn’t do it again but I managed OK when I was a kid.
now the trucks owner is famous...and at risk.
Id hope that the parking lot is very VERY well guarded.
I agree, an RV would be nicer for the same price or less. But I can’t fault his general premise... With Google Supplying all meals and showers, gym etc... spending thousands of dollars a month on an apartment in the Bay area is a waste.
It was fooling of him to let anybody know. This will be ended by the local government by Friday. He’s in violation of at least half a dozen ordinances. Plus, they’ll probably sock him with a tax bill for all his unpaid bed taxes.
“Definitely not a chick magnet.... I suppose he has no interest in girls though.”
All he has to tell them is “I work for google...” and they’re not going to care about anything else.
He works for Google, what do you think? ;/
What happens when he gets locked in from the outside?
Some how I can picture Chris Farley talking about living in a van down by the river.....
I admire him. He’s living frugally, and he has a sweet setup with food and utilities at work right there, and he is not only paying off his student loans but he is investing his salary.
How wonderful to be able to do that. He’s only 23 without a wife and kids. I’m applauding him.
he has bathrooms seconds away, at work. showers too.
I'm curious; exactly what is in that truck that anyone would want to steal?
Contrast this guy with my 27 year-old nephew. His investment guy told him he should do something more with his money and put a nice down-payment on a house and get out of his apartment.
He bought a tricked-out Lotus instead!
Not with a “few stuffed toys” on hand. I don’t understand adults with stuffed toys. Nope.
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