The Living in Your Car Podcast
The Living in Your Car Podcast
Cash Flow on Four Wheels: 7 Ways to Make Money as a Nomad Living in Car
Ever wondered how to keep your wallet full while your living space is micro-sized? Join me, Elizabeth Off-Grid, as I guide you through the financial tightrope of earning while living in the coziness of your car. This episode is a gold mine of strategies for anyone from the urban car dweller to the itinerant van-life enthusiast. I'll walk you through leveraging traditional employment to your advantage—think jobs with perks like gym access—and the unexpected opportunities that come with temporary agency work. Plus, for those of you with a thirst for the entrepreneurial journey, get ready to discover how to mold your business to fit the nomadic lifestyle, all while keeping your passion ignited and your bank balance healthy.
This isn't just about making ends meet; it's about crafting a life of financial freedom on the open road. Whether you're parked and pondering your next move or cruising to your next adventure, I've got you covered with practical insights into seasonal work, from campground hosting to creative gigs that can travel with you. And for the digital nomads, I delve into the nuts and bolts of constructing an online empire, whether that’s through captivating YouTube content or an e-commerce store that rings up sales as you snooze in your sedan. Buckle up and tune in for an episode that will drive your entrepreneurial spirit down the highway of success.
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Hi, this is Elizabeth Off-Grid, and you are listening to the Living in your Car podcast, where we talk about all aspects of living in a car, suv, pickup or minivan. Whether you're a full-time nomad, temporarily staying in a vehicle until you get life figured out, or just going on a road trip, join us for all kinds of topics that apply to you. So this is episode four of Living in your Car podcast, and today we're going to talk about ways to make money while you live in a car, and I'm specifically talking about living in a car, but I will be mentioning some things that apply a little bit more to people who have a little bit more substantial vehicles, like a van or an RV, but most of these things are really geared towards people who are living in a smaller vehicle, like a car, an SUV, a minivan, a pickup truck. First, we have to talk about your particular situation. Are you someone who wants to travel from place to place to place, living as a nomad and going all around the country or the world or the continent? Or are you someone who mostly spends your time in one place and then, as you're traveling, do you like to go to one place and be there for months at a time, or are you the kind of person who goes place, place, place, place, place, place? All these things lend themselves to different kinds of work.
Speaker 1:Also, some of this is about what skills you have, what education you have, what training you have. What are you willing to do or not willing to do? I'm going to talk a little bit more about this and also what abilities you have and disabilities you have, and there's certain jobs that many of us just are not going to be able to do. Lastly is what are your resources? So there's certain jobs that we're going to talk about here where you actually have to have a certain kind of rig. If you're living in a Honda Civic, like I am, that isn't going to work. However, if you're in a van or an RV, then it very much would work. So let's go ahead and get into this. I have seven different categories of ways to make money while you live in a vehicle. So category number one is just having a regular job. I know this is kind of funny thing to say, but I'm serious. Like, if you're staying in town, you can just have whatever job that you would have had anyway. You're gonna have to finagle a little bit about what address you're going to give them, and I agree that that can be an issue, but fundamentally it's just getting any kind of job that you would in the first place. So, justin, I have for you is to think about what benefits the job has in the sense of things that you need in your life. So, for example, they have a shower is there. They have a gym there then, or even working at a gym. Obviously that could be helpful because it solves a problem for you. Also, some people will work night jobs because one of the things that stresses them is figuring out a place to sleep at night and park safely at night. Well, if you have a night job, that's where you're gonna be, that's where your car is gonna be, and then you have to find somewhere to sleep during the day. But there's actually a lot more places to sleep during the day which would be parked legally during the day. So that can be a solution for that problem is that's one of the things that really bothers you.
Speaker 1:Also think about temp jobs, and I mean literally temp agencies. I haven't done this in a little while, but back in the day I worked with a number of temp agencies to get all kinds of jobs. I worked in a factory. I worked as a receptionist. I did a lot of receptionist jobs. I did kind of like weird random things where we all went into this company and we cataloged every single computer thing that they had at that company. So what I mean is there are things you can do in person in places.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously the temp work is going to be stuff that might be one day or one week or one month or you know relatively short time frames, and then the regular jobs, or regular jobs. You can work at them for a short amount of time or a long amount of time. Temp agency work does also depend on the skill you have. Like, I have worked as a receptionist and this was before I was a lawyer and that was something that I did. Actually was a receptionist in law firms. So is actually what I did. I have a minimal amount of training for that, but not too much If you are someone who knows how to do all kinds of computer work. There's a lot of other opportunities there for other kinds of temp work, depending upon the temp agency that you use, what market that they use For jobs and also sometimes also temp agencies. You are an employee. You're an employee of the temp agency or your employee at the job and that can be helpful because you kind of look more normal on paper and you might even be able to get some benefits. It's some minimal level of benefits.
Speaker 1:The second thing is second category is seasonal work, and this is something a lot of people have started to talk more and more about. The first example that most of us who go camping a lot have seen, and so probably occurs to you, is a campground host. So all kinds of different campgrounds. Don't just think about state parks and federal parks. It also is all kinds of forest service. It's also county parks. Many penny places have campground hosts and these are people who will be there typically for a season, for six months or something like that four months, and they might get paid outright. They might be doing it as a volunteer and then they have a space to be at. They have different work that they had to do. It really depends upon the particular gig. Sometimes they only want couples, sometimes they only want people with an RV. I think a lot of times they only want people with an RV. But you really have to look at it and see what are their requirements and does it make sense for you Personally? For me this falls under the what am I willing to do problem, because I don't want to clean bathrooms and a lot of times the campground hosts have to clean bathrooms, so that isn't something that I will be doing, even if I had a rig. That where it would work. But also there's tons of other things In tourist areas.
Speaker 1:There's going to be all kinds of jobs in any tourist area that they're going to hire people for the tourist season, to work in a store, to work in a restaurant, all kinds of different things. There's jobs at parks. So if you go on the federal government's website, usa Jobs, they have all kinds of jobs listed for federal park work and this can be things that are not just campground host stuff. Okay, we're talking about things like you're going to go out and catalog all the plants in a certain area or dig ditches to change this thing over here, set up trails, I mean. There's all kinds of work. Obviously, different people have different skill sets, education, physical abilities, but a lot of different types of jobs exist there and a lot of times those jobs have housing and that's a thing too Like I have actually someone who was just on the channel who today or yesterday left a comment about how she was kind of done living in a car and she got a seasonal gig that included housing. So that is something to know. Is that a lot of these seasonal work things the ones that don't require you to have an RV they actually provide housing as one of the benefits, so that can be ready to just kind of have a break from living in your car.
Speaker 1:Agriculture and fishing there's all kinds of seasonal work in agriculture and fishing because there's things that have to be done. You know a harvest has to be brought in in a certain amount of time, so they have to bring in a whole bunch of people. Whether or not you're physically able to do that it really depends on your own situation. Some of them do require you to have a more of a Van RV situation, but not all of them do. This can be going in and bringing in the turnip harvest or the beet harvest or something like that. You don't necessarily have to have a huge amount of physical ability to do it, but it tends to be very, very hard work in the sense that you're working 12-hour days until the harvest is brought in, and not everyone's up for this. I personally don't think I would be up for that but there's many, many places where they need seasonal workers to bring in the harvest. Being a tour guide, that's another kind of tourist area job that may be available depending upon your skill set. Warehouse jobs so you know, amazon is one of the big examples, but all kinds of different warehouses need seasonal workers, and this is something to think about too when you're thinking about seasonal work.
Speaker 1:There's some seasonal work that's like the summer and then some seasonal work that's the winter. So this is an example of this is going to be. For many industries it's kind of the holiday season warehouse jobs that's where their busy time is, and so that's another place where you could have a couple months of seasonal work. And then also thinking about winter stuff, so like ski resorts and those kind of winter play areas, that's another place for the winter, and so you can kind of piece together a way to be employed for big chunks of the year. Maybe you have something that you do during the summer that takes three, four months in the summer, and then you have something you do in the winter that takes a couple months, and then you have the spring and the fall to be a nomad and run around and do your own thing, so you can kind of piece together enough work to make enough money to finance your life.
Speaker 1:Number three is going to be a remote job. So this is also a job. Now, all these things I've talked about so far are all jobs. You're an employee okay, remote job. This really depends on your skill and are you able to get this kind of job, of course, but it tends to be computer-y work, so it can be customer service things, it can be IT support, it can be computer programming, so a lot of computer-y things. Some of these things are things you could get trained on. So, like on Coursera, google has all these programs to train you in like four months to do IT support and all this kind of stuff. So I mean, if you think that you could do that if you were trained, I'd highly recommend looking in that, because there are remote jobs for IT support and for customer service and things of that nature. That could be a great gig for some people. Now, this is a job. So you're going, you can be remote, but you're going to need to have connection and you're probably going to have like hours. Then you have to work. You have to work from, you know, eight to five or whatever your hours are, but you could do it from anywhere in theory. Number four is gig work. So this is where you're no longer an employee, you're doing your own thing.
Speaker 1:Gig work the one that people think of the most is delivery work. So you're delivering food or whatever it is for one of these apps where you pick the gigs when you're in a certain town that has it. Now these things are not available everywhere and there's going to be some places that have way too many drivers and not enough gigs. So it's not something that is a perfect situation and it can be hard to actually make pretty good money. But you can watch a ton of YouTube videos on this kind of stuff, of the strategies to make good money on these delivery apps. But that kind of gig work can be a really helpful thing for people. If you get good at it, you can go into a city, you work your butt off for a week and then you don't work for a week, you know. So it can give you a lot of flexibility. But also there's other kinds of in-person gig work, so dog walking, house sitting, babysitting and nanny work. There's all kinds of in-person contractor type work that has apps for it. Some of them like being a nanny is going to require more hoops that you go through versus dog walking, but there are all kinds of apps to provide in-person services that you could do where you're an independent contractor and you pick and choose those gigs. I mean house cleaning, there's all kinds of things, right? So it just depends on what you're willing to do and what you're able to do.
Speaker 1:Number five is independent contractor work a business that you start that is remote, so kind of a similar idea, but this is something where you're doing it from anywhere where you effectively have internet connections. So it could be a virtual assistant, it could be web design, it could be writing and blog posts, it could be editing things. Now, some of these things you're going to be competing against people in other countries, and so you're going to need to offer something that makes it worth it for them to pay United States rates, which could be an level of expertise. It could be your skills in the English language, it could be the fact that you're doing it here, but you're going to be competing against people in other countries at who we're going to do it much, much cheaper. So you're going to have to think about how you're going to be pitching that. And also, in this case, you're starting a business, so you have to find clients. There are tons of websites out there where you can find people, but it is important to understand that starting a business is a very different thing than going and getting a job. Okay, so you have to find a job not saying it's simple or easy at all, because it's definitely not but you get a job and you have a job until you either quit or you're laid off. Versus having your own business, you have to get new customers or clients over and over and over and over and over again, and it is not for everyone, even though I absolutely love it. I don't want to get a job, but it is not for everyone.
Speaker 1:Number six is to start an in-person business that you do from the road. This is something that I think is a really interesting idea that I've seen some people doing, where they are specifically catering to other people on the road or things that they can do on the road, but that are in-person things. So, thinking about, if you're good at fixing stuff, can you fix RVs, can you install electrical things, install solar panels for people, can you sew custom window coverings and custom pillows and cushions and stuff for people. If you have skills that are really good for other nomadic people, that could be an amazing business to have and you could do it in-person, and then people would I mean there's so many people who have problems with their RV Like, if you were able to go to the courtside area with your business, I am convinced that there would be people who would be into that, and there's a complexity and awkwardness to trying to do a business from the road. You have to be set up with power tools or whatever it is that you do, but that is why it could be a great thing, and there are people who are doing this and I think that is an ingenious way to make money on the road. You either have to have those skills already or you have to train yourself up to get those skills. The last one, the last one, is starting your own business. That can be done from anywhere, and I put this last, even though this is what I do, because I don't think this should be the first place that most people should go Starting a business that's a remote business, such as a YouTube channel, such as products that you sell online, such as services that you provide online, where you're having to create a business, learn how to run that business from the road, especially something like products or YouTube, where it's going to take a while to make money because each little amount that you make is small.
Speaker 1:So, if you start a YouTube channel, how you make money on YouTube is on the ads that are on the videos. Once you're monetized, the people paying you money directly in kind of support your channel, so, like through Patreon, or they click that little dollar sign button in YouTube so that way they send you money directly. You can make money via sponsors. You can make money via affiliate programs. You can make money by selling your own stuff serving your own services, your own products. The thing is, is that starting a YouTube channel, there's a big ramp up before you have enough people who are watching your videos so you can make money. I don't mean so you can make your first dollar. I mean so you can make enough money to pay the bills.
Speaker 1:Okay, and this is applying to YouTube, tiktok, instagram, whatever, pinterest I don't know what people do anymore but this applies to any of those kinds of sites, any of those kinds of online businesses, is that you would want a plan that's going to take one to three years for you to be able to pay the bills with this business, and so in between now and that one to three year time, you have to support yourself somehow, which could be savings. I don't recommend using credit cards for it, but it could be. It could also be one of these other things you know. So you do gig work, you do seasonal work, whatever it is to get you through. So this business that you've created actually makes enough money to support you, because it does take a while. Also, you know you may think, oh, youtube would be easy, it'd be this money that will come.
Speaker 1:Youtube takes a lot of work and you have to actually enjoy making editing videos, and if you don't like, this is just not going to be something that is going to work for you. By any means, the work that you do, you at least need to like at some level for you to keep making yourself, do it, especially if it is your own business and you're working on it for a long time before it actually makes enough money to pay the bills. That takes a lot of internal drive to do that and you need to like what you're doing to be able to get through that. So, of all of these things, what do I recommend for someone who just moved into their car? They're just starting. It does depend on if you want to travel or if you're going to stay in town.
Speaker 1:If you're staying in town, I'd recommend you start out by just having a job and you just go to that job and you go sleep in your car. Like that is the thing I'd recommend is the most straightforward. If you don't have a job or it's too hard for you to get a job, then I would say doing some kind of gig work and just starting out with that just to make enough money so you can stay afloat and figure out what to do next. If you want to travel, then I'd recommend doing seasonal work and starting out with seasonal work. And the reason I recommend these things before all these remote things is because they're actually easier to start. You won't make as much money in the end, but you can start getting paid like as soon as the first paycheck would come in. Then you start the other things on the side Now if you really, really want to be remote and not be an employee, then I'd recommend having a nomadic business that provides services, like like I was talking about, where you fix people's RVs or you make custom window coverings, or something that you do for the nomad community or something that you can do while traveling.
Speaker 1:I've also seen people who, for example, make jewelry and they go to different. They go to different sites to sell that jewelry along the way, and they already had done that in their town, so they knew kind of how to find places to showcase their jewelry and how to sell their jewelry, and so then they go to different places as they travel selling their jewelry, and that can work out very well. You could easily translate that to having an online business and you can start just by setting up an Etsy and then eventually have your own website. So, but what I mean is is that services are a way whether a service is something that you have as a job or services that you provide services to people. Services you make more money in the very beginning, on day one, selling products.
Speaker 1:Products, no matter how you're selling them, whether it is YouTubey thing or whether it's products you sell in person.
Speaker 1:It takes longer to build that up to having a large enough audience where you make money. The money you can make is much higher, but it takes a lot longer, and so I think by starting out with either as an employee or providing services, you can kind of keep yourself afloat until whatever the other business, the leveraged business that you wanna have the YouTube thing or the selling products online or whatever it is let that have enough time to catch up after a year or two years or three years so you can support yourself with that remote business that you really wanna do. So again, this is Elizabeth Off Grid and you've been listening to the Living in your Car podcast. You can subscribe to this podcast in all the different places where you can subscribe to podcasts. If you wanna listen to the audio version and if you wanna watch the video version of the podcast, you can check out my channel, elizabeth Off Grid. Thanks a lot for watching. Bye-bye, I'll see you in the next one.