TL
R-
I have to spend half a week in North California, half a week in South California to finish school. I don't want to pay rent.
I'm gonna sleep in my car.
Any advice/concerns? I've already thought about legal issues, mental health, etc.
I like the idea of saving $900+ a month on rent.
Any advice? Have any of you done this with a GTI?
So, I work full time in Santa Clara as a mechanical engineer. Unfortunately, SJSU decided to be punks about me finishing one class at their campus so I can do my degree audit and finally get my BS. Davis, Berkeley don't allow non-home students to take engineering courses, it has to be an engineering course and it HAS to be upper division so community colleges are out. I've tried every possible option.
My possible routes:
Quit my job and relocate back to SD for a few months to finish the class (I'm registering for three in hopes that my financial aid appeal goes through so I can have extra cash for food/expenses/live comfortable, pay rent, etc)
Continue to work, do 12 hour shifts for three days, drive down to San Diego on Thursday and turn in all my homework and go to the lab class on Friday, drive back up on Sunday.
Now, rent in Cupertino is wack sauce expensive. $800 a month for a single room plus another $50-75 in utilities. If I ALSO rent in SD AND commute, I'd be looking at about $1500 a month just in rent and I'd only be at each place maybe 40-50% of the time. On top of that my car payment and insurance which is another $400 or so on top of that.
So I'm considering car squatting. I've slept in my car before for 3 weeks and it wasn't a big deal and it wasn't a nice car (It was a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am). It started to get a LITTLE funky after two weeks but I left the windows down, vacuumed and no-scent Febreze'd it up and it smelled like new again. Better than before actually. The advantages to this:
I keep my job. Right now I make $58,000 a year and if I don't get a financial aid approval I'm gonna have to start doing freelance IT jobs to make my car payment/insurance, buy books and food.
A car payment is already a liability, throwing rent on top of that is two financial commitments that I can't skip on if times get hard.
I get to visit my college friends. And yes I already thought of asking them for a place. The only ones that would be okay with it don't have room and I'd fall back into that "paying rent" trap. Plus I don't want to come off like I'm a loser around them even though I don't consider it a loser situation. I feel like I got cut from the college experience too soon: finished spring and started working less than 2 weeks later.
Disadvantages:
Don't get a kitchen to cook in. There's a community kitchen in a college recreation room that is hardly ever used. Even has a fridge so if I shop by the meal I could probably get away with it. But I won't be able to keep things like snacks handy/cool/fresh.
Getting laid will be a challenge. 20% of the time I hook up, it's at the girl's place but the other 80%, they wanna come over. It's gonna be hard (not impossible, but difficult) to pull off a garage-layover. Having three days out of the week spent at work and another two half-days commuting will not help matters.
No bathroom. Thought this through thoroughly (lots of th-words) and I have both a Gold's gym membership and an open-late/open-early gym on campus. Might even cut out the Gold's membership to save myself $25 a month. The gym has private showers, hot water, curtains, locker rooms that you can overnight (so might keep underwear and towels there, toiletries to minimize my cargo).
No privacy: This one will be a challenge. You can't exactly kick back in your car, drink a beer and watch a UFC with your friends. I'll have to get really used to spending time on campus or at cafe's for things like WiFi access, relaxing, etc. I figure if I fully quit my job and stay in SD, I can just join a club/team that has their own lounge/office. I joined one before and would spend 3-5 hours in our office studying and no one even visited until our meetings (once a week).
Depression/mental issues: To be honest, I'm only listing this because everyone seems to consider it. I don't really think it'll be an issue. I'm actually excited at the idea of having almost $1000 of monthly expenses cut out (before gas/maintenance costs get factored in).
So that being said:
Any of you guys car squat for a while? Any tips?
I'm going to get my windows tinted and will probably pick up a sleeping bag and a plush comforter to lay out on the hatch floor. I'm also going to get a night and weekend parking permit so I can park on campus or overnight since they have a lot of very desolate/unbothered parking spaces.
I'm wondering what else I should pack/keep and what things I should be worried about. I'm hesitant to leave my window open a crack because of West Nile/mosquitos/etc.
R-I have to spend half a week in North California, half a week in South California to finish school. I don't want to pay rent.
I'm gonna sleep in my car.
Any advice/concerns? I've already thought about legal issues, mental health, etc.
I like the idea of saving $900+ a month on rent.
Any advice? Have any of you done this with a GTI?
So, I work full time in Santa Clara as a mechanical engineer. Unfortunately, SJSU decided to be punks about me finishing one class at their campus so I can do my degree audit and finally get my BS. Davis, Berkeley don't allow non-home students to take engineering courses, it has to be an engineering course and it HAS to be upper division so community colleges are out. I've tried every possible option.
My possible routes:
Quit my job and relocate back to SD for a few months to finish the class (I'm registering for three in hopes that my financial aid appeal goes through so I can have extra cash for food/expenses/live comfortable, pay rent, etc)
Continue to work, do 12 hour shifts for three days, drive down to San Diego on Thursday and turn in all my homework and go to the lab class on Friday, drive back up on Sunday.
Now, rent in Cupertino is wack sauce expensive. $800 a month for a single room plus another $50-75 in utilities. If I ALSO rent in SD AND commute, I'd be looking at about $1500 a month just in rent and I'd only be at each place maybe 40-50% of the time. On top of that my car payment and insurance which is another $400 or so on top of that.
So I'm considering car squatting. I've slept in my car before for 3 weeks and it wasn't a big deal and it wasn't a nice car (It was a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am). It started to get a LITTLE funky after two weeks but I left the windows down, vacuumed and no-scent Febreze'd it up and it smelled like new again. Better than before actually. The advantages to this:
I keep my job. Right now I make $58,000 a year and if I don't get a financial aid approval I'm gonna have to start doing freelance IT jobs to make my car payment/insurance, buy books and food.
A car payment is already a liability, throwing rent on top of that is two financial commitments that I can't skip on if times get hard.
I get to visit my college friends. And yes I already thought of asking them for a place. The only ones that would be okay with it don't have room and I'd fall back into that "paying rent" trap. Plus I don't want to come off like I'm a loser around them even though I don't consider it a loser situation. I feel like I got cut from the college experience too soon: finished spring and started working less than 2 weeks later.
Disadvantages:
Don't get a kitchen to cook in. There's a community kitchen in a college recreation room that is hardly ever used. Even has a fridge so if I shop by the meal I could probably get away with it. But I won't be able to keep things like snacks handy/cool/fresh.
Getting laid will be a challenge. 20% of the time I hook up, it's at the girl's place but the other 80%, they wanna come over. It's gonna be hard (not impossible, but difficult) to pull off a garage-layover. Having three days out of the week spent at work and another two half-days commuting will not help matters.
No bathroom. Thought this through thoroughly (lots of th-words) and I have both a Gold's gym membership and an open-late/open-early gym on campus. Might even cut out the Gold's membership to save myself $25 a month. The gym has private showers, hot water, curtains, locker rooms that you can overnight (so might keep underwear and towels there, toiletries to minimize my cargo).
No privacy: This one will be a challenge. You can't exactly kick back in your car, drink a beer and watch a UFC with your friends. I'll have to get really used to spending time on campus or at cafe's for things like WiFi access, relaxing, etc. I figure if I fully quit my job and stay in SD, I can just join a club/team that has their own lounge/office. I joined one before and would spend 3-5 hours in our office studying and no one even visited until our meetings (once a week).
Depression/mental issues: To be honest, I'm only listing this because everyone seems to consider it. I don't really think it'll be an issue. I'm actually excited at the idea of having almost $1000 of monthly expenses cut out (before gas/maintenance costs get factored in).
So that being said:
Any of you guys car squat for a while? Any tips?
I'm going to get my windows tinted and will probably pick up a sleeping bag and a plush comforter to lay out on the hatch floor. I'm also going to get a night and weekend parking permit so I can park on campus or overnight since they have a lot of very desolate/unbothered parking spaces.
I'm wondering what else I should pack/keep and what things I should be worried about. I'm hesitant to leave my window open a crack because of West Nile/mosquitos/etc.
