I Live in a Van Down By The River – Basically…

That’s right folks.  Currently, I live in a van, down by the river… basically.  But before we get into that, let’s talk about Chris Farley.

In one of my favorite SNL sketches, he portrays a motivational speaker, Matt Foley, that lives in a van down by the river.  If you’ve never seen this short skit from Saturday Night Live before, do yourself a favor and check it out now.  It is truly hilarious!  Sorry, Hulu makes you watch a short ad 🙁

 I Live in a Van Down By the River – What?

What does all of this have to do with me?  Well (bends forward), I live in a van, down by the River!  Quite nearly actually.

Except that it isn’t a quite a van, it’s a mid-sized motor-home.  And it isn’t a quite a river, but a really large lake.  I’m doing all this to try and save some extra money!

I Live in a Van Down By the River – Background

During our vacation, the family and I stopped by where we’ll be living in Georgia to do some house hunting.  I recently applied and accepted an internal promotion in my company in Georgia.  We found a great house that will suit our needs just perfectly.  There was just one small problem…

I was supposed to show up for my new job in Georgia on 9/2/14, but we weren’t closing on the new house until 9/15/14.  We would also need to leave a day or two for moving in and unpacking.   I decided to drive down 8/31/14 (a day early) just to make sure I made it down here in one piece and would be ready to start working first thing on 9/2/14.

That meant that I would need to find somewhere to stay for about 17 days on my own dime.  About the cheapest hotel I could find was ~$80 a night plus taxes (let’s call it $90 total).  Hmm…  I wasn’t really interested in forking out more than $1,500!!  I could try and push starting off my new job a couple more weeks, but I was concerned that this would look a little unprofessional.

I Live in a Van Down By the River – Money Saving Idea

Then my Dad hit me with a great money saving idea.  He offered to drive up his motor-home from Florida and park it at a nearby RV park.  What an awesome idea that I hadn’t even considered!  If this would work out, it would help me save hundreds!

After my wife and I had a bit of discussion on it, we decided we would take him up on this gracious offer.  I would get the opportunity to come down, start work on time, and save hundreds in the process.  Score!  My wife and kids could finish getting everything packed up north and then make the drive down closer to our closing date.

I Live in a Van Down By the River – The Result

This whole motor-home idea turned out to be another great money saving idea from my dad.  The motor-home is basically the same size as a hotel room (the bathroom is definitely a little bit smaller), has wi-fi, a pool, nice showers, and is about 15 minutes away from my job.  What more could a guy ask for?

I was tough being without my wife and kids for two weeks – it’s the longest I’ve ever been apart from them.  But, we managed to get through it OK.  Since I needed to come down before we closed, this really had no impact on the hotel vs. motor-home decision.

Anyways, the RV park runs a weekly rate of $205 (without cable – or course 🙂 ), and those extra nights tacked on at the end run $35 a night (taxes included).  So, when everything is said and done, my dad’s idea saved me a total of $1050!!!

An additional bonus was I didn’t have to worry about falling on any coffee tables 🙂

THANKS DAD FOR YOUR AWESOME MONEY SAVING IDEA!!!