Yahoo Finance Google software engineer lives in a truck to pay off student loans
What makes someone live in a truck? Poverty, you say? Nope, the answer is a well-paid job at Google.
You see, as of last year, San Francisco became the most expensive city in America. With the median price of a one-bedroom apartment hovering around $3100 a month, San Fran beat out Manhattan by more than $100.
But that hasn’t stopped the endless stream of young tech wizards from flooding the area in pursuit of their Google/Amazon/Microsoft dreams. Such was the case for 23-year-old Brandon, who moved from Massachusetts to the Bay Area to work for Google as a software engineer in mid-May, Business Insider reports.
Brandon had interned at Google last summer and had paid approximately $2000 a month to live in a two-bedroom apartment with three other employees.
"I realized I was paying an exorbitant amount of money for the apartment I was staying in — and I was almost never home," Brandon told Business Insider (he asked that his last name be withheld to protect his privacy at work).
The brilliant solution? Purchase a 16-foot 2006 Ford truck for $10,000, throw in a bed, a dresser and a makeshift clothing rack, and — Badaboom! — you’ve got yourself an apartment, conveniently located in the parking lot outside your office.
So five months ago that’s exactly what Brandon did, and he’s been living in the back of a truck ever since. He purchased the vehicle with his signing bonus and he eats, showers and goes to the bathroom inside Google’s facilities, so he has no electricity or water bills. Google also covers his phone bill, so his only actual expense is $121 for truck insurance every month.
Brandon has been keeping a blog detailing the ins and outs (and legality) of living in a truck outside of Google with the tongue-in-cheek title, “Thoughts From Inside the Box.”
His goal is to pay off the $22,434 worth of student loans he graduated with, and he’s already whittled that down to $16,449.
"As a conservative estimate (and taking bonuses into consideration), I expect to have them paid off within the next six months, saving thousands of dollars over the standard 10-year, or even 20-year plans.”
It’s a novel solution, but apparently not that novel — at least one of his blog posts details his experience meeting the “neighbor,” a like-minded Google employee living in a camper parked nearby.
Of course, this is not a solution for everyone but for Brandon, who is almost never home, the “live in a box” solution just makes sense.
“I didn't buy a truck to spend all my time in it or host lavish dinner parties, I bought it for almost expressly the purpose of sleeping,” writes Brandon. “I’ve mentioned it before, but if you're living a large portion of your waking hours inside a small box, you're doing it wrong.”
