HOWTO live out of your car

Reddit user xenophone has some practical, hard-won tips for living out of your car. His list has sparked a long and pretty interesting thread of tips, tricks and theory that runs from “how to live off the grid” to “how to hang on by your fingernails.”

# Staying clean is very important. Trust me on this. People trust you more when you’re clean and you’ll have an easier time spinning yourself as “adventurous” rather than “destitute.” More on this later.

# If you can find a restroom with a lock, you can take a fairly complete bath with a washcloth and a sink.

# If you can’t actually bathe, do a whore’s bath once a day. Get some hand sanitizer, the gel with high alcohol content, and rub yourself down, especially in the stinky areas. It won’t get you clean per se and the alcohol will dry out your skin, but it’ll disinfect you and kill all the smell-causing microorganisms. Follow this with deodorant and baby powder.

# The easiest way to LOOK clean and safe is to keep your hair and beard trimmed. The simplest and cheapest way to do this is to get some inexpensive hair clippers and clip it short once or twice a week.

I’m 25. My marriage just ended, I have no job and am living out of my car. All I want to say is –

(via Consumerist)

(Image: Homeless Victim, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 23905174@N00’s photostream)