This is Ken Ilgunas. Inspired by Thoreau and a tight budget he lived in an ’94 Econoline van for months in an attempt to save money for graduate school. He wrote a great piece about his experience in Salon:
Living on the cheap wasn’t merely a way to save money and stave off debt; I wanted to live adventurously. I wanted to test my limits. I wanted to find the line between my wants and my needs. I wanted, as Thoreau put it, “to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life … to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
It wouldn’t be hard for me to remain frugal. After buying the van and making my first tuition payment, I was only a few dollars away from having to rummage through Dumpsters to find my next meal. I was — by conventional first-world definitions — poor. While I faced little risk of malnutrition or disease like the truly poor, I still I didn’t own an iPod, and I smelled sometimes.
I am not poor – no – but I am inspired by Ken’s act born out of adventure and necessity. Why? Because I relate to his desire to live life freely. I think that’s something everyone could relate to, especially in such tough economic times. Ken said it best: “While I was still leading an exciting, adventurous life, I knew I could never truly be free until my debt was gone.”
You can read the article here.
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