What I Did, What I'm Doing & Why!!!

What I Did, What I’m Doing & Why?

Hello my name is Seth Timmerman.  I’m 20 years old going to Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana. I’m originally from a small town known as Union City right on the Indiana and Ohio line.  This is my second year at ISU but credit wise I’m a junior with the plan of graduating a year early while double majoring in Aviation Management and Unmanned Systems.   First semester of this last year or Fall 2015 I lived in a tent for three months yes a tent.  While  taking eighteen credit hours  I started living in a tent because ISU put me somewhere that I didn’t sign up to be,  plus it is way too  expensive to live on campus or in an apartment in Terre Haute.   I wanted to find a way to live off campus for as cheap as possible.  I started researching and as everyone has probably heard of by now is the tiny house and off-grid living movement, which is becoming more popular every day and I love it.   After researching and drawing plans I realized as a poor very busy college student I could not afford or have the time to build a tiny house especially to my standards, even with my family owning our own construction business and access to all the tools needed.  So after a lot of researching and YouTube watching I decided the next best option.  A high quality three person Eureka Tent for $135. (About one-fourth of a one month’s rent.)  I loved backpacking and being outdoors, also asking anyone that knows me, I like to try new unique things that challenge me and my body (such as Unicycling and Tough Mudder for example.) so living in a tent didn’t seem that bad.  

While in the tent I made three very poor video blogs that can be hard to hear because of all the crickets and insects out at that time also because I’m terrible at talking in front of a camera.  I can attach the link if someone is actually really interested.  But I received many questions when people found out I was living in a tent.  I’m going to address the most common questions I received and answer them first then go on to explain what I’m doing now:

Are you actually living in a tent?  Yes, it may be hard to believe, but I lived in a tent for 3 months and loved it and would be more and willing to do it again, even though starting out was difficult by the end it was easier and simpler than living in an apartment or on campus. I still had to prove with pictures.

Where is your tent?   While looking for somewhere to stay as a backup, my Dad and I have a friend that helps us work on our little sports cars.  He and another friend of his that also works on same type of little sports cars lives in the Terre Haute area close to ISU and after a little rearranging and negotiating  I had a little spot in a yard to pitch up my tent and start roughing it as it was referred as for pretty much free.  For own personal safety reasons and respect for the man that let me stay in his yard I did not give out my exact location to very many people, only the close friends that I could really trust just in case I need someone to pick me up and or they really needed to find me.  I was close enough to campus that I could ride my bike but far enough away from the city that I wouldn’t have anyone bothering me and I could have a fire every night. 

Another question was what did you do about electricity?  While in the tent the guy also let me plug into his garage, but only used that for a small LED light, and to charge phone, laptop, and run a toaster oven.  I also used a little butane backpacking camper stove to cook all my food with. And in the garage I had access to a fridge.  So overall pretty spoiled and not even close to off the grid.

How did you shower and use the restroom?  Well lucky, I’m in college and had several resources such as the Recreational Center which I had to pay for if I wanted to or not so might as well use it.  The only down side of the Rec Center was you have to pay for locker and as I stated earlier trying to live as cheap as possible and $50 for locker….. Well that’s way too much.  So I kept searching and I found that the sports arena where all the gym classes and sports teams’ workout and practice had nicer showers and free lockers that nobody was using so I bought me a five dollar lock and I was all set.   I also had many friends that said I can go to their place anytime if I need to take a shower.  Now the good ole restroom, if you think about it a hundred years ago there was not much if any plumbing or sewage systems, it was the good ole outdoors rain or shine, light or dark.   If you were lucky a bucket with a seat in a little shack was luxury.  So out behind the garage about eight feet into the cornfield I had me a 5-gallon bucket with the bottom cut out and a seat on top and well I hope you can figure out the rest.  

I also got some questions such as what do your parents think about all of this? Not only my parents but everyone that knew about me wanting and living in a tent thought I was crazy, as many of you reading this are also thinking.  But they knew what I wanted to do and why and it’s hard to stop me when I get determined.   I think most of the people that knew me before I started thought he might last a week and be done, that made me even more determined to make it.   When my family finally came to help me move, because I did end up moving back to campus for the winter which I’ll talk about shortly, they absolutely loved it and was actually very surprised on how well I had everything set up while also doing good if not better in school than I already was. 

Why I went back to campus?  I did end up going back to campus, I really didn’t want to but it was the smartest thing to do because it was starting to get really chilly at night even though I had a sleeping bag rated for negative ten,  especially changing in the morning for class.  It also helped a little bit because I started working 5-9 AM every morning, Monday-Saturday.   I had the opportunity to move into the Lincoln Quads back at campus but I either had to move in in 3 days or it would be offered to someone else and I would have been stuck in the tent all winter.   So I accepted it and lived with a few good Aviation friends of mine and had a ton of fun.  While living in the Lincoln quads I still wanted to be out in the tent, even when there was snow on the ground just to see if I could do it mainly.  I had a lot less crap and had less to worry about and take care of while in the tent.  Tent living was just so simple and I’ve always loved the outdoors, this was just over the top to most people but for me it was just right.  Personally I think I was happier and healthier in the tent because for the rest of the school year I would come back from class I would go up to my room lay in bed and watch Netflix and surf YouTube for hours, I felt so lazy because everything was basically handed to me.  In the tent I was always outside up to something weather making a fire trying new setups or just tinkering with something.

The overall experience was awesome and I would not trade a single moment.  Living in a tent always made me think ahead and always aware of the weather, homework that’s due and when to make sure I had Wi- Fi access along with several other things.  I had  limited selection of clothes because I had limited space in a 3 person tent I kept dress clothes in my vehicle while my everyday attire mainly a Polo and either khakis or cargo shorts with tennis shoes and white T-shirts with blue jeans and boots.  Just saying, made it even easier deciding what I was going to wear and I’m a guy.  I also liked making a meal three times a day even though I not a big fan of rice or oatmeal anymore.   I had a little fire going every night and loved looking up at the stars by the fire. Made me laugh because I knew 95% of people were mostly likely staring at some kind of screen but I can promise you I was much happier staring at the stars.  Going to bed either listening to the insects chirping or the rain bouncing off my tent and waking up every morning to the birds singing while watching the sun rise.  And people thought I was the crazy one.

What I’m doing now?

Why did I take the time to share all this?  While living in the quads I kept researching ideas for what I could do all year round next year, also see how hard it would be to get off the electric grid.  I found out many people were living in RV’s but mainly the real big RV’s and always plugged in and hooked up to water.  After researching I found several different things but most were too expensive and/ or time consuming until I found teardrop trailers which can still be expensive depending on several factors.  A teardrop trailer is obviously a trailer shaped like a teardrop that is used mainly for camping like an RV but much smaller and can almost be pulled with anything, mainly made for 2 seasons maybe 3 of camping, which would not work because I live in Indiana where the weather is always bipolar.   I kept looking at teardrop trailers cause I found them interesting, scrolling through eBay one day I found exactly what I been looking for.  A teardrop trailer that was a 4 season, custom made, that also sat a little higher off the ground and was big enough to sit up unlike many other that you basically have to craw in.  What really caught my eye was it was completely solar powered with the option of also plugging it in, and it was also affordable.  After showing my Dad and some more research especially on solar power because I really had no idea how it worked, I decided to bid on it at the very last moment and got it.  I thought it was all a dream until I woke up looked at computer and it still said I won a bid for a four season solar powered Teardrop trailer, one problem it was located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  At this time it was coming up on Thanksgiving Break so I scheduled off work and the day school was out my Dad, Sister, Brother who all thought I was crazy took my Ford Escape and headed toward Fort Lauderdale where it was pushing 80 degrees.  Eighteen hours plus later of driving we arrive in FL and grabbed a hotel and was going to pick up the trailer in the morning and nonstop drive from Fort Lauderdale to the great town of Union City, IN where it literally snowed the night before.

The Morning comes around we meet up with the guy selling the trailer, he led us to where the trailer was stored.  He pulled it out and I noticed it seemed a lot larger than it did in the photos which is a good thing if I plan living in it all year around in Indiana.  I was super excited to jump inside, once I got in my brain went crazy with hundreds of different ideas of what I could do with it and how I would make some changes and I hadn’t even given the guy the money yet.  After handing over the money and trouble shooting the problem I had with the trailer lights and my vehicle we were headed back.  After a easy twenty to twenty-four driving hours later we made it back and backed it into garage and unhooked it, I was so excited and wanted to get started on it right away, but I had to get to sleep cause I had to work the next evening back in Terre Haute.  For two straight weeks after that I came home whenever I could to work on the teardrop.  With my Dad and I’s ingenuity we built a bed, the bed also allowed for more storage space inside.

Skipping to winter break I had nowhere to stay and I had work in Terre Haute so it was time to really give the Teardrop the real trial run no messing around straight into the dead of winter.   Skipping the details the solar power wouldn’t run my small heater that I had in the trailer to help stay warm so I did have to plug in over break but I had a meter that tracked my usage and how much it was costing me while keeping it between 65-75 degrees while I was inside the trailer.  I had it parked right where I had my tent pitched previously.   Just like the tent it was difficult transitioning but once I got acquainted and figured a few things out I was loving it.  Just like the tent I had to find a shower which I stilled showered at the school and my girlfriend’s apartment, while still using my restroom outside, when all the corn is gone and the wind is blowing across the ground considering its winter, let me tell you there were quite a few chilly ones.  After winter break was over I moved back into the quads where I had most of my stuff.  After probably a month later I took the trailer back home because there was a lot more I still wanted to do to it.  While it was sitting there after I moved back in the quad I kept the heater plugged in just to keep it from freezing inside and also just in case of some of the electronics in the inside checking it at least once a week.  During the whole time it sat there plugged in it cost me a total of $24.69.  That alone made me super happy and that again is a heck of a lot cheaper than rent or living on campus let me tell you.  I could not wait to move in it full time.

After a few months of school and modifications to the trailer, the excitement of living full time in the Teardrop trailer was building.  I soon  learned that I would be staying in Terre Haute over the summer taking six credit hours,  holding two jobs while living in the trailer full time.  It was time to start packing because it was actually happening. 

The whole time I’ve been writing this I have been sitting in my trailer excited to tell everyone that I am now living in the Teardrop Trailer full time.  I paid $100 for two weeks at a primitive camping site which means no electric or water and I’m doing just fine and I’ve been here since May 7^th loving every minute of it.   Yes, $100 is a lot but take $100  and times that by two for a month or four weeks and that’s $200 a month, half if not less  than most of you reading this that are in an apartment are paying and I have tons of trails and a lake right behind me right now.   But starting June 1^st I’ll hopefully be living behind a lake house that my same aviation buddies are renting for next year and I plan on having my door facing the lake.  We are all really excited but I’m especially excited because I get to live full time in the trailer hopefully completely off the grid power supply wise once I get a new inverter and one or two more batteries hooked up to my solar power so I can also run my heater during the winter.  What’s good about living behind a lake house that my friends are renting?  First of all I get to hang out with my friends whenever, second they are allowing me to use the shower which I will use sometimes but I’ll also still use the showers at the school while also having access to washing and drying machines right inside the house.  I will also have access to Wi-Fi, now I’m not going to use all these accessories for free, I’m going to pay them for what I’m using and my portion of the Wi-Fi but not even close to the full rent.  I’m not living in the house and I’m not using very much water and hopefully zero electric, while taking up maybe a 15x15 foot square including my trailer and some stuff outside of the trailer in the back yard.  It will probably round out between thirty and sixty dollars a month, once again a lot cheaper than anything else anyone could fine besides living on the street and it’s a pretty awesome upgrade from the tent life.  This life is defiantly not for everyone, from the time in the tent and the teardrop I have found you lose a lot of things such as clothes and objects that you can’t have in your possessions just because of the lack of room and also that lack of I guess you could call facilities that you really don’t need.  I just left all my extra stuff at home now, but plan on getting rid of once I have time to sort because I don’t’ need all that extra stuff.   That’s the only bad part of this kind of lifestyle,  rather than that it’s all good from there the experiences you have and the things you learn like how to adapt and survive off less materialistic things, also the endless places you can go and the people you meet.  I love when people walk by and ask about the teardrop because I show them the inside and tell them my story because I love their reactions and  you never know what they have done and there experience you might learn something to help further you on.  Plus everyone has ideas that might make everything easier.  I’ve had that happen to me several times already in the short time I’ve been doing what I’m doing.   Everything is endless and I can’t wait to keep on living this lifestyle.  Now I’m not trying to tell everyone go buy a trailer and get rid of all your stuff but just take my experiences in so far and hopefully my future experiences and think about what could you live without and what do you think you could gain from that?   You never know it could change your life it all started for me just trying to save money but honestly now it’s all for the experiences the learning curves I have gained and continue to gain every day.   No I don’t plan on living like this forever, but hopefully a good little while.  One day just like everyone else I want a wife and kids my own piece of land with a nice little house.  I can assure you though some of these experiences I have learned I’m going to apply to my house and the rest of my life.

When doing research I found I was defiantly not the only one living in a tent, and one of three college students that lived in a tent while going to school.  I only found one other lady online though that actually lives in her teardrop trailer full time, Like I plan on but she travels with it and heads south during the winter. Now I imagine everyone has a ton of questions and feel free to ask; there are no dumb questions.  There is a lot I left out just because there would never be enough time to type it all up so anyone that as a questions please ask in comments or whenever you see me and hopefully depending on the responses I get I might start making video blogs again but now about the fulltime teardrop living and my experiences.  I will also starting sharing photos and videos inside and outside the trailer and hopefully all my travels I plan on having while living in the teardrop. 

Some sneak peek pictures before video blogs, just to give everyone an idea on the concept of a teardrop along with bed me and my Dad made.

Sorry For the mess inside!! I was making some Oatmeal!!

Thank You for reading this and you will be seeing more of me hopefully here soon.  Till then be safe and don’t be afraid to try some something new or different.

Seth Timmerman

Video Blogs hopefully in near future.  Will provide link once first video blog is started.

Author: Indiana State University Student Seth Timmerman

Email: timmermanisu@gmail.com