Living a Property-free Life
by
Phil Madsen
(Written January 9, 2009, for publication on SuccessfulExpediters.com.)
In my stories from the road and daily blog, I have mentioned several times the property-free lifestyle Diane and I live. This piece explains what I mean by "property-free."
About a year after we took up life on the road to live and work as truck drivers — specializing in expedited freight transport — we sold our house, cars and most household goods. That was in 2004. Since then, our legal residence consists of rented space in a relative's house. This arrangement frees us from the worry, expense and maintenance that property ownership entails. It frees us to live, work and play on the road in a way we love.
On the road we live in a high-end, custom-built truck. Except for the smaller space and no washer and drier, it provides all the comforts of home. The front half is like an RV, the back is for hauling freight.
Let's start with what property-free does not mean. It does not mean that we: (1) are homeless, (2) are committed to poverty, (3) have taken an anti-materialistic stance. (4) are more moral than people who have more stuff than us, (5) live this lifestyle for religious reasons, (6) care about the environment more than others, (7) are financially insecure, or (8) are a couple of anti-social or anti-establishment nut cases that simply don't know how to live.
For us, property-free means: (1) the truck is our home instead of a house, (2) a path to prosperity to which we are committed, (3) owning high-quality stuff, (4) viewing property as morally-neutral, (5) living this lifestyle for practical reasons, (6) helping the environment by accident, not on purpose, (7) feeling financially secure, and (8) being a couple of well-adjusted people who know how to live a simple life.
Home: It has been said that home is where the heart is. We feel best when we are on the road. We like to say, the truck is our home, the nation our back yard. We do not need to own a house to feel at home. For us, home is wherever the other one is if we are apart. When we are together, living and working together in a truck comes naturally. Home is not a place to be. It is a way to be. I wrote more about this in The Meaning of Home.
Poverty v. Prosperity: There are people who take a vow of poverty for reasons that make sense to them. There are others who are poor for other reasons. We are not poor and do not wish to be. Selling our goods had nothing to do with poverty or prosperity (we kept the money). It was a practical choice having to do with freedom. With no house to care for, there is no need to go home to care for it and the things it contains. You have energy on everything you own. In many ways, the property you own also owns you. Freeing ourselves from our property freed us to do other things.
Materialism: We have always enjoyed having nice things but have never felt ourselves to be better people because we own them. Keeping up with the Joneses is an exercise in frustration because there will always be people who have more and better stuff than you. We don't buy goods because we want other people to notice. We buy goods because we want the goods.
Whatever the goods may be, if we buy them, we buy high quality. There is joy in that because high-quality goods provide reliability and value that cheap goods do not. I sometimes joke that when you own next to nothing, you can have the best of everything. That is true in a spiritual sense. It is also true in a practical sense. I would rather buy one good shirt that lasts and is enjoyable to wear than three cheap shirts that I would buy and wear out in the same space of time.
Morality: Some poor people believe rich people are immoral because the rich earn and own too much, and thereby steal from those in need. Some rich people believe poor people are immoral because they fail to become self-sufficient by taking advantage of the freedom and opportunities they have to rise to a better life.
It is an interesting question. How much is too much to earn or have before you become immoral? How little is too little to earn or have before you become immoral? Equating earnings and property with morality produces guilt-laden questions like these and the need to justify yourself in the eyes of others.
We did not consider ourselves less moral when we lived the white-collar, suburban lifestyle. We do not consider ourselves more moral because we ditched most of our material goods. Stuff is stuff. When we got rid of our property and freed ourselves to earn a higher income on the road, no moral credits or debits accrued; at least none that we see.
Like keeping up with the Joneses, equating money and property with morality is an exercise in frustration. Whether you seek to move up or down the scale, or stay comfortably where you are, there will always be someone who is more moral than you. You might find some comfort in being more moral than the rich, but who are you kidding?
It's not about what you earn or have. It's about how you earn it and what you do with it that counts. At least I think that's the way it is. That is not to say I am at peace in my have and have-not circumstances. Living on the road as we do, Diane and I are frequently approached by street beggars. Are we obligated to help them? Should we help them? Do they deserve to be helped? Whether you live in the suburbs or in a truck, there are always people in need. The tyranny of "should" haunts us all.
Religion: We did not start living this property-free life for religious reasons. Our motives were practical. Getting rid of most of our stuff freed us to make and enjoy other life choices. Selling our goods was not done in hopes of improving our life in heaven. It was done to improve our life on earth.
Environment: Living and working in a truck, we don't heat and cool an empty house when we are at work and empty offices when we are at home. We don't own cars and burn gas to get back and forth from work. Having limited storage space, we tend to own only what we need, like one nice shirt to wear to church, two pairs of jeans because you have to wear one pair when the other is dirty, etc. That does not make us environmental crusaders by any means. We burn hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel each week to move freight, earn a living and enjoy this property-free lifestyle.
Financial Security: Do material goods help you feel financially secure? Notice the verb. I did not say help you be financially secure. I said help you feel financially secure. Like life itself, one's material wealth, and the financial security it provides, can disappear in an instant.
Financial security (independence) is a relative term. In these recessionary times, being property-free means we are also debt-free. Having the truck for shelter and being free of payments for a house, cars and toys provides great comfort as we go through the deep recession that is now underway.
On the other hand, when we look ahead to old age, when the inability or reduced ability to earn money becomes part of who we are, we do not feel today that we have anywhere near the amount of money we want to have then. We don't want to buy cheap shirts now and we will not want to do so then. We like to travel now and will want to do so then.
In the end, our property-free lifestyle has very little to do with high-minded things like materialism, morality, religion, the environment and the American value of financial independence. The choice is more practical than spiritual or ethical. It provides certain desirable freedoms, but deep in our hearts, it does not change who we are. Beyond the financial advantages listed above, living a property-free life is nothing special. It's just something we do.
Update:
We will close a purhcase of a Florida house on May 24, 2009. Details are in my blog entries beginning May 14.
This is not a house in the traditional sense. It is a manufactured home in a gated community in which we pay lot rent and receive an array of security, maintenance and community services that single family home owners generally do not receive.
These services enable us to own the house without having the house own us. We don't have to return to the house on a regular basis to mow the lawn, check on the house and otherwise maintain the property. There are people in the community who do that.
The need to check on and maintain the single family house we once owned used to pull us home for those reasons alone. We had no other reason to go home, but had to go to keep up the house. That property owned us as much as we owned it. The Florida house is different.
We do not call the Florida house home. It was a cash purchase, not financed, so our debt-free status is maintained. The house is more of a consumer purchase than an equity investment.
There is nothing in the house that we care about. It is best viewed as a vacation cottage that will be used for breaks from winter driving and layovers year-round when the freight takes us close. If a hurricane or fire destroyed the house, it would of course mean the loss of the house and its contents, but it would not otherwise affect the life we live on the road. The things we need to live and work are kept in the truck.
The truck continues to be our home and the nation our back yard. Our legal residence continues to be rented space in a relative's home in Minnesota. The keepsakes in which we have an emotional investment are kept there.