Somewhere in northern Spain, standing in a Lidl with a canvas tote bag and about eight liters of storage space to fill, I finally admitted that the pantry spreadsheet I’d built during the van conversion was completely useless. It had arborio rice on it. And capers. And a specific brand of miso paste I was … Read more
The result surprised me more than I expected it to. Not in a good way necessarily, but not entirely in a bad way either. That’s the honest summary before we get into any of it. I’d gone into this assuming meal subscription boxes would be completely useless for van life. Moving vehicle, no fixed address, … Read more
The first long stretch I did without a supermarket nearby taught me a lot. About four months into full-time van life, I’d stocked up before heading into a remote stretch of coastal Portugal, grabbed everything I thought I needed, felt very prepared, and drove away feeling smug. A week in, I was eating plain rice … Read more
The assumption I kept seeing in van life groups, forums, road trip threads: farmers markets are a weekend leisure activity. A nice thing to do when you have time and no distance to cover. Not a practical stop for someone cooking in 60 square feet of living space who needs to move on by midday. … Read more
$200. One month. All your food. I know what you’re picturing because I pictured the same thing the first time I heard this was possible on the road. Instant noodles three nights a week. Gas station snacks that pass for breakfast. Eating cheap in a way that means eating badly and feeling vaguely terrible by … Read more
My first month on the road, I spent $38 on a bulk bag of jasmine rice from a warehouse club. I had no fridge, a two-burner stove, and a storage space roughly the size of a carry-on bag. The rice sat mostly untouched for six weeks, got into everything, and eventually landed in a campground … Read more
Last spring, somewhere outside Moab, I sat down and actually did the math on my coffee spending. Not because I was worried about money exactly, just because I’d started noticing the number on my card statement looked wrong. It was not wrong. I had spent $284 in thirty days on coffee stops. One person. Thirty … Read more
The first time I sat down and tracked every dollar I spent on food for a full month on the road, the number surprised me. Not because it was horrifying. Because it was specific. Twenty-three dollars on a Tuesday afternoon at a petrol station convenience store I’d stopped at without really thinking. Forty-one dollars on … Read more
You did the math before you left. Groceries for one, cooking most meals yourself, maybe the occasional dinner out as a treat. On paper it looked manageable, affordable even — cheaper, probably, than paying rent and eating supermarket meal deals every other day out of habit. Three months in, you’re spending more on food than … Read more
Most van lifers are spending forty to sixty percent more on food than they need to. Not because van life is inherently expensive. Because they’re shopping like they still live in a house. I spent my first two months on the road doing exactly this. Buying for seven days. Loading up on fresh produce with … Read more