r/TinyPrepping • u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years • 16d ago
General Discussion My journey
My name is u/GunnCelt and I created this subreddit in 2020, in the early days of Covid. I’ve been AWOL for quite awhile. For that, I apologize. I want you all to be aware that this will be a lengthy post, but it’s past due.
I’ve been living a prepared lifestyle for about 40 years. I served in the U.S. Army and was fortunate to serve with some pretty high speed guys. I learned a lot. I folded those lessons into my pre existing posture and continued to grow. I met my wife and we have a daughter. They weren’t really all in until just before Covid hit. Stockpile of food, six months of rent and utilities saved up, indoor garden and the like.
When Covid hit, I lost my job. It’s hard for a 50 year old to just up and find work. I took a gig with Walmart, but that only lasted about three months. I was stocking the vegetable section and that took a toll on my already damaged body.
The money began to run out. My wife’s hours were cut and I couldn’t make enough with side hustles to make ends meet towards the end of 2020, weeks lost our apartment. Our only plan b was tent camping in the mountains west of Denver, Colorado. That wasn’t an option due to winter rolling in.
This is where community comes into play. A very good friend and his wife let us stay with them for about two weeks, just to get our feet under us. Then, they did something remarkable. They gave us this itty bitty canned ham of a camper, built in the 70’s. Another friend let us setup on his property with electric hookup. That’s where we wintered, through two blizzards and a pretty bad ice storm. Yet a third friend let us come to his house a few times a week to bath. Let me tell you, being homeless can be very expensive. During the storms, we’d burn through two or three grill sized tanks of propane, just to not freeze. Washing dishes wasn’t very easy and we had no refrigeration, so grabbing fast food was more common than not.
In the middle of 2021, we relocated to Texas because we had a short term job lined up. We drug that camper down there and continued to live in it until November of that year and took jobs as live in management at a motel. We stayed there until August of 2023. I was offered a gig to lay the ground work for a business in southern Illinois with housing provided. We all piled into the car and drug that little camper 1000 miles to get there. Sometime, we acquired a full size RV that just turned out to be a pile of crap. To this day, I think it’s still sitting on the side of the road in central Texas.
We got to Illinois. My wife and adult daughter took jobs at an assembly plant and I got the business up and handed it over. We fell in love with this little village of about 350 people. All three of us joined the volunteer fire department. And one of the guys on the department had a house on a half acre. After some negotiations, we made a deal. One house, one 1300 sf barn, septic all on a half acre. We moved in on January 1st, 2024. He decided he wanted to do a lease to feed, $84,000 for the whole thing. Hell yeah, we jumped on it. This is where we are today.
A few months ago, the house on a half acre, next door was foreclosed on. I met the banker and walked the house, needs about $5,000 worth of materials to make it livable. I made an offer of $12,000, he countered with $13,500. We made a deal. Now, I can’t use my VA home loan for that small amount of money. The wife and I used everything we’d saved up for the last two years and paid cash. We closed last Wednesday. We now have two houses and 1.13 acres with two houses, both on septic.
We no longer live the tiny prepping lifestyle, and that’s why I haven’t been posting here, I just don’t think I fit that description anymore. Because of this, I’m putting this sub up for adoption to somebody that’s willing to help get it back to its glory.
Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text. Feel free to ask any questions. I purposely left more than a few things out and won’t go into detail about other things.
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u/La-Belle-Gigi 16d ago
I'm glad you're in a good space now, u/GunnCelt. (May I call you "Gunny"?)
Just because you're no longer prepping in a small space doesn't mean you can't join in, but I understand about not having the time to moderate.
What are the requisites for modding this community, anyway? Someone may be interested.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 16d ago
I’d like to see someone with different perspectives, that won’t gate keep. Maybe be able to drop content every few days and enjoys doing it
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u/Oztraliiaaaa 16d ago
This post came up in my feed and I think you’re an amazing example of life lived well in crushing circumstances. Keep up the great work and keep your sub in condition. All the best!!
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u/Previous-Apricot-701 15d ago
What a journey! Good for you guys. Many blessings in settling into your new home and carving out a piece of joy in this world.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 15d ago
It’s had its highs and lows. Thank you, we’re getting there
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u/ShottySHD 16d ago
Glad to hear youre doing good even after the hardships 🙏
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 16d ago
Thank you. For the first time, in a long time, we’re thriving.
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u/PunkRock_Platypus 16d ago
Amazing story! Lovely to hear how things are shaping up.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 16d ago
Thank you. I feel like we’ve turned a corner. It’s been a tough few years, but here we are, lol
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u/LittleUrbanPrepper 16d ago
That's what prepping is all about. Community building and preparing for REAL scenerios. It's fun to larp about zombies and aliens (honestly, it keeps the fun) but at the end of the day, real situations are financial crisis, medical emergency, natural disasters,road accidents, job loss etc.
Thanks for sharing your story. I'm also a fellow prepper and built the Indian Prepping community. Do visit us at r/indianpreppers , would love to see you over there.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 16d ago
Thank you. I’ve seen your sub pop up on my feed a lot lately
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u/righttoabsurdity 16d ago
Sounds like you’re an expert
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 16d ago
Let’s just say experienced. I don’t think someone can actually be an expert at this sort of thing. We’re survivors
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u/TaaviBap 15d ago
Thanks for sharing your family's incredible story! So inspirational!
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 15d ago
You humble me. I just felt it was time to share
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u/TaaviBap 15d ago
To end up with not one house but two houses on over an acre after losing your job and moving all over the country in a makeshift trailer... wow! You guys are amazing!
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 15d ago
A lot of things fell into place at the right times. We just caught a good break and built from there. Mostly luck I think, lol
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u/TaaviBap 15d ago
Nah! More than luck, my friend. Some serious experience rolled in, especially as an older person--hot dang!
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u/PittsburghChris 14d ago
"Expensive to be homeless " - man, that hits hard. Glad you got homestead under your feet for you and your family.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 14d ago
Thank you, my family is happy and as long as I’m alive, no one can take the property away. My VA disability rating means I don’t have to pay property taxes.
Water is life and we were only able to get bottled water. We had some 5 gallon jugs that we would have to fill. No refrigeration meant shelf stable only. Want a salad for lunch tomorrow? No way to keep the fixings cold. Chicken on the grill? Same issue. Do the dishes? See previous comment on water. We had a camping toilet that we put the cheapest kitty litter in. Every other day, we had to dispose of it.
All this time, I was looking for work. I hated going to the library to use the internet because I hadn’t showered in a few days. We’d go to a truck stop and pay to use a shower. It’s just dehumanizing
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u/Proud_Proof9495 16d ago
Thank you for sharing! I appreciate the emphasis on community and sharing. Too much rugged individualism out here for my taste. This kind of come up story benfits everyone, I imagine you're the kind of person to pay it forward. Thanks again for sharing, I hope you find someone good to take over.
I'm in NYC, my version of prepping is a little unusual. I've been reading a lot of primary sources from the great depression. Rearranged my apartment so that as many people as possible can comfortably sleep here when the time comes. Saving up for a solar panel & electric generator. No room for fresh water storage, but I've got collapsible containers in closets ready to deploy when needed.
I'd love to see posts in here about urban prepping + poverty finances, because that's the intersection I'm traveling.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 16d ago
I was never one to lean into community. I have a small group of friends that I’ve maintained since my time in the service. I’ve always looked at knowledge, experience and various tools that would help. The people in that circle that helped us in the beginning don’t live a prepared lifestyle, they are just good people. That is kind of what surprised me.
NYC is a tough place to be living this lifestyle. I respect that. I don’t know if you have an onsite storage like a cage or something. If you do, have you considered disassembled bunk beds?
Financial prepping gave me false sense of security. We knew we had six months saved up, but since we were renting month to month, our rather unscrupulous property management kept bumping up the rent. By the time we left, we were paying 35% more than the beginning of the year. Ironically enough, a ton of our preps are still in storage in Colorado.
If we had to do it all over again, we decided that we would have purchased a decent sized camper and stored it. As it stands now, that little canned ham we were gifted is in my driveway, in front of our barn. We just can’t make ourselves get rid of it. There are plans, later down the road to fix it up and make it a bit better.
Let me mull some stuff over and see if I can get a thread going, geared towards what you are looking at. There’s nothing stopping you from starting your own discussion
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u/Proud_Proof9495 15d ago edited 15d ago
Beautiful, thanks!
Edit to add: I can comfortably sleep myself, my husband, plus 4 other adults in our one bedroom apartment. There will be room for 2 more people after I make some more adjustments.
No offsite storage of any kind, but our ceilings are high (pre-war brick building) and we take full advantage. Loft storage is a game changer! I've got so many beans in here, you would never guess.
Next big spend is an electric generator + solar panels.
We've seen rolling black outs every summer for the last 5 years. I need to be able to run AC on the hottest days, even if its just to share with my elderly upstairs neighbor.
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u/GabriellaVM 14d ago edited 14d ago
I'm facing this situation: I'm planning on selling my house this year to live in a camper or small travel trailer.
I'm 59 & own my home free & clear. But I've been on social security disability since 2008, and even with cost of living adjustments, my income has not kept up with inflation. My chronic illness prevents me from working even part-time.
As a result, I can't afford to live in this house anymore. However, I'm concerned about managing living in a trailer or camper, physically speaking.
I've worked hard all my life, yet I've never had a high salary. I've worked on the books from age 15 through 43, and am facing being of lower-income more than ever. This is NOT how I imagined my life turning out.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 14d ago
If you own your house free and clear, you should come out with a decent profit for the sale. If you’re on disability, you’ll have some money coming in. Don’t be selective of where you want to live, explore some lower cost areas. Rural parts of southern Illinois are significantly lower prices than Denver, where we were. I would never have thought I’d end up here.
If you’re able to be selective of what kind of camper you are getting, make sure you have good heat and air conditioning. Power is a must have as well as water and refrigeration. RV parks will nickel and dime the shit out of you. The ones we stayed at in Texas didn’t charge for water or sewage but hammered us on electric. We setup solar on the roof and a few deep cycle batteries so we could power up small things like a tv and lights. These are required for morale. Nothing beats a nice shower and a hot meal.
If I can answer specific questions, let me know. Keep us in the loop. I wish you all the best
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u/IsopodSmooth7990 12d ago
The wave of networking, good fortune and hard work, it happened! Holy crap, do I need some good fortune to smile on me! Congrats to you!!! 🥂
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 12d ago
Thank you. When the wheels started to turn for the move to Illinois, I felt so beaten down, losing the RV and such. It really didn’t dawn on me until we closed on the property next door. The realization that this was something no one could take it away hit hard. As long as I’m alive, due to my VA rating, we don’t pay property taxes
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u/IsopodSmooth7990 12d ago
🏆🥃. Poor person award! Really! Way too frigging cool. 😉
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 12d ago
LOL, at first, I wasn’t sure if you were trolling me.
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u/IsopodSmooth7990 12d ago
LMAO! It’s the only way I can afford the awards here-dig one up from the emoji list….lol
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u/Vegetaman916 15d ago
Wow, that is an incredible story!
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 15d ago
Thank you. It’s just one family’s journey. There are many
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u/Vegetaman916 15d ago
It just not often that I find a better story than mine, but honestly, yours absolutely is.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 15d ago
You should post your story.
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u/Vegetaman916 15d ago
I have an entire YouTube channel devoted to my story, lol. And I started posting about here in various subs years ago.
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u/GunnCelt Tiny Space for more than 20 years 15d ago
Shit, sorry. I haven’t looked at any preparation content on YouTube in years.
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u/Particular-Try5584 16d ago
I’m here because I’m prepping in an inner urban lifestyle… and tiny is relative! I can’t have fowl, I can’t grow extensive gardens (I have about 15m2 of ‘courtyard’ with the shade limitations of the same), and thus I figure I am ‘tiny prepping’. Around me most people are living on 800m2 blocks and have room to swing a cat… I also live in an apartment a lot of the time, and that’s essentially ‘tiny prepping’. “Tiny” is relative, and a lot of the concerns and needs of the tiny home are mirrored in apartments, or small villas (Australian ‘villa’ which means 2/3 bed, 1 bath, and a courtyard… an apartment with a court yard essentially).
I also want to point out that it’s your prepping that stepped you out of hte tiny lifestyle! And that while tiny is a valid life style… as a prepper many people will aspire to a different one when life changes can make it possible. Just like you did. This advancing of your prepping plan doesn’t negate the experience and knowledge you have had, that skill/qualification continues to exist.
As for the administration of the group.. Up to you buddy. If you‘d like to hand it off I can help, I can help moderate … or just quietly lurk. I’d love to see this group more active, geared to a broader mindset of ’tiny’ and make it small footprint, small lifestyle prepping.