1. free ice at motels. they generally have ice makers in public areas, and often outside. its annoying to buy an enormous block at walmart for 2 bucks that takes up half your cooler.
2. go swimming for free. if you're in an area where its warm enough to climb, there are often outdoor pools at the motels/hotels/casinos. sneak in. but dont *look* like you're sneaking. buy yourself a nice clean collared shirt at the thrift store for a buck and save it for walking into hotel lobbies with friends. same goes for a lot of hot springs and community pools.
3. public libraries make me happy to pay my taxes. at almost all public libraries these days you can get internet access, and some you can even get a library card for free despite your probable out-of-state status. i read the newspapers. i get out books to read, movies, and sometimes even use a viewing room to watch DVDs on rest days. if you're staying around, its often easy to mail yourself a postcard to a local's house. this is generally all the 'proof' that is required that you are resident. and then you can have full priveleges. ive even just addressed an envelope to myself with a bogus address and just had the post office cancel it for me, and that has worked. i love public libraries.
4. colleges and community colleges. great for internet access. some check IDs at their computer labs, so its a no-go unless you're a smooth operator. some just *say* they check IDs. and some just have logins on their computers, but i find that if you walk around for a bit you'll always find a computer where someone forgot to logoff. and some places you just walk in and its yours. besides the fact that they generally have better and faster computers than libraries, there are other advantages. there are rarely time limits to how long you can spend at a computer, and they generally have less, or no, restrictions on your computer use. meaning you can upload digital photos, run programs, etc, instead of just surfing the web.
5. rechargeable batteries. stop pouring money into your headlamps and digital cameras. buy a handful of NiMH batteries and a recharger. if you were traumatized by the ancient NiCad batteries in the early 90's, get over it. today's rechargeables are infinitely better and infinitely cheaper. check the amp-hour ratings on the batteries to find the one with the most juice. in batteries you are going to use several hundred times, a dollar extra for the best brand is worth it. a few companies make a nice charger that goes AA's and AAA's (the only two types that matter, really) with a combo car/wall recharger. or- if your charger plugs into a wall, like my first one did, you can leave it at a library or computer lab for a couple hours while you're buying groceries. No-one has ever minded when I asked if i could plug it in for a few hours. Or you could charge batteries off your car, which brings me to..
6. 120VAC in your car. living on the road means you're running on 12v. well, i like 120v from time to time. i use electric clippers to cut my hair, battery rechargers, and my cell phone recharger in my car. just about every autozone or walmart in the US now has a 20 dollar inverter that plugs into your cigarette lighter. the problem is that i get antsy plugging an inverter in and just letting it sit there and suck battery while the car is off. my solution- i bought a cigarette lighter splitter (5 bucks at walmart) that turns one socket into two, and a voltage meter that plugs into the cigarette lighter (10 bucks at autozone, but ive seen them for less at walmart). then i plug my inverter into one hole, and the voltage meter into the other, and i can charge whatever the hell i want while keeping an eye on how much juice my car battery has left. so far ive never gotten it below 11.7 volts, which is plenty to start my car, but might not work for your diesel truck (car batteries in good condition are actually around 12.6 volts when fully charged). or- if you have room in teh car for another battery, you could buy another battery and a dual battery isolator (35 bucks for a battery from walmart, with warranty, and 25 bucks for an isolator from the internet, and another 10 bucks miscellenous parts and wires) and have a second full battery that is charged by the alternator when driving, and using it when the car is off wont drain the primary battery. this is RV technology, so look for the parts on RV sites. ill put one in the next car I own that will last long enough to make it worth the install effort.
A note on powered devices in your car. my NiMH charger, cell phone charger, portable dvd player (plush!!), etc all run off the same charger cord. check the plugs (and if you are using adapters, the voltage and current ratings). so you can leave two or three cords at home and save a little mess. 7. save your tent. if youre just putting your tent up at the climber's campground to save your spot and keep your junk out of hte sun, for gosh sake leave the namebrand shit at home! i cant believe how many 400 dollar tents i see nuking out in the desert sun each spring. thats how tents get old- sun. they are made to be put up at night, and taken down in the day. UV eats plastic for lunch. do yourself a favor and buy a (drumroll please..) walmart tent (or kmart, or sams club, or target, or... etc. walmart just happens to have particularly cheap ones). you can get a nice little piece of shit (but works fine with a tarp over it in a deluge) for 29 bucks (size of a normal 3+ person tent) at walmart that you can leave in the scorching sun all day with no worries. or splurge on the 36 dollar tent and have a better fly. or hell- pay 60 or 80 bucks and get a virtual palace, complete with room for 8 people, multiple rooms and vestibules, and bidet (ok, maybe no bidet).
8. take the seats out of your car. just the ones you dont need. there was a time when i would fold down the back two seats on my station wagon. then i saw the light. i only had three or more people in my car like.. once. maybe. i took mine out, and now have a beautiful flat 6' bed in the back of my wagon. so- unbolt yours from the chassis and store them in your boyfriend's basement, becuase that's that much more room for the offwidth cams and walmart tent. i imagine the same goes for backseats in a hatchback.
9. 99cent stores. usually full of cheap crap that isnt useful to you, but i've been finding great deals on name brand, and offbrand, energy/protein bars. if youre hungering for cliff food, and youre sick of snickers (well, actually, you can buy those at 99cent stores too), then pop in from time to time. they often have three-for-a-dollar deals on good bars, and balance bars seem to be consistently in stock at two for a dollar, sometimes cheaper. the downside? they expire within a month or so. so f*ing what? ive eaten these things months after expiration and they're dandy. unless you melt and reheat and melt and reheat and sit on them a few hundred times.
Costco/BJs/etc are probably the best source of snack food of all. you can consistently get big boxes of energy/protein/granola/snickers there for real savings. nature valley granola bars are twnety cents each. cliff bars are 75 cents. but you dont have a membership. draft some vacationing climber from the city to take you with his membership, or: put on a clean shirt and deoderant and just go. walk in, tailgating some family and they wont ask you for a membership card (or heck, just ask to go in with someone). then tell the folks at the checkout lines you forgot your card and offer the appropciate amount of cash if they could just add your stuff to their cart. smile a lot and be friendly and have the right amount of cash on hand, and be prepared for some pretty hateful responses, but for cheap bars, its worth it. (or cheap nuts, or cheap tortillas, or cheap snack mix, or cheap... etc)
10. phones. if you have a cellphone, well thats dandy. if you have a calling card, and are slowly realizing that with a lot of calling cards payphones have recently become horrendously expensive (surcharges), then find yourself a normal phone. becuase you're calling a toll free number to use your calling card, ive had little trouble asking stores and hotels and whatnot to use their house phone, and public places like libraries and colleges often have phones set up for local calls that will also allow toll free calls. find a normal phone near your climbing area of choice and save almost a buck a call! hotel lobbies are consistently good for finding local phones.
11. wood for fires. having a campfire makes nights that much better, particularly if its still spring in the desert and you're freezing. but the hell if im going to pay five bucks a pop for a little plastic wrapped bundle of wood at the gas station. do yourself a favor and keep an eye out for construction sites that are still framing. plenty of them in the places i climb. drop by in the daytime and ask permission to raid their scrap pile (havent been turned down yet) or sneak by at night and risk being asked to leave by the security guard (happened plenty of times, but just leave when asked and its no problem). a few notes on wood: just use plain jane framing lumber. whatever size you can find it fine, but it is important not to bring home any treated wood. ie: no plywood, and for goodness sakes- no weather treated wood. if your wood has hundreds of even holes in it, its probably been treated. if its tinted a little bit green, or occasionally another color, its probably been treated. leave it at the scrap pile, becuase if you burn it, youll spend the evening inhaling all the arsenic and other crap they treat the wood with. no plywood. no railroad ties. no wood you're not sure about. no greenish wood. just the cheap stuff. and bring back some small pieces for kindling do you dont have to dump a quart of white gas on the fire just to get the dang thing started.
you can also break up palletes for wood, although its not as good as construction wood. palletes are re-used again and again, which means that 1) if you are caught stealing them they yell at you (siiigh, been there, been done. again and again and again), and 2) you are burning wood that would be re-used, instead of wood that will be landfill filler. if you must rely on palletes, the back of all the big markets generally has 'em, and often they're not locked up, so either ask permission to take a couple, or go late at night when there isnt a dockman to breath down your neck. note- i used to break my palletes up with a big claw hammer, until i found that a big rock works much faster.
12. climber-farming for the long-term dirtbag. if youre in it for the longhaul, sunday afternoon is an exciting time in every climber campground. everyone is about to take their rental car back to the airport to fly back to their investment banking job, and are looking around wondering what to do with their leftover propane and butane canisters, organic groceries, firewood, etc. if that means you are proactive, more power to you. if you just make a few rounds and pick up the discards lying by the message boards and trash cans, thats good too.
13. free condiments at fast food joints. sometimes you dont need a bottle of ketchup for the occasional breakfast hashbrowns. you can consistently find good hotsauce, ketchup, mustard and mayo at fast food places. i ask if i can take a bunch and havent been turned down yet. offering to pay is a nice touch. they dont have any way to have you pay for a ketchup packet so they give it to you for free and feel better about you while doing it. if you're in a area with a lot of fast food, you can branch out. with perseverance, you can find honey, lemon juice, chili sauce, and a lot of other neat bits and pieces for free. occasionally places have tabasco in single use packets. pizza hut (i think) has parmesan and cracked red pepper in packets. and taco bell's 'fire' hot sauce is my second favorite hot sauce. good heat, good full flavor. mmm. heavy packet use isnt environmentally correct, but its cheap-bastard friendly, and can be nice if you want some condiments for a short hiking trip.
14. dumpster diving. not for the weak of heart. if you dont mind a little dumpster wallowing (some folks recommend disposable gloves and even disposable clothing..) and dont mind getting yelled at when you get caught, dumpster diving behind supermarkets can be a pretty big score. normal supermarkets, and trendy places like trader joes, often have dumpsters behind them. bakeries and bagel joints are often good too. a lot of them are locked up, because they dont want you in their dumpsters. a lot of the locked dumpsters can still be gotten into with a little ingenuity (no! do not break anything! do not cut anything! jump over and squeeze through things.). some places have completely wised up and just have big compactors behind the store, and thats no use to you. if you can get in to the dumpster, root around. it can be gross (broken eggs, spilled milk, etc) but you're hardcore, right? go at night, when you are less likely to be caught by employees throwing out trash, less likely to be seen by cops, and the air is cool so you're not eating heated food (esp bad near expiration dates). these places throw out all the stuff that is going to expire the night before, and even if it expires the next day it is generally good for a while. vegetables and fruits in packages are often thrown out becuase one apple or one leek is getting old. and some stuff is thrown out for who knows why- was it just found on the floor somewhere? was it used to mop up a restroom floor? did a mouse nibble the corner of the box? use your own judgement, but know that its an option.
15. sleeping for free. if the climbers campground is a ripoff (red rocks, again!), or you're just passing through, sleeping can be tricky. dont park places where there are no trespassing signs because then you're breaking the law. if a place has no no trespassing sign, then generally the worst that could happen is you'll be asked to leave if someone takes notice of you (ignore that, and *then* youll be breaking the law). ive spent many nights in the parking lots of schools and construction lots on the weekends, in abandoned lots, supermarkets, warehouse stores, and in dark out of the way lots on weekdays. church parking lots have been good too. never been kicked out of those. casinos (for the vegas climber) seem to never check their lots, on or off the main strip. or best of all- use the new red rocks casino, which is almost as close to the climbing as the actual campground, but has a view of the cliffs (instead of a view of a pile of choss). most folks already know that walmart generally has a standing nationwide policy that all car campers/RVs can park for free at night in their lots. the only exceptions i know to this is a few walmarts in high-use recreation/tourism areas (flagstaff, some vegas walmarts), where lots of folks basically set up shop to live for long periods of time and shit all over the place at night. if you are bandit camping in a lot, consider moving around every few days. when security folk notice you're actually *living* somewhere, they can get a little antsy. better not to be in the same spot for weeks at a time. if youre just traveling throguh, or appear to be, they are generally much more sympathetic. either way, keep a clean shop, take out your trash, dont get caught peeing all over the place (even if you do), and generally dont fuck it up for the rest of us;)
The Car
its rough living on the road without one, so most of us have our own rusty piece of shit (with or without flaming liberal slogans on the back bumper). a few things which has kept my rust bucket cheap.
1. do all the easy work on your own car. when i got my car i didnt know jackshit about cars, but i had a lot of tools and a lot of enthusiasm. i know a lot more than i used to, and i can honestly say that just about everyone living on the road should be able to change and/or rotate tires, plug small holes in tires, check tire pressure, check and fill all their fluids, change their oil/filter, and occasionally wipers, air filter, etc. this is all easy. occasionally dirty, but easy, and requires barely any tools at all.
2. even better- you could do *all* the work on your own car. or at least as much of it as you can. this is the single best way to save a shitload of money that is better spent on trick gear and string cheese. whats that you say? you have no idea how to tell the difference between the battery and the alternator? whatever. go to autozone, NAPA, or your favorite local parts joint (just drive 1/4 mile anywhere in america and youll find one) and buy the haynes or chilton manual for your car. it costs between 14 and 20 bucks and is worth its weight in gold. it will help you do the easy stuff, the hard stuff, figure out what is wrong with your car, give you leverage in dealing with a mechanic becuase you know a little bit about what's going on, etc. really. buy it. and use it. if you're really serious, look on ebay for the factory service manual for your car. they cost over a hundred bucks new, but i got mine for 40 on ebay and ive seen them go for half that. the FSM tells you just about every single thing you could want to know about your car, and has tons of specific diagnostic info for your specific car. note- if you are new to working on cars, and are going to buy the FSM, but the haynes or chilton manual too. the cheap manuals talk about a lot of short cuts and ways to avoid using the specific factory tool referenced in the FSM. it'll be worth the additional 15 bucks, even if you do have the Big Special FSM.
parts are cheap, if you dont have an exotic car. a professional mechanic runs 40-100+ dollars an hour depending on where you live. if you do the labor yourself, you save the labor costs, *and* the parts markup becuase the shops all add a little something to the parts they order for you, in my experience. example: a shop quoted me just under 200 bucks to change the brake pads on my front brakes, and machine down the old rotors so they (might) work again. instead, i got new brake pads for both front/rear brakes, new rotors for the front, new drums for the back, new calipers for the front, and new springs and hardware for both front/rear brakes, all for about.. 200 dollars. and a long afternoon's work.
3. buy the manual for your car. what? did i say that already? i mean it. its worth 15 bucks even if you *don't* plan on doing any work. it will tell you how often you need to do various routine things which if you dont will destroy your car, and it will help you figure out what's going wrong when something is going wrong.
3. AAA. consider buying a membership. its almost worth it for the plentiful free maps alone, but they also bail you out if you run out of gas, lock yourself out of the car, need a tow, etc. if you have a clunker like mine, the AAA 'plus' costs but is cheap insurance. to keep it a little more affordable, add yourself to your family's membership and pay a heck of a lot less than an indepdnant membership. every couple months i go to their website and ask them to send me another dozen maps of cool places i want to go. they show up the following week. free.
4. MPG. the more the better. there are plenty of things to think about when trying to squeeze every mile out of your expensive atmosphere-destroying fossil fuel. make sure your tires are pumped to the appropriate pressure. dont carry extra weight you dont need. air conditioning is supposed to drop mpg a little bit. but there is one thing that generally makes a *big* difference- driving habits. you're a dirtbag. you in a hurry? slow down! driving 55-60 is generally the most efficient speed. avoid the 75 mph cruise control addiction, because it eats gas for lunch. and dude, this isn't NASCAR, this isnt GTA. theres no reason to be the first guy off the traffic light, to dodge in and out of slow traffic to be the first at the next light, etc. punchy driving is inefficient driving, and you'll just wear your transmission and your brakes and your gas mileage that much more. mellow out, already, eh?
Approach/Descent Shoes for the cheap bastard.
hang your head in shame, and go to walmart. they consistently have absolutely dirt cheap shoes that make great descent shoes (ie: shoes you have to carry with you on the climb for the walk-off). there are two places to look for them- in the beach shoes section, and the women's shoes section. (btw- im talking about descent shoes for multipitch, not alpine. if you need to actually climb in your approach shoes, buy something prissy already.)
some climbers actually like normal beach shoes (flimsy rubbery bottoms and mesh or neoprene tops). they cost four bucks a pair, but i dont like them becuase there is no structure to the sole. i can feel most of the pebbles through them. the rubber is sticky enough, they pack flat and usually have clip-in loops, and as long as you dont get a neoprene top (too sweaty, too heavy) they are comfy. But- like i said- too flimsy for my feet. and surprisingly, fairly heavy with the thick rubber on the bottom.
in the beach shoe section, you often find a second type of beach shoe. i see them in walmart in the spring, before the season starts. they are made by a company called 'sand and sun' or something like that. they are a mesh upper, and a thick closed cell foam sole with a tiny bit of injected rubber on the bottom. they look like a running shoe, more than a beach shoe, and they are heinously light. they pack completely flat and most of them have clip-in loops at the heel. did i say they were light? *really* light. the rubber on the bottom is sticky enough for normal walk-offs, but i woudlnt want to do a lot of class 4 in them. what little rubber is there has no real texture, though, so there are no good if you need lugged soles, or if youre walking in the wet (they slide like skates on smooth surfaces like metal gratings and newly painted surfaces when its raining). I'm considering buying a small sheet of the dotted stealth rubber and glueing it on for the perfect descent shoe. bomber traction, featherweight. Oh, and they cost under six bucks a pair. My recent pair lasted me a year of pretty rugged use and finally blew out catastrophically on a very tricky/steep descent off Mt. Wilson in red rocks (i should have seen this coming with all the holes in them) so keep it in mind. other pairs have last less time. also- the soles of these shoes have three or four vent holes in the sole, which is no problem generally, but you cant tread on the bigger cacti in red rocks without asking for trouble. but c'mon- the lightweight approach shoes on the market these days cost 80 bucks and up. you could go through 13 pairs of these bad boys for that, and they're lighter than the lightest approach shoes by a long shot. Note- the rubber on these, and a lot of the beach shoes, comes with a thin film of fabric over the bottom. not sure why. after a few hours use this wears down to the stickier stuff and you're golden.
women's shoes at walmart: they're unpredictable. but i find that there is generally at least one or two pairs of shoes that fit me and fit the descent shoe bill. remember what you're looking for: lightweight, decent sole rubber/texture, clip-in points if possible, and packing flat is nice too (ie: no heel stiffener, etc). the men's shoes are always the same boring crap. the women's shoes have all sorts of offerings, although not in all sizes. and you're out of luck if you have big feet (my dogs happen to fit a variety of walmart women's shoes sizes 9-11 for my size 9.5 mens).
the two models Ive seen a few times that are particularly tempting are a euro-puma knockoff that is heinously light, as light as the normal heavy-rubber beach shoes, with a good fit, nice thick midsole, and decent textured rubber sole. they woudl be perfect, except the upper is mostly leather and im vegetarian and if i can do without leather i will. the other model that keeps popping up is a trendy looking cross between a running shoe and a beach shoe. it has a bomber lugged sole with good rubber (which makes it a little heavier, but still as light as any uppity name brand approach shoe), and a mesh upper with a lot of cutout area, and an elastic strap across the top of the arch to hold it all together. im considering buying a pair of these, replacing the elastic strap with a 1" strip of webbing and velcro, and presto- perfection!
so, if youre on the market for light shoes, but dont have a hundred bucks to spare, walmart is definitely worth a look. particularly in the early warm season when they are selling those kind of shoes.