University of Central Arkansas student Branden Blume grew up in a three-story home with a pool; now he lives in the back of a bread truck without running water.
He’s likes it that way.
The 21-year-old junior said “a bunch of different factors” led to him living in a 97-square-foot truck. It’s partly an experiment, as well as a way to save money.
“Since I’ve chosen this mode of living, it’s been a really freeing agent and allowed me to spend money on better-quality food, or paying for that yoga class that you otherwise might not have spent money on,” he said.
The Lowell native is majoring in kinesiology-exercise science, and he has two minors — nutrition and psychology.
He first attended Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, then transferred to UCA for the fall 2014 semester. He shared a UCA-owned apartment, which cost him $350 a month.
Now, he pays $100 a month to a homeowner on Donnell Ridge Road in Conway to park the truck in the man’s yard and connect to the homeowner’s electricity.
“Only thing I use electricity for is I’ve got a microwave, coffee maker and a little space heater that I only use during the night,” he said.
He owns a car and a bicycle, both of which he uses as transportation. His bread truck/home stays parked the majority of the time, although he has taken it on an occasional trip to Walmart or to UCA.
Blume said part of the experience is about “realizing what you do and don’t need and figuring out your own personal values. I’m interested in sustainable living,” he said.
While he was growing up, his family had all the luxuries in life, he said. His parent are divorced now, but they were together until he was in junior high, he said.
“I grew up in a pretty privileged home… . I never considered myself spoiled, but they gave me a lot of freedom to explore and consider my options. I was not forced into a mold.
“After my parents got divorced, I’d seen my mom struggling just keeping up with a three-story house that’s on a lake,” he said. They had a pool and boats. “Both my parents — I think it has to do with the era they were born in, as far as wanting to acquire more, more extravagant, more quantity of things. I wanted to try to see what it looks like to have less things, less complication.”
Living in a truck with limited furnishings is less complicated, although it takes some thought and ingenuity.
Blume said he got the idea because he enjoys the “outdoor-adventure-type lifestyle,” and watched professional mountain bikers and rock climbers on YouTube. He wondered how they lived and found that many of them lived in renovated vans or other vehicles.
He researched the micro-home movement, as well, and dreams of one day building such a place.
Blume found his truck on Craigslist for sale in Springdale, 10 minutes from Lowell, and paid $2,500 for it.
Although the truck started when he bought it, later it had engine problems. He fixed the engine by looking up how-to information on Google and watching YouTube videos.
Otherwise, the truck was move-in ready.
“It was a dude’s bread truck, a private owner, and his brother was actually living in it for six months, so it already had walls in it, insulation (fiberglas behind wood paneling); he’d already put a bed in it and a wardrobe,” Blume said.
He purchased about another $300 of supplies, he said, such as a rod for clothes. A trip to Goodwill yielded bedding that attached to the ceiling.
The first night he spent in the truck, in January, “it was like 15 [degrees] the night that I drove down here,” from Springdale, he said. “I didn’t have propane yet because I hadn’t been to Walmart to get a propane heater. I had class the next morning at 8 o’clock, so I just went to bed. I had like a ton of blankets; my body got tougher the first week.”
He lived on a gravel lot and didn’t have electricity for a month, he said. “I feel really spoiled now that I’ve got access to electricity and a propane heater.”
Living in the truck has made Blume’s eating habits improve, he said.
“I already ate pretty good just being health conscious and focused with my majors and minors, but since I don’t have refrigeration, my ability to keep stuff cool is pretty limited. You learn how to eat things that don’t require a lot of No. 1, refrigeration; No 2, preparation. I eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. I do have the ability to cook. I’ve got a little camp stove that runs off the propane, but I have to keep the doors open for that so there’s ventilation,” he said.
He has a kitchen sink, and he uses water to brush his teeth or wash his hands. The gray water runs from the sink onto the ground.
Blume’s “bathroom” is a composting toilet, a 5-gallon bucket with a wooden cover and filled with sawdust. He prefers to use bathrooms in public facilities, he said. Blume said he showers at the Health Physical Education and Recreation Center at UCA, where he is employed, every day after exercising.
“What I miss the most is probably — I used to take a nice [tub] bath like twice a week — and I think that’s what I miss the most. I would shower at the gym, but whenever I lived in the apartments, I would take Epsom-salt baths after I’d go to yoga. I’d do the whole incense and candles thing — block out all the party music and stuff going on,” he said.
He said it’s easier to study in the truck by himself than it was at his apartment, and he feels safer, too. When he would come out of his apartment, he sometimes would see broken beer bottles, and different people coming in and out.
Blume found the homeowner from whom he is renting based on a gut feeling when he was driving down the road one day. “I was driving by this dude’s house, and I got a weird feeling that I should talk to him,” Blume said. He told the man about his truck and the need for a place to park it. “He said he’d think about it for a few days.”
Blume has a girlfriend, by the way, whom he’s been dating for 1 1/2 years. Does she think it’s crazy for him to live in a bread truck? “She thinks I’m crazy for more reasons than that,” Blume said. “She likes the adventurous … part of me.”
His parents haven’t seen his truck home, yet, he said. “My dad said that I would either really love it or really hate it, but either way, I would learn something, so he was OK with it,” Blume said.
The student said his mother’s reaction was more “mom-like.” She said of all the things she worried about, “she said she never thought she’d have to worry about me voluntarily becoming homeless.”
He’s not homeless; his home just has wheels.
“You kind of take for granted always having electricity; I still don’t have the amenity of running water. I’m learning to value things a lot more.”
Blume is installing solar panels on the truck, and he said he plans to live in it until he graduates. Even if he doesn’t continue the arrangement with the current landlord, Blume said he’ll find a spot in an RV park.
It’s already been a good learning experience, he said, just “the change it has created in me to become more efficient in my own routines of living and just kind of realizing the luxury that I do have access to living in this country.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.