>>2836367
Also, Americans assume that everyone has a car big enough to sleep in comfortably. I started with a half-width twin memory foam mattress pad (cut lengthwise and stacked). Then graduated to a twin mattress from a mattress store in Xalapa, Mexico that I took delivery of ten minutes before closing time after hurrying half an hour back to my van, which was parked near my hostel on the street.
There are innumerable ways for costs to run up into the stratosphere in America, but if you manage to avoid ALL of them at once, you can live for less than $1000 per month, and live pretty well at that. I'm talking about living in the healthiest parts of the country.