In my early years teaching art in the UK, I worked three days in a row in a uni around 60 miles from where I lived. To save money I slept in the studios. Worked well for one year till I was caught.
Before the dot com bust, people who used to work for Sun or SGI who lived out in places like Sacramento or elsewhere would park their RVs (caravan) in the parking lots and save on commute time and also not have to buy expensive housing (even though compared to today it was affordable, but still they liked living where they lived). It wasn’t super common but a few did that.
I used to work with somebody on a long-term contract in Glasgow. He opted to forgo hotel and restaurant expenses (we worked at a large tech consultancy) for a per-night cash credit (I can't remember if it was £30 or £60) and lived out of his camper van. I still don't know how he did it.
After I was caught, I went to live with some students. Paid them in a few beers now and then. There was only one front door key between the four of them. To get it we had to climb up the front of the house. I was nearly 40 at the time, but didn’t mind too much living the student life style.
However, Eventually that kind of thing got to me. The breaking point was realizing that primary school teachers were getting paid more than me. Left for a university management job in Asia.
