There’s a constant struggle for organizing my car. I have to somehow fit my bedding, a few clothing articles, some food bags, water flasks, electronics, backpacks, a fan, books, cables, and my hefty EcoFlow Delta 2 power station. Oh yeah, and embarrassing to mention, a few bottles to pee inside of in the middle of the night.

And this is just some of the stuff that goes inside the cabin of the car. I’m not even talking about what goes in the bed of my truck, or for others that would be their trunk.

This lifestyle isn’t that bad, but it’s not always easy. Ironically, the one thing you can do to make life in a car easier is also part of the problem, and thats by adding everything you need inside the car. By far, my biggest problem is space. Where will I put everything?

I have a quad cab truck, and for the most part, it’s enough for everything I need, including my sleep space. But it would be nice to have a crew cab truck that has a lot more legroom in the back and more floor space to organize.

Organization is very important to saving time, reducing stress, and it probably helps in other things too that I can’t think of right now.

In the first couple of weeks, it was stressful trying to move things around, swinging things between the back and front seats. I tried sleeping on the driver's seat with the seat reclined all the way, but it was not ideal at all. I couldn’t do it with my body in one position and legs hanging all night off the seat. My legs felt heavy as if blood just pooled below my knees.

I started sleeping in the backseat, which is mostly enough space as long as I bend my legs at the hip and knee. It's usually enough space as I normally curl up anyway.

But once I started sleeping in my backseat, which is by far more comfortable, that’s when the problems of space began to grow because now everything had to be moved around. I couldn’t just leave everything in one place anymore. I had to unstack and move everything towards the front at night, and return things to the back again in the morning. Everything was constantly shifting around.

Now, as much as a hassle as this was, it feels worse the more tired you are. I usually go to my sleeping spot ready to call it a night and go straight to sleep. But it’s never that easy. It’s not like when you have your own home, where you can go straight to bed and fall asleep. Instead, you have to cover the windows, tuck away cables, move lunch boxes, hang the fan, and pile up everything in the front seat while trying to remain in stealth mode.

It’s a freaking hassle sometimes, and it feels much more so when you're dead tired.

At first, I just piled everything up in the front. But everything gets so out of place, and things start getting lost. In fact, I cannot find my earbuds for music anymore.

At night, I was charging my phone and other devices, but I would have to flip the car inside out to find the cables. Then when I needed a snack or something, I had to clear everything I loaded on top of the small cooler to access the contents inside.

There were a dozen little things that would get lost or just feel like a hassle to move around. I wasted so much time and energy, and it felt increasingly frustrating to deal with when all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

Then in the mornings, I couldn't find my toothbrush, and when I did, I couldn't find the toothpaste. I'd forget one in my sports bag, which I leave in my truck bed after showering at the gym at night. Then I didn't know where to spit out my mouthwash or how to clean my toothbrush afterwards.

There were so many little things that should've taken seconds or minutes but now took far longer than I could have imagined.

So I keep coming back to the same trade-off. I can reduce the number of items inside my cabin to win back space — but the one thing I actually want to add takes space right back: a portable fridge. And that opens up a whole new problem.

Now that summer has gotten hotter — reaching the high 90s — the ice in my ice chest melts fast. Most of the time the melt water seeps into my bottles, food bags, and soaks my sliced cheese, and it's a pain digging food and drinks out of a pile of half-melted ice.

That's why I'd much rather have a dry fridge, one I don't have to restock with bags of ice every week or sometimes multiple times a week.

The ice chest is also part of why I still spend so much money eating out. Most of the time it's just for convenience and speed. There’s no need for dishes to clean, no food to prep, no getting out of the truck to drop the tailgate, pull out the ice chest, and fish my ingredients out of the ice. But I'd rather save that money, so I need to cut down on fast food and start cooking my own meals again.

A fridge feels like the solution to much of my food problems, but it adds to my in-car space problem. As you'd imagine, the fridge pulls a fair amount of energy for its size, and it'll drain my EcoFlow Delta 2 power station in under two days.

My Delta 2 is the 1,024-watt model, so it handles just about everything else with no problem — but on its own it can't keep up with the fridge. I'd need to recharge every other day, and I can't exactly make stops to plug in somewhere.

Luckily, there are a few ways to solve this:

Once again, to solve one problem, I have to add more things to my car. This feels like a perfect example of how consumerism grows in our country, where we buy things to make life more convenient, but one purchase leads to another. It’s like a branch that splits into smaller branches, then into twigs, and then into leaves—one thing always leads to another.

I don’t think the answer is to buy my way out of every inconvenience (even though it’s tempting). The real solution has been reducing what stays in the cabin and building simple systems so everything has a “home.”

Here’s what’s helped the most:

At the end of the day, I’m learning that car life isn’t about having the perfect setup. Instead, it’s about creating a system that works with you. Every week I get a little better at staying organized, wasting less time, and feeling less stressed.

One lesson here is that it will take some time to get used to this new life. Getting organizers will make things easier for you in just about every way. Take your time and learn what your need, how frequently you need it, and whether it can stay in the trunk.

That’s it for now.

I’ll see you next time.

Amado

Until next time,

Amado Aguilar