People Are Replacing Rent With Hotels… And It's Becoming Normal

[00:00:00]So, there are people right now choosing to live in a hotel month after month instead of an apartment because it is cheaper. And I know for many people that does sound backwards because usually you only stay in a hotel when you're going on vacation if you need something super temporary. You usually don't look at hotels for a long-term option. But between deposits, application fees, credit checks, and the rent requirements that continue to go up every single year, people are deciding that they want to go this different route. And hotels are even advertising this now because they know that the cost of living is going up so much that they can attract people to stay at their hotel instead.

[00:00:38]In case you missed it, we live in a hotel full-time and we just experienced something we've never experienced before. I don't know if this is a Tennessee thing or if it happens everywhere, but they wouldn't allow us to stay more than 28 days in the same room. Apparently, over 28 days, you can claim residency. And we've definitely stayed in a couple of hotels for more than 28 days. So, does that make us a Tennessee resident? If so, we're keeping our state income tax this year. Adam has had a hotel room in his name in Georgia since October of last year. So, I'm not sure. Maybe we're a resident of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi. I'm not really sure at this point. But since he moved all of our stuff while we were in Mississippi last week, we had a lot of shopping to get done today. We ended up throwing away almost all of our groceries. So, we had no food when we woke up this morning. We're starting with a clean slate, but I do have a full kitchen still. So, that means I've got to restock on all of the essentials.

[00:01:18]But, y'all already know if I go into Target, I have to do a little browsing.

[00:01:20]And they have Circle Week this week, and there were some really good deals that I just could not pass up. Aldi's was pretty busy today, so I quickly tried to grab everything that we needed and made our way to the super long checkout line.

[00:01:29]And the sweetest people were in line and let us cut because they felt so sorry for our chaos.

[00:01:32]>> And I'm telling you, I just can't make this stuff up as soon as we were loading the groceries onto the conveyor belt.

[00:01:36]Riley threw a jar of pickles and it shattered everywhere. So, we held all of them up waiting for it to be clean.

[00:01:40]>> I know they regretted being nice to me.

[00:01:42]>> So, we're a family of four living in a hotel full-time. And I want to show you how that looks like because I feel like people are going to be like, "You live in a hotel?" But let me show you how we got it set up. I think you're going to love it. So, first up, we have the bathroom. And it's pretty spacious bathroom. Like, I can't touch the wall.

[00:01:56]It's bigger than the camper we live in.

[00:01:57]But this is the bathroom. It's really nice. Comes with a hamper. Love that.

[00:02:01]Since we are staying a long period of time, y'all are going to love this part of it. Look, we get a freaking kitchen.

[00:02:06]Look at this. I also brought my own pot because after I saw that girl put her, you know, wet in there and put it there.

[00:02:11]We're going to put that up. Yeah, we're not doing that. She made a whole fort out of the chairs. So, this is a kitchen area and it comes with chairs. And then she's in here.

[00:02:21]What are you doing?

[00:02:23]>> What are you doing?

[00:02:25]>> He made a fort. So, this is the kids area. Also, there's a second bedroom, but I'm not going to show that because hubby sleeping right now, but not bad for a family fort. We got a kitchen. We got a living room. We got a big bathroom. And I think this is going to be perfect. I just have to go grocery shopping. And I can't wait to go on an adventure with y'all in Fort Worth. It's going to be fun.

[00:02:44]>> I live in a motel room with my pregnant wife and two cats. Let's come check it out. So, the first thing is this little door right here. I like these cuz all you got to do is press in the uh combination instead of having the key and bam, it opens right up for you. And this is the inside right here. We got the kitchen, got the little fridge, we got the sink, we got the oven, you know, plenty cabinet space. Um, this is the living room slash dining room slash bedroom area. This is where the magic happens at right here. You know what I mean? Got a little nightstand over here.

[00:03:18]Nice stand over here. Management's real cool. Black hat. Jimmy's the manager. He said, "I can rearrange this any way I want to." You know what I mean? Plenty of calling space there. Then we go to the bathroom. Old lady's in the bathroom. I don't know. Hello.

[00:03:31]>> Can I come in?

[00:03:35]>> So, we got the bathroom here. You know, got wifey in here cleaning it. Got one of the cats in here. You know, honey tub space. There's a closet behind that wall right there. And now the best part for last. Show y'all outside.

[00:03:51]And then you see big TV. You spin it any way you want to. And then outside we got paradise, y'all. We got the shuffle board over here on the left hand side. A little picnic tables. We got the uh hammock over here in case you want to come out here and get you some rest. Um it just rains so excuse. You know, it's South Florida. It happens. Got the tiki ball over there next to where you can go play the shuffle board there. You know, we got another little garden area set up over here with the umbrella and got the uh laundry room over there. You know, that's a necessity. Parking on both sides. And then the best part, y'all, the pool right here. Right. We got the pool open all year round. You know, it never gets cold down here. And one block that way is you'll have your feet in the sand. Less than 120 second walk. Hey, you gotta love it. Paradise. You're ever in South Florida on Ocean Boulevard in the PMPO Beach or Fort Lauderdale or surrounding areas, come see Black Hat Jimmy at Sea Cove, baby. Make you feel right at home.

[00:04:56]>> This is the hotel that I reserved from November 17th, 2025 till May 17th, 2026, which is a total of six months, and it's going to cost me $8,9414.

[00:05:11]No, I do not have to pay all that upfront. I can either pay 307 a week or I can pay the 1228 a month. You could even pay every two weeks. It really is up to you. Your total amount is your total amount. I'm going to take y'all inside my room.

[00:05:29]This is inside of our room. And what we get inside of here for that amount is say hey to hubby.

[00:05:38]Also, we have the full-size refrigerator and freezer. It came with the microwave.

[00:05:44]It also came with the two ice stove burner here. We brought our own coffee pot and some extra items over here. It does come with a full size bathroom shower.

[00:05:59]Pretty nice size. And of course, it's all about how you make it, but this is what we are doing pretty much so we can like save up money, get a piece of land, and actually start paying on something that's ours. If you don't know, now you going to know because the other crazy thing that I learned doing gig apps is that there are an enormous enormous amount of people who are living in hotels, entire families living in a room.

[00:06:31]They're buying fullon groceries living in a room. And the entire hotel looks like it is inhabited by families.

[00:06:46]It is crazy to me that these hotels are making so much money. And granted, it's not they did not cause the issue.

[00:06:55]However, they certainly are capitalizing on it. If you are paying $100 a night for a a hotel room with no protections, rental protections, what have you in an entire month? That's $3,000.

[00:07:14]$3,000 to live in a room that you have to be out of by 11:00.

[00:07:21]It is crazy.

[00:07:24]One time I was delivering groceries.

[00:07:26]This was the saddest thing in my mind. I was delivering groceries to a hotel and I was a little annoyed because she was on like the second floor and I had and it was a lot OF STUFF.

[00:07:40]WHEN I GOT up there, I see this woman who is 9 months pregnant. And I'm just going to say she's a white woman because she was. And the reason why I'm saying that is because people have a tendency to think that this is all minor, you know, people who are minorities.

[00:07:58]It was a white woman who was 9 months pregnant.

[00:08:03]And I'm loading all of this stuff onto her bed. And she's saying to me that she's going to have to go to the hospital tomorrow. and she just wanted to make sure she had enough stuff in the room so she wouldn't have to go out when she got back. How sad is that? How sad is that that your child is being born homeless?

[00:08:30]But this is America.

[00:08:34]>> I get free housing as a hotel general manager. I get free housing and when people find out that I live here at the hotel, they think that I just have a regular guest room, but in reality, I have a three-bedroom, three bath, living room, kitchen, and laundry room. And it's about 2,000 square ft. So, today I'm going to show you what my kitchen looks like that used to be a restroom.

[00:09:02]So, come Coming in the front door of my apartment. I have my little entry way here. I have my food pantry and the guest rooms. This would be the closet as you walk in. So, coming in from the entryway, you come into my kitchen. It is very compact.

[00:09:32]If you have more than two people in here, you do have a little traffic jam.

[00:09:36]I have plenty of cabinets.

[00:09:40]Um, I do have a working stove and oven, although I don't use it very often. I probably use my air fryer more than I do anything else. And then I have my little coffee and tea station set up over here.

[00:09:54]I bought that cart secondhand and I keep my pots and pans on it and my overflow kitchen gadgets and I do not have a dishwasher, but I do have my ice machine and I could not live without that. This is where the restroom vanity and mirror would be, but I have um a pass through. And through here I do have um my refrigerator where the stove is over here. This is where the uh the shower would be in the u the guest rooms. I try to live very minimal. I don't like a lot of stuff. I don't like all that clutter. I literally have two plates, two bowls, two cups, two forks, two spoons. You catch my drift. But what I do have a lot of, I am a true Texan, Texas native, and I have a ton of spices up there. This vent up here, I took it down to clean it a few months ago, and I can't get it to stay now. So, that is the tour of my kitchen here in my apartment. And I do realize that I'm extremely blessed to have this opportunity where I don't have to pay rent. I've lived here in this apartment for 5 years. I've worked at the hotel for seven. Um, this is my home. Um, I do enjoy living here. It's pretty quiet and no guests don't bother me. The guests really don't even know where my apartment is here in the hotel. So, when I am off, I kind of navigate through the hotel. Very incognito. Sometimes I'm not looking my best when I'm taking the dog out. And I don't want hotel guests to see me looking all raggedy.

[00:11:58]>> Man, just because you got to stay in hotels and stuff right now, that don't mean you homeless. A hotel ain't nothing but an apartment without a contract that you can just pay for every day. Cuz think about it, if you really want to if you really want to get to the meats and potatoes of the situation, every day we go to work, divide your rent by 30 days.

[00:12:19]And most of us probably paying about $40 or $50 a day out of the money we make every day. These folks got daily pay on jobs now where you can cash out on your money right then and there. You ain't got to wait on nothing. So, if you really want to run your money up or you really need somewhere to stay, it ain't no excuse for for you. If you got a car and you can get on Door Dash or one of the apps to make you some money a day, you make you 150, $200 a day, take 50, pay for your room, it's the same thing as standing in one of these apartments. Same thing. You can run your money up the same way. Get your credit right. Like, there really ain't no excuses out here, man.

[00:12:58]So if you staying in a hotel right now, that don't mean you homeless. It's the same thing. Literally, you just ain't signing no long contract and and doing a credit check and all that.

[00:13:11]Come spend a closing shift with me as a family of three living in a hotel. If you follow me for a while, this isn't the content that I expected to be making, but life doesn't always go according to plan. It's not something that I ever thought that I'd be sharing online with everyone, but I want to be real and honest and hopefully in the future I can look back and see how far we've come. Right now, we're doing our best to make this small space work for our family while we figure out our next steps. We did recently apply for an apartment and our credit cleared, but we're just waiting to hear back for the final approval. They estimated a move in date of June 19th, but that could always change. We're just keeping our fingers crossed for good news and we're keeping positive for our son. But I'm not going to lie, these last few days have been pretty rough. Since March, we've been sleeping on couches or living with family. But it's honestly a pretty debilitating feeling when you have a son, but no, you can't take care of him in the ways that you want to. Most days I feel like a failure, but my son's counting on me and I don't want him to feel any emotions or know that things are stressful right now. So me and my boyfriend just stay positive and make the most out of our situation. My boyfriend works full time and I stay at home with our son, but I'm also doing real estate classes as well as photography on the side. I know we're doing all the things that we should be doing, but sometimes it feels like we're going nowhere. Tonight, I'm just trying to get things a little bit more organized before bed because when you're living out of bags and containers, things can get really messy fast. One thing I've learned is that even a little bit of organization makes a huge difference. When everything has a place, it makes the room feel a little less temporary. Tonight was bath night, so I'm running my son a bath. I'm trying to get back into our routine to make things more normal for our son. Because when you're constantly on the move and packing and going to different places, it definitely switches up the routine and can kind of throw things off. And I know he may not remember any of this.

[00:15:19]But I don't want him remembering stress and tension. I want him to remember that he's loved and that he's happy and that he has two loving parents who care about him a lot. Some moments have been stressful. Some moments have been very emotional. But there is also moments where I realize we have so much to be grateful for. We have a safe space to sleep tonight. We have food. We have water. And most importantly, we have each other. And right now, that's what I'm trying to focus on. I wanted to start documenting this journey because I know one day we'll look back at these videos from a completely different place in life. And look at my son trying to brush his hair. Maybe we'll be in our own apartment. Maybe we'll be settled somewhere new. Maybe this will just be a memory. But I don't want to forget this part of our story either. Not because it's easy, but because it's real. Not everything you see on social media is real. And this is just your reminder to be kind to everyone because you never know what they're going through. Right now, we're taking things one day at a time, saving money, making plans, and doing our best to move forward. So, this is our little closing shift for the night. Getting organized, cleaning up, getting ready for bed, and hoping tomorrow is a step closer to where we want to be. I know this season of life isn't forever. Even though sometimes it feels overwhelming when you're living in it, but at the same time, I know there's so many people who have had to rebuild, start over, or go through unexpected chapters in life. And if that's you right now, or if that was you in the past, just know I see you and you're definitely not alone. One thing I keep reminding myself is that this chapter doesn't define our whole story. It's just one chapter. And this season of life is temporary. All we want is to make our son feel loved, safe, and supported, no matter where we are.

[00:17:23]Because home isn't really about four walls. It's about the people you're with. And even though things don't look exactly how I imagined, I'm choosing to believe that there's better days ahead.

[00:17:36]Thank you for following along and supporting my family. This is real life right now. And as embarrassing as it is, I don't want to sugarcoat anything. So yeah, if you'd like to support me and my little family, you can like, comment, share, and follow along for the journey.

[00:17:53]Anything helps, and I appreciate all the support. Good night from our little hotel home and we'll see you tomorrow.

[00:18:01]Bye.

[00:18:02]>> So, when living in a hotel starts to make more financial sense than signing a lease, I think that really is something that people should be paying attention to. We're not just dealing with a personal budgeting problem. We're dealing with a system that is pricing people out of basic stability. So, leave a comment down below. Let me know what rent is going for in your local area.

[00:18:22]And if you like this video, please make sure you are subscribed to the channel.

[00:18:26]I post videos like this all the time because people deserve to know what's really going on here in America. Thank you for watching.