The $20 shelter

Small yurt built by bending together branches found in the forest. You not only benefit from the greenhouse effect during the day, but a double wall would trap a layer of air to insulate the shelter (at R5?!) at night. Like double-pane windows.

Although it's not demonstrated here.

This yurt costs 100 times less than a basic, full-sized yurt, but at that price, it provides a surprising amount of functionality. Even more functionality and strength than tents costing 10 times as much.

The frame held up to 400 pounds of snow. 

The $20 Yurt

The #1 trick to this is to start wrapping from the bottom with overlapping passes, like overlapping shingles the water will roll off without leaks.

Welcome to your cheap plastic home's primary building material.

Oh, by the way, Advoko also made a $1 kayak, making 3 kayak skins from a quarter roll of stretch tape.

This "$1 kayak" ultra-light kayak weighs less than 10 pounds. Based on a previous frame design.
With two of them, you have a catamaran, and can mount a sail. (And he has done so.)

We'll get to that in a little bit. First...

How To Make Your $20 Yurt

You'll probably want to select a blown stretch wrap, which has higher puncture-resistance than cast stretch wrap.



You get about 2,250 square feet of pallet wrap for $14.79 plus free economy shipping to the US. The hardest part of this article was finding the plastic wrap for you on eBay. Which was not hard.

Everything else will be free with a little elbow grease. With permission, you can use branches or scrounge up free pallet wood for the structure. No problem.

First, you may need to supply yourself with empty pop bottles. (And or make cordage from your plastic wrap or packing tape.)

Here's a free option: Bottle tape. Makes 100 feet of quick, lightweight PET heat-shrink tape or 30 to 50 feet of heavy-duty tape/cordage per bottle.



Vlad's shelter

A variation of this bushcraft.



Tools needed: A knife

Optional tools:

Helpful: A saw



Also Helpful: A hatchet








UPDATE:

Found a double-walled shelter. Stuffed with leaves for insulation, no doubt.

This one heated by a rocket mass heater.

$100? Come on, man. Don't spend all your money in one place!