There are so many reasons to consider living in a small house.
But when it really comes down to it I believe that we can boil it down to just one reason.
Yesterday Laura LaVoie explained to you how simple living isn’t always easy living and I think she makes a great point.
She pointed out how some folks think that trading in your modern conveniences for the simple life is only an exchange of problems.
Today I intend on summing it up for you with one idea that I believe is powerful for anyone who decides to use it and put it into action in their own life.
This idea isn’t just life altering for you, but also for your family because it has a big impact on them too.
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Photo by Alex Pino
I’m going to talk about the rat race. You’re all familiar with it, I know that. It’s the idea that we work, eat, sleep and cannot seem to get ahead. Why does this happen?
I think it’s because most of us are living beyond our means. In essence, spending just about every penny that we earn. But what happens when we lower our needs?
If you can lower your monthly expenses by moving into a small house you’ll find that the change will trickle down to many other aspects of your life.
This creates just enough abundance in your world to actually get ahead every month. To have a little something extra left over to spend, enjoy, give, and save. And that’s why you should consider a smaller home, apartment, studio, or even a tiny house.
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Alex
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Agreed Alex. As you know our life changed so dramatically after we moved into our tiny house. We work a LOT less, and have quite a nice nest egg saved up only after 6 months. We live better than we ever have and our outlook on our future is so much brighter than it ever has been. Anyone who is on the fence about living this way needs to realize what’s truly important. Working your life away for crap is not a mantra I wish to live by. Time is precious, and life is short. Wasting either for material things that you ultimately lose in the end just seems foolish. If I have to choose between having “stuff” or free time with my wife doing the things we love, well that should be self-explanatory.
Well said, thank you so much for sharing..
For me, I buy the things I love even if they’re more expensive since I don’t own much I like to enjoy quality clothes, electronics, etc..
This way I also don’t have to spend tons of energy replacing my stuff. High quality lasts longer and in the end is cheaper in dollars and energy.
The rest of my time, energy and money, like you said, is better spent on relationships and experiences. That make me fulfilled long-term.
Great post, Alex. There is not a day that goes by without me or one of my boys saying hoe happy we are. My daily mantra, pre-tiny house was “my life stinks”. I know – not very positive. But we are so happy now, it had more than made up for the bad moments when we were working four jobs between us just to hold onto our big house. Now, our core expenses (counting life and health insurance, home and auto also, which take up the biggest chunk of our income…..) are under %1500. There are three of us.
We have been here TWO YEARS this month! Life is SO sweet.
So glad to hear this, Debra, thank you so much for sharing and congratulations on the big, positive change.
Excellent post, Alex. I was recently asked how I am able to work for myself and pay my expenses and the only thing I could say was that I had to lower my expenses. Without that, this would have never been possible.
Thanks, Laura and you’re right on. To make such a change it’s only sustainable if you either 1- lower your expenses or 2- save up for a while. The best part is the #1 leads to more of #2. And moving into a tiny or just smaller home creates this trickling effect for that.
Hi Fellow Tiny Folks & Foragers:
Women Helping Women by Julie Zimmermann writes (June 2012) “Filling the community need, on January 24 of this year, 104 homeless women and children were found to be living on the streets in Hot Springs. The first location, a former nursing home in the Whittington area was vetoed as a location for Safe Haven, however, supporters leased a 4,400 square foot vacant Hot Springs Housing Authority “administration building at 1109 High rise circle, close to downtown, near Spring Street. After two years of tireless work on the part of many, Safe Haven will soon offer homeless women and children the chance for a new start.”
Simple living is not so simple…but it’s the key to happiness for many of us. Giving up expensive loans, giving up credit cards, selling off the junk we all collect, and living in an affordable, often tiny home…but it pays in freedom.
Freedom for me is financial freedom, not being a slave to a job, not owing money to banks, being able to hitch up your home and move it to another state without worry about how your going to make it financially….that’s freedom.
You can’t live in a tiny home without simplifying your life, and that’s where the freedom is. I look back at the way i lived and realize that i could have retired at thirty if i hadn’t tried to keep up with the Jones’s by spending so much on houses and cars, credit cards and toys…the only thing i don’t regret was the toys!
It’s time for people to look at simple living with envy instead of scorn, i personally know people who live in mobile homes who have a much better life than those who struggle with bloated mortgages and huge homes. They vacation 2 or 3 times a year, have boats or motorcycles to play with, go camping to cabins they own, and people label them trailer trash…well…that’s a life i’d prefer to working sixty hour weeks and paying thirty years worth of mortgage payments.
My wife and I hate banks. I have been told all of my life that my credit score can make or break you. I have never had a credit card or ever taken a bank loan out for anything. Immediate gratification brings about bad things. America learned this a few years ago and is still trying to recuperate ever since, and yet people are still buying into that “American dream”. Well that dream is a modern day fabrication. People have existed for thousands of years without the help of the banking institution. After WW2 the average American began to live beyond their means and have been doing so ever since. My generation was born in an age so spoiled that we have this entitlement belief that we should be living in large houses and have a new car every few years, not even getting into the frivolousness of all the added options. When is enough enough?
I tell friends of mine that I never have had a credit card and they look at me in disbelief. I won’t even bother telling you what they think about me living in a tiny house. I buy everything in cash, cash that I save until I have the money to buy what I want or need. I save instead of borrow, I go used instead of new, and like Alex I try to go for quality so I need to only purchase something once.
Every friend I have and every person I know lives buried in debt. They work themselves to death and worry constantly about falling behind. To me this sound a lot like self-induced slavery. And these people never have the time to enjoy the things they work so damn hard for, and they always seem so miserable. Banks are not your friend. They bring misery to millions of people all the while getting even richer off of that misery. This is your 1% people. Worst of all we are the reason they exist.
Right on you guys.. This is what we should be teaching our kids.
All very good points but there is one other big point not mentioned here, TAXES! I dont live in a tiny home but enjoy reading about them and one day may very well be in one. Right now my house is an older 70’s ranch style, out of town, and nearly paid for. I look at other family members that have newer houses in town and their TAXES and INSURANCE exceed my house payment. To make it worse even after their house is paid for they will still have to pay these huge sums of money each year. This is so the city can continue wasting money on unneeded projects we did without for years and dont need now. As for me, no thanks! My taxes are about 1/4th or less than those friends and family that life in town.
Thanks Elwyn, what an excellent thing to point out which I’ve been overlooking lately. Taxes and house sizes have gotten out of hand. It’s sad to see that even folks who’ve paid their homes off are left struggling to pay their insurance and taxes. Yet again, another reason to consider lowering our needs. Even if it takes renting out the current larger home and moving into something smaller and more manageable.
THANK YOU to Alex, Meg and Joe and all the folks writing here who seem to really “get” that living smaller is the only way to go! The quote from Meg and Joe, “Time is precious, and life is short. Wasting either for material things that you ultimately lose in the end just seems foolish” is just priceless, and I wish we could shout it from the rooftops!! My husband and I (empty nesters on a small income) have been living in our “small” home we built ourselves two years ago, “only” 700 square feet but it is a mansion to us, with no mortage, lower taxes, minimal upkeep, and a well thought-out floorplan that makes it easy to heat and cool. Our vehicles have lots of miles but are paid for too. We could not be happier, and could not want for anything more. Thanks to all for the great posts.