This off grid tiny cabins retirement story is a guest post by Michael Scheer – share your tiny house story here too!

My name is Michael and about 5 years ago I wanted an off-grid place for vacation and retirement. Like many others, I am tired of bills, bills, bills and knew I would never have enough money to retire on unless I became debt-free and my home was paid off.

A couple of years passed and as things happened I had a friend who went through a divorce (I recently moved out of my ex-girlfriends home 8 months prior) and he needed help monetarily in order to buy a home and asked me to move in. The move cut my rent in half and enabled me along with my bonus check to purchase some land I found in northern AZ at about 6500 ft elevation. Summers are mild with highs in the low 90’s high 80’s and winters are in the 40’s and 50’s with light snow. I picked up 6 acres for less than $4k.

He Built Two Off Grid Tiny Cabins for his Retirement

Images © Michael Scheer

Months later I decided to put in my first cabin, I bought a 10×18 from weatherking (apx. $4200.00), it was just a shell.

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If you’re thinking about getting a composting toilet for your tiny house (or any size house, really) then read this first.

You can always check out the top 5 composting toilets we recommend for tiny houses. But sometimes nothing beats doing it yourself. It’s cheaper, it’s more rewarding, and you’ll appreciate it more because you built it! And yes, you can still keep the smell away. All it takes is sawdust.

It’s a relatively simple project and won’t cost you more than $60 in materials to complete. You might even be able to find scrap materials and build your own composting toilet for free. That sounds better than spending up to $1,750 on composting toilets like the ones I showed you here, right?

There’s nothing wrong with any of the composting toilets on the market. In fact, the ones I mentioned here are pretty awesome. It’s just that not everybody has that kind of money to spend. So why not consider a simple solution like this if you and your family are open to it? Especially if you’re into carpentry already, right? Or if you’re looking to get started, this might be a great first project. So just for inspiration, I wanted to share one of our readers, Nicole’s, DIY Humanure Composting Toilet Project. And I’ve provided resources on how to build your own at the bottom of this post in case you’re inspired to build one too. Enjoy!

Woman’s DIY Humanure Composting Toilet Project

Images © Nicole Martin

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Several years ago John Wells bought 40 acres in this West Texas area called Brewster County for $8,000 after selling his mortgaged home in upstate New York. Then he built his own debt-free tiny home within 9 days for only $1600.

As time has gone on he has created his own solar shower, composting toilet, bicycle-powered washing machine, greenhouse, and more. The property now even has an Airstream trailer guest house, office space and additional housing made out of shipping containers, a solar oven, chicken coop, and a water collection system. His tiny house also features a swamp cooler (also known as an evaporative cooler) which he made himself to cool his cabin for next to nothing. John has the ability to store up to 21,000 gallons of water on his property.

“The main reason I came to this area is because there are no building restrictions whatsoever and that’s really hard to find in this country,” says Wells. “I came out here to get away from debt.” John went from a 2800 sq. ft. house with loads of debt to a 128 sq. ft. tiny house with zero debt and lots of self-sufficiency.

Man Builds 128 Sq. Ft. Tiny Home for $1.6k on Land w/ No Codes

Images © Faircompanies

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Straight out of a storybook this sweet little whimsical cottage is a dream come true for Sue Corl and her husband Ron.

The cottages’ design, look and feel was based on Sue’s childhood dream of having a tiny cottage just like Rudolph, Hermey & Yukon Cornelius (from the Classic cartoon Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer).

Thus the name of their tiny home, “The Rudolph Cottage“.

Ron and Sue have been living tiny for over 28 years. After living in a 200 sq. ft. travel trailer for seven years with their two cats and a large dog they decided it was time to up-size (or should I say ‘right-size’?).

So they bought 30 acres of beautiful lush woodland amongst the largest Amish community in central Ohio.

Then they spent over 2 years gathering the perfect materials to create this whimsical fantasy tiny house Sue always dreamed of.

Let’s check it out while I tell you the rest of their very inspiring simple living story…

Couple Build Their Own 520 Sq. Ft. Cottage to Upsize from 200 Sq. Ft. Trailer

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You knew I’d end up here eventually. I am finally going to share some information about our tiny house bathroom.

Just like every other aspect of tiny spaces, bathroom layouts can vary wildly.

I wanted to share some of the decisions we made about our teeny bathroom so you might get an idea of what we’ve done.

I encourage you to see and learn how we designed and built the bathroom in our off grid tiny house:

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Tiny House Living Expectations: Simplifying or Roughing It? Article by Laura LaVoie

This post on the realities of tiny house living over at Trying on Tiny was brought to my attention. In it, Audrey mentions the unexpected things they’ve had to face since moving into their tiny house; and not all of them have been pleasant.

Audrey and Tomas chose to downsize their lives and hired a builder to construct their tiny house. Because of their lifestyle, they weren’t able to be with the builders on a regular basis and it wasn’t until they had their little house delivered to their doorstep that they realized that there were some things they hadn’t considered.

Audrey mentions some of the challenges that have come up including mold issues surrounding a leaky drain and chores they took for granted in their old life.

She calls her expectations something of a “Tiny House Fairy Tale.” Audrey had a perception that downsizing their lives and moving into a cute little house would solve all their problems not create new ones. She writes, “It’s simple to flush a toilet; it’s not as simple to carry a urine bucket outside and ‘fertilize the garden’.”

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