Recently, my parents bought a smaller house. And this past week, while on vacation in South Dakota (yeah, I vacation in South Dakota), I got to see it for the first time. During our stay, I was surprised at how often my mother commented that “they just love their smaller house.” I wasn’t so much surprised that she felt that way (I am a minimalist after all), but I was surprised at the frequency. It was a comment that she repeated over and over again during our one-week stay.
Toward the end of the week, I sat down with my mom and asked her to list all of the reasons why she is experiencing more happiness in her smaller house. And this post was written… my first post co-authored with my mother.
12 Reasons Why You’ll Be Happier in a Smaller House by Joshua and Patty Becker (I get top billing because it is my blog).
People buy larger homes for a number of reasons:
- They “outgrow” their smaller one.
- They receive a promotion and raise at work.
- They are convinced by a realtor that they can afford it.
- They hope to impress others.
- They think a large home is the home of their dreams.
Another reason people keep buying bigger and bigger homes is because no one tells them not to. The mantra of the culture again comes calling, “buy as much and as big as possible.” They believe the lie and choose to buy a large home only because that’s ”what you are supposed to do” when you start making money… you buy nice, big stuff.
Nobody ever tells them not to. Nobody gives them permission to pursue smaller, rather than larger. Nobody gives them the reasons they may actually be happier in a smaller house.
So, in an attempt to break the silence, consider these 12 reasons why you’ll actually be happier in a smaller house:
- Easier to maintain. Anyone who has owned a house knows the amount of time, energy, and effort to maintain it. All things being equal, a smaller home requires less of your time, energy, and effort to accomplish that task.
- Less time spent cleaning. And that should be reason enough…
- Less expensive. Smaller homes are less expensive to purchase and less expensive to keep (insurance, taxes, heating, cooling, electricity, etc.).
- Less debt and less risk. Dozens of on-line calculators will help you determine “how much house you can afford.” These formulas are based on net income, savings, current debt, and monthly mortgage payments. They are also based on the premise that we should spend ”28% of our net income on our monthly mortgage payments.” But if we can be more financially stable and happier by only spending 15%… then why would we ever choose to spend 28?
- Mentally Freeing. As is the case with all of our possessions, the more we own, the more they own us. And the more stuff we own, the more mental energy is held hostage by them. The same is absolutely true with our largest, most valuable asset. Buy small and free your mind.
- Less environmental impact. A smaller home requires less resources to build and less resources to maintain. And that benefits all of us.
- More time. Many of the benefits above (less cleaning, less maintaining, mental freedom) result in the freeing up of our schedule to pursue the things in life that really matter – whatever you want that to be.
- Encourages family bonding. A smaller home results in more social interaction among the members of the family. And while this may be the reason that some people purchase bigger homes, I think just the opposite should be true.
- Forces you to remove baggage. Moving into a smaller home forces you to intentionally pare down your belongings.
- Less temptation to accumulate. If you don’t have any room in your house for that new treadmill, you’ll be less tempted to buy it in the first place (no offense to those of you who own a treadmill… and actually use it).
- Less decorating. While some people love the idea of choosing wall color, carpet color, furniture, window treatments, decorations, and light fixtures for dozens of rooms, I don’t.
- Wider market to sell. By its very definition, a smaller, more affordable house is affordable to a larger percentage of the population than a more expensive, less affordable one.
Your home is a very personal decision that weighs in a large number of factors that can’t possibly be summed up in one 700 word post. This post was not written to address each of them. Only you know all the variables that come into play when making your decision.
I just think you’ll be happier if you buy smaller… rather than the other way around.
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The reason I bought a condo, besides the fact that it was what I could ACTUALLY afford as opposed to what the banks told me I COULD afford, is that it’s a) centrally located to three major universities in the area and it’s b) going to be much easier to resell when the time comes.
I was also forced to get rid of those mystical boxes that were following me around from place to place that hadn’t been opened in three or four years and it felt great.
Yes, totally agree. We live in an estate in a house with a 149m2 footprint. Most people here aspire to 250m2 + with as little backyard as possible. I do get tired of the “I love what you’ve done with such a small space!” OR “Your house is so…cosy isn’t it?”.
The other common saying is “Wow it’s so tidy in here”. We live a 2 adult, 2 young children minimalist lifestyle with pictures, couches etc but no clutter. I love my small house. All 4 of us have our special nooks for privacywhen we need them which keeps us happy and satisfied (it is a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom home so nothing to complain about). Our open plan living area is a joy to be in and our backyard is large and the kids love it. The hang up with bigger houses….I’m so over it!!
Great blog once again. I’m just curious, hopefully not rude but what is the approximate m2 of your house and does it take much time to clean? I can vacuum our whole house in 15 minutes. (Another plus – no need to pay for a cleaner in a “small house”.)
I really needed to read this, since we had to downsized almost a year ago.
I LOVE my small house. I love packing it to the rafters at Christmas, I love being able to hear my kids play no matter what room they’re in. I love the small mortgage! My small house lets me have money left over to travel and save and allows me the luxury of working part time so I am home when my kids are. I love that a small house makes me have to think about what comes in, so what I have in my house is valuable to me. My house is efficient and adorable and it has character and heart. I look at all the enormous houses that all look the same around the corner and I wouldn’t trade my house for anything.
One thing I forgot to mention that I found interesting – because our house is small, people assume that we are looking for something bigger. People assume when they visit us that our house is a temporary move until we find something bigger. I love the faces when I tell them we’ve lived here for 12 years and have no intention of moving, except maybe to a smaller condo when the kids are gone. :)
When my son was little, he once said “I wish we had a bigger house”. We talked about why and it seemed to be because he thought exploring a big house would be cool. We discussed our house and how this house was the reason I didn’t have to work full-time like some of his friends Moms and we talked about the work/daycare schedule I would have to keep with a larger mortgage.
Now, years later, it is not uncommon to pull up after a day away and hear a voice from the backseat say “I love our little house”.
I was just saying this the other day. i love our little house. it’s just right for us and if I had a bigger house it would be to hard to take care of. it’s 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. We have a great basement to play in and a nice back yard. it’s suits our family of four and I hope we don’t ever have to leave.
Great post with good points! We live in a 2000 sq. ft. house now, but I know we could live with less and I would really enjoy the “less time spent cleaning” part and the “less expensive” part!
From the perspective of a young person who has yet to own a home, and might never, I find the prospect of the smaller, less consuming investment, to be the right choice on just about every point.
As I get older, I value family and community more and more while recognizing that we shouldn’t do something just because we can. To me, this simply equals stress and waste.
If we could all be happy in smaller homes, perhaps we would venture outside more often to discover that our communities need some love and care.
I’m reminded of when I was twenty, I subscribed to the ” Buying a home is the best investment you’ll ever make.” mentality. Even my grandfather can see that in this day and age, the old systems apply less and less.
Thanks Joshua! Great post!
We have 1,200 square feet for two people and four cats and it’s still too much, but we’re stuck with it for a while. The acre of land on whch it sits is WAY too much.
Truthfully, if you can stretch your arms fully in all directions and stand up straight, you have enough room.
This post looks great on the new theme. I especially like how the comments are the same size as your text and close to it, giving them equal weight with your words. That’s very nice.
Gip
I’ve recently moved from a 1400 square foot house to a 800 square foot apartment and love it! One of my favorite parts in the experience was getting rid of all the junk when I moved. Now that I am living here I find I have much more time since I do not need to tend to my things as much.
One of my “possessions” which owns me is my ginormous bookshelf. There are some books I flip through now and then, but the majority are books I’d read in the past and will never look through again — but don’t feel right giving them away.
Have you downsized your books, if not gotten rid of them altogether? How did you do it without being emotional?
Oh how it hurts! But I have done it, mostly because I had to (non-voluntary downsizing). I gave away many beautiful and expensive books and felt quite shaken by the experience, but now 6 months out I feel OK about it. Books don’t really “live” in our bookcases, they “live” when someone somewhere reads them. Mine are now out there, hopefully being read, and I am happy with that. The upside is visits to my new public library – many wonderful books, probably more than I can ever read and I can take them back when I’m finished. I see books differently now – not “things” to own, but as “conversations” that I can start and finish with authors, without weighing myself down.
Ari – I just did this. Reading is one of my favorite things to do and I’ve always loved the look of a home overcrowded with books. Books as clutter were an exception, in my book. Then I discovered minimalism and really, no sense in having them there just to clean around them. I spend far more time on NEW information via the Internet. I donated about half of my collection to the library so far. I feel good knowing that others will benefit from them.
Good points Ruby. I removed many of the books from my office a few years back and immediately felt a sense of freedom. As if I was now freed to research and find new answers to problems rather than all the old answers sitting on my shelves.
…so you haven’t bought any books since you removed those other ones?
I trade for books at the used bookstore. I have to give them 2 or 3 of my old books to get one from them (they have to make a profit) so I get rid of my old books and still have something new to read. Between that and the library I’m all set. I do admit that there are about a dozen books I still hold onto, but that’s way less than a few years ago.
While I agree that smaller homes are less expensive as far as to heat and electricity… buying a smaller home isn’t necessarily cheaper for the house itself… at least not where I live. For us to downsize to a smaller house of similar quality will actually cost us more than what we paid for our current house (which we bought as a foreclosure for a fantastic deal). Any houses in the same price range that are smaller are well below the quality of ours and would require a lot of work, and those that are similar in quality are more than what we paid for our current place.
There are certainly many factors to consider in the purchase of a home. Size is just one of them and my hope with the article was just to open the idea that smaller may actually be better.
Yep, I can attest to all 12 of those reasons. I raised 4 kids in a 1000 sq. foot house with one bathroom. Things were a little tight there for a while, but the rewards were always well worth it. So many of our friends are house-poor, because they just HAD to have the dining room and the family room and the master bath and the walk-in closet…
Not us. We’ve got a low mortgage, plenty of equity, and now that kids are moving out, it’s positively roomy! :)
Our house seemed HUGE for us when we moved in 7 years ago; since then we’ve added 3 children, and it seems about right. We’re going to have to downsize our stuff as they get older — all that junk in my son’s closet from before we got married? Yeah, needs to be culled and put in our closet. He gets a place to keep his own stuff!
As the kids grow, our stuff will need to shrink.
I am making space for things like hand-me-downs, but have the temporary solution for some of the clothing — we loan it to another family after our older son, and get them back in time for our younger one. Minimize the storing of it; maximize the use of it!
Ari,
Yes, just about a month ago I sorted through all of my books. I kept the ones that I like to refer to or that have great sentimental value to me. All of the rest, including some of my favorites, went in a bin and out the door. I sold them all in one swoop on CraigsList, actually. I figured, if I wasn’t going to reread them, they were just collecting dust and taking up space. Someone else could use them and, if I ever wanted to read them again, I can always rent them from the library. Now, I’m left with a few books that I hold dear and a lot more space. More than the space, however, I gained freedom. A freedom from attachment to “things” that weren’t serving a real purpose in my daily life. I hope you find a similar liberation soon…it really is nice.
Wonderful blog. Speaking about our homes, I do believe in less is more. I just moved in a 1 bedroom apartment 1940s style with hardwood floor and aluminum windows. Living in a small place encourages me to not purchase more furniture because there is simply no room to put them.
Great post!
I have one little objection based on a specific pet peeve of mine.
I prefer to use more impersonal words like “house”, “apartment”, “condo”, “residence” rather than “home” when referring to the bricks-n-mortar, real estate – to separate the emotional words from the practical words. Buying or renting real estate is just a financial transaction, but “home” is a state of mind created by you and your loved ones, and that can take place as easily (or more so, as you have shown) in a 700 sq ft apartment as a 6000 sq ft McMansion.
My nit picking aside, great job! :)
I can relate to @Christy Z. As we were moving in to our small house 9 years ago, my brother in law asked how long we were going to live in the house. We hadn’t even slept in the house yet and he was assuming that we wouldn’t be in it very long because of the size. He owns a mcmansion and to him everything is a competition. At 1800 square feet, our home is small by a lot of people’s standards.
I’ll take my small mortgage payment that will be paid off in 5 years, our smallish yard, our 1 1/2 baths, our one car garage filled with bikes instead of a car, our low utilities and tax bills. He can have his huge mortgage, heating bills, and maintenance headaches that came with his 3500 sq ft home. I forget which blog I read this line, but our new motto is “the jones’ can kiss my assets.” Because of our small home, we have put ourselves in a comfortable position financially.
I love that quote: “The Jones’ can kiss my assets.”
We have been in both worlds – huge house and little house. After my husband retired from ministry, where we moved from parsonage to parsonage, it was time to buy our very own house, and we went overboard and bought a 3-story 100-yo Victorian and then doubled the size. It was beautiful, and had lots of room, but boy, was it a pain to clean and a financial drain to maintain. Sometimes people think of a house only in terms of the purchase price and not the price you will be pay to repair and maintain; that can be substantial, and it was for us. When the kids moved out, we sold the huge house and built a small modular house in the country. We went from a very big walk-in closet with built-in shelves, etc., to a tiny closet each. I said, “Oh well, if I have too many clothes for this closet, it just means I have too many clothes, period.” It’s also nice that I can call for my husband from just down the hall instead of down 3 flights of stairs and what seemed like a city block away. I do love the smaller living space – my only regret is that I no longer have guest rooms – we had always enjoyed having friends and relatives travel to Maine for visits. That, however, is always the result of choices: you lose, you gain. If you’re lucky and wise and choose well, you will usually end up with more gain than loss.
I think we as a society have gotten so accustomed to large living that we can’t picture a different lifestyle. My sister and I always shared a bedroom growing up, in a small house with only one bathroom for us and our parents. We didn’t feel deprived because we didn’t know of any other way to live.
Wow, what a great and simple post. I wish someone had said these things to me 4 years ago when my wife and I were looking for our first house. Needless to say, when the market turns and we can get out of the oversized box we live in, a small home is definitely our next move. ^_^
Many of the advantages you ascribe to small houses apply even more to condos. When you share walls, floors and/or ceilings with other units, you get serious reduction in heating costs.
I’m hoping to pay off the mortgage entirely next year or the year after, while friends in larger houses outside the city will still be stuck paying for their large houses AND their cars. It kind of makes me wonder what they’re seeing in that lifestyle that I’m not!
We live in about 1100 sq. feet with 3 kids and 4 dogs. we are also hoping to adopt 1-2 more kids. it is tight quarters, but it forces us to only have what’s really crucial. i tidy up every day and the kids have chores to do. i’m constantly re-evaluating and getting rid of stuff. years ago, i had a pretty big amount of books, now i’ve pared it down to about 5-6 books. i love to read but with a baby there is not much time for that. we have minimal furniture also. just beds, couch, a couple rocking chairs. the tv’s are on simple stands, not big “entertainment” centers. it works for us and we are all on board with it. the kids and husband are fine with it as long as they have a TV, computer and game system they don’t care what else i get rid of!
My husband and I did something “unconventional” last year…we sold our dream house and downsized into an apartment. One day we thought about how many rooms in our house did we actually use? We were surprised how much space we had that we really didn’t need. And while I loved yard work with my busy schedule I couldn’t do it justice. We were able to sell our home in three weeks because we priced it to sell. We realized too that in todays world real estate is no longer the investment it may have once been. With the money we made on our house we paid off what few bills we had and now live totally debt free. Small works for us!
I love this list! I live in an apartment that’s ≤750 square feet with my husband, our 7-year-old, and 3 cats. I usually try to explain to people that it’s like living on a boat: pared down to the essentials, I know where everything is (okay, *usually*) and I don’t have anything I don’t use regularly or love unconditionally, and freeing that is.
This is a great post! I wish that more people could read/hear this side of the argument. When my husband and I married 5 years ago, I assumed that we’d be in my house (we sold his) just a year before we bought “our” house, which of course would be larger. Then the housing meltdown happened and we stayed put. Now, I am sooo glad we didn’t buy a larger home “just because that’s what you do.” We are content to stay in our 1300 sf home for all the reasons you listed. Thanks for not only seeing, but writing down the reasons for having a small home. Hopefully, others will hear the good news!
Love this post, and really relate to your mom’s p.o.v. After DH and I downsized to our cozy little bungalow, we had a party, inviting many of our friends from our old town. I don’t think a single one of them thought we were sane after seeing how much smaller our new house was than our old one. No regrets!
Agree with Gip about the overall appearance of the new site design.
At 2000 sq. ft. we have much more space than my son and me need, but the location trumps it all. Because we live across the street from where I work I am able to walk to work. My son goes with me in the stroller because my employer offers on site day care. I told someone yesterday that regardless of the size of our place, I would live here because of all of the other benefits.
This article also made me think of my son and his crib. He loves to spend time in his crib. He has free reign in the house, but there is something about being in that small space that is all his that he loves.
I live in a 2700 sq ft with my wife and two kids, we bought this house when the kids were 8 and 11 years old respectively, now after 8 years the older is getting ready to leave for college and the youngest will be leaving in two years. My plan is that as soon the youngest is off to college to sell this house and buy a small 1400 sq ft for my wife and I which will be more than enough for the two of us.
I have to relate the following observation:
When we moved to our house, this was the smallest floor plan in the neighborhood and there was a family living next to our house that had 3 kids and their house was 3600 sq ft and they moved after a year because they could not stand that the house was too small for a family of 5, so they built a 5500 sq ft mansion and are happy now. I always wonder about that. To me a larger home means more to clean and maintain, more rooms to fill up with expensive furniture, more walls to decorate, more areas to heat up and cool off and of course larger insurance and energy bills and not more happiness. Happiness to me is a small mortgage or no mortgage at all.
This post is awesome! Thank you, Joshua’s Mom, for your thoughts and input. I’m so on board with you! I love all the readers comments, and the new design, and the fact that so many of us realize the importance of a minimal lifestyle, in whatever way works for each of us as individuals and families! We are a family of four and own a small bungalow in USA, maybe 900 s.f., currently rent it out as we are in Germany for work. I observe that in Germany (and many European countries) folks live literally on top of, underneath and RIGHT next door to each other, MOSTLY in VERY small spaces. AND ARE PERFEKTLY HAPPY, and love to get outside and go for walks, and talk to their neighbors, and enjoy time together at a beirgarten and shop at the local market, and ride bikes and take public transportation (bus/train…)!!!! We were lucky to find a place to rent that is actually LARGER than our house in America, and has a one car garage!!! The real estate agent (‘Immobilien’) thought I was CRAZY when I said with surprise “this place is larger than our house in the USA.” She just ‘assumed’ all Americans lived in huge houses. Anyway, thanks for this post, minimalism ROCKS! (and with moving across the ocean and other places, it sure is easy and more cost effective and more environmentally friendly to ‘pack up/un pack’ our minimal ‘stuff’!!!).
Here, here! I know from experience you are right.
We have a small (1146 square feet) house with 2BR, 1BA, and no garage. 3 people.
It’s really hard to hold off on the idea of moving sometimes. One friend is trading up from a 1400sf to a 2000sf house because the 3BR house is too small for 2 kids. And they decided to keep the other house because “Family needs a place to stay when they come viist.” I believe the family is actually buying their house (wow, I have a hard time conceptualizing what it would be like to have that kind of money.”
Then there’s another friend who decided to trade up to a bigger house instead of refi their 10 year ARM.
The tricky thing is that our son starts school next year, and we are in a bad school district. So many of our friends are into “trading up” right now for that reason. But we are allowed to transfer.
Of course, my kid wants a new house because he wants stairs. :(
Oh, and I really liked the comment that compared small houses to living on a boat. I have a friend who lives on a boat in the harbor with her husband and two kids.
We moved to cut down our commutes. (mine is now 15 min, and hubby cycles) We looked for a smaller home but ended up only 100 sqft less. I still regret not getting smaller, 2 rooms just not used yet still need cleaning.
However we got a nice lot and grow a lot of our won food. *:)
I’m not sure smaller is better when you’re already living in the tiniest house on the planet. Some people do truly outgrow their home, I for example purchased a <1000 sq ft. house with one bedroom two years ago. I have everything I need NOW and for the next year or two. But if we add kids to this equation? Sure the yard works, the rest of the house is big enough to not go crazy… but if we want any sleep and privacy we will have to upgrade to a house with more (SMALL!) bedrooms.
I love this post. We live in a 1600 sq foot house w/ 2 boys and I work from home so one bedroom is my office/craft/storage room. I have never felt that it is too small for us. When we heard through the neighborhood grapevine that the couple down the street was selling because it was ‘too small’ for them and their new baby we just laughed. (And a quick click on the real estate listing had us saying ‘well of COURSE it is too small if you try to fill it with furniture made for a house twice that size.)
Although I will admit to coveting the architecture of some of the larger homes I see, I’d be just as happy with a small home bearing unique features. I am looking forward as our boys grow to adapting our space to meet our changing needs.
Small is not for us. We rented a smaller house (1000sqft living w/laundry & workshop in unheated basement) while we away on business for a year. We were so relieved to step back into our 2500 sq ft home. We were miserable.
While I agree that people should not be buying more than they can afford, but that’s not always a size issue. Smaller homes do not help you not accumulate because that’s often a personal issue. They are not necessarily cheaper. The resale value depends on the area. Taxes are not based on size in all areas. Insurance is based on rebuilding cost & contents & location more than size. Environmental impact only applies to new homes being built, not existing homes being purchased. So, when you account for all of the unique factors in each situation, size is just a facet.
Hi Anne-Marie,
I can only asume from your response that you don’t heat or cool your home which has a huge effect on the environment whether your home is old or new. If that is right then you are mostly correct. Although for every family living in a home too big for there needs there is a supply and demand effect for larger families that need a bigger home. If there are no pre-existing homes available for them they have no option but to build.
If the home is small but poorly designed which sounds like the case for the one you rented then I have no doubt it would taint your view on smaller homes. Smaller home doesn’t mean too small to suit your needs it means not excessive to your requirements.
Having recently sold my big house and downsizing… I can repeat the mantra “I love my small house” and we love our smaller place for precisely the reasons that you’ve stated. It feels so freeing! And with the extra money you can do so much more with life. It’s grand!
Clearly even the definition of “small” is debatable – I’m seeing 1400 and 1600 sq ft houses being referred to as “small”. After coming back from Zambia, that’s still large! LOL
My husband and I moved to a smaller home when we moved from the UK to live in Ireland. The result was that it gave us much more freedom on so many levels which gave us more choices in all areas of our life.
I don’t think I’ll every buy a “large” house. I’m 21 now (going on 22) and I’m so glad I discovered the minimalist/small house/consume-less movement when I did. I so look forward to owning a small home, it being filled with memories and the people I love rather than the stuff I like.
Thank you for writing about this movement for free, so many more people can discover it!
All good points, although I think “encourages family bonding” is a bit of a stretch. A good book that echoes some of these thoughts is The Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka. She’s an architect in favor of buying smaller, with the goal of having a home that better suits your lifestyle. There are a lot of great photographs of beautiful homes, too.
I have just returned from a visit to my nephew. His wife is a doctor and he is an accountant with his own business. They have 3 young children (12, 10 and 2) and a HUGE double story plus finished basement, 4 bedroom/5 bath, corner lot, pool home. It is a lovely home(about 5k to 6k sq feet) and they enjoy living in it. I noted that they hire a weekly cleaning crew for $120 each time that does basic tidying and cleaning on the ground floor and 1st floor. Then another crew comes once a month that does a deep clean on all three floors probably for more than $120 a visit. In the spring, they hired a landscaping crew that came and pruned and weeded the landscaping at a cost of $500. I can’t imagine how much the electricity bill is because in July, the basement was freezing cold and the other two floors were just comfortable enough and yet the aircon was on constantly. I noticed they lived mostly in the kitchen/family room and the master bedroom (where mom, dad and the two youngest all sleep in the same queen bed!). The house is large enough that the children don’t like to go upstairs or down to the basement without each other! It’s quite hilarious! In the evening, they will be in the kitchen/family room and then at bedtime, they huddle together and migrate up to the master bedroom. So, there is definitely family bonding going on in a large home! They are the kindest couple ever and the children are very sweet. They love to entertain and have all their friends and family over. I came away thinking that the only way to have a large home and enjoy it is to earn enough to support it and they certainly do. I’m glad to have experienced how the wealthy do it all. Our family is quite comfortable in a 2000sq ft home which I still struggle to keep clean. Our goal is to move into something small with with hardly a yard and no pool when our children leave the nest. I have already begun decluttering and living with less. Being jobless helps!
My brother is married to a Japanese woman, they lived in Japan after they got married and about 15 years ago they came to the USA and stayed with us for a while. The first thing my sister-in-law said when she saw our 2000 sq ft house that we were living in back them was:
“Wow on this much space you could have at least 4 families living together comfortably in Japan”
Also our home was sitting on 1/3 of an acre and she expressed that on that much space many houses could be built in Japan.
About 4 years ago I went to visit my brother in Japan and I was amazed at the size of the living spaces and I was amazed how them make do on those little spaces. Another thing that called my attention was that no piece of land goes to waste. I saw rice paddies and vegetable gardens on tiny spaces where here in the USA would be grass or nothing at all.
I think we are spoiled here in the US.
My bf and I live in a 580 sq foot studio apt (with 2 cats). We had packed it with stuff for 3 years, but have been donating / selling / recycling / trashing for the past year. We used to think we needed more space, but we really just needed less stuff. This tiny apt let’s us live close to everything in our very expensive nation’s capital, and we still only spend 17% of our gross income on housing – including all utilities except internet. (Getting rid of books was the hardest part, but it gets easier with every book you donate or sell.) My friends all have houses – and none are all that big (who can afford anything around DC?) – but I have no desire to acquire what they have. They spend more time and money than I do AND they live farther out in the suburbs and depend on cars to get around. Bleh!
I just discovered your blog this morning and can’t wait to delve in and be inspired to scale down my life and my belongings. I have had the desire to be happy with less for quite some time now. I am looking for a new home for my family and it will be smaller.
I do have to say I immediately took offense in the beginning of this post though, the first post I’ve read on this blog. You see, I am a Realtor. You said, (people buy bigger because) “They are convinced by a realtor that they can afford it.” Ouch! You see, not all Realtors think bigger is better. A GOOD Realtor will not push someone to spend more. In fact, we have a duty to further and protect the interest of our client. That means encouraging them to make a decision they will be comfortable with in the long run. I often advise my clients to buy smaller to be more financially comfortable or to get the location they want, etc. And that often means I make less money.
So please be careful to not point fingers and make blanket judgments about who is solely responsible for people buying bigger. (And more often than not, it’s the banks that encourage people to borrow to the maximum, that’s how they fell into last year’s crisis.)
Looking forward to reading more…
me and my boyfriend live in a fairly small apartment. When i first moved in with he, he was complaining all the time about how it was to small. I kept telling him we had to much stuff. I started getting rid of my stuff and he jumped on the bandwagon and started doing the same with his stuff. Now its not so bad in here and I don’t hear him complain about the size anymore. In fact his father was here for a very brief visit and my boyfriend showed him the apartment and both his parents were telling us it was to small and we need to buy a house and all that. my bf got a little defensive about it, he wasn’t concerned with the size(its actually the biggest apartment in the building, there are 5, and maybe one the block) when he looked for a place, just some place cheap with at least electric included.
we’ve talked about renting a house, or buying one, but that won’t be for a while. The only downsides to this place is that we don’t have our own yard, so we can’t have much of a garden. He’s tried, but people were stealing our veggies and fruits, so he kinda gave up. I feel bad b/c my BF really likes taking care of plants and really wanted his own garden. also I would like more cabinets b/c we have everything crammed into the one we have in the kitchen and the one under the sink. But we will make do with what we have.
I love it here b/c we are right near downtown and its cheap so we can afford to spend money on other things and don’t have to worry about money so much and it encourages me to get rid of more, so we have more open space, which i love.
This is a great post! We too have lived in our house for 21 years. When we moved in we had a 7 and a 1 year old. We added 2 more kids to the mix, and in the think of things, it was a bit crowded here! We added on about 400 sq ft at one point.
3-4 years ago, just before the downturn, we were bit by the gotta-have-more-room-bug! Found my dream home, 5 times what we paid for this house. Planned to keep the small house and rent it. When it came time to make an offer, hubby said “nope, don’t feel right!” I was sooo mad at the moment, but that was the August before the October crash. If I were sitting in THAT beautiful house with that HUGE mortgage and the house worth at least 33% less, I’d really be ticked!
And you know what? The funny thing is, kids grow up, and they move away! We are down to 2 young adults now, and before you know it, they’ll be gone! I do admit, when we all gather (I have 6 grandchildren now!) it is a little crowded, but the addition we did was in the living space with a large kitchen sun room, and we have a lot of fun!
I get the bug to move every now and again, I mean, great deals are to be had! And we are tired of cutting that 1 acre that was so great when the kids were growing up! Our plan is to one day be intentional vagabonds traveling around the US. It will be nice to have this place to come back to, and besides, it’ll be paid for in about a year!
http://bernicewood.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/turning-mountains-into-molehills/
Bernice
I couldn’t agree more. My fiance and I live in a small one bedroom apartment and everything, from cleaning, to rent, to utilities has been less stressful because we chose to go with a smaller place. To keep it feeling open and bright we just try not to have a lot of stuff around, so it’s been a great deterrent from getting junk. I love it.
We downsized from a 2200 sf suburban home with an oversized garage, a shed and yard into a 923 sf city condo with one parking space and shared bike storage (we being two adults, one child, one dog, one cat). It’s been an amazing move for us. My husband and I both walk to work, our son will be walking to school, we walk to grocery shopping, public library, restaurants, hike/bike trail, farmers’ market, the vet’s. We hardly use the cars (looking forward to selling one soon). We enjoy the condo pool, gas grill and we even sold our clothes washer/dryer because the laundry room is so convenient.
We couldn’t imagine going back to our more complicated, expansive, expensive, wasteful lives. It did take several months to pare down the possessions. Books have been hard to part with. But we have decided to go the Kindle route so I guess we’ll be hauling even more to sell at Half Price Books. I’m working on paring down the clothes, now. Not because of space issues, just because it feels so great to do more with less.
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