“Your home is living space, not storage space.” —Francine Jay
Recently, the New York Times referred to our generation as the most stressed, tired, and rushed generation of all time.
“A Portrait of the Modern Family,” is how the author chose to title the article. She is, of course, correct. We are tired, stressed, and busy. In the article, the author cites a number of reasons why this is the case: public policy, workplace structure, unrealistic expectations, just to name a few.
Around the time that article was being published, a different kind of report was being produced, The 2014 U.S. Department of Commerce Report on New Housing, an annual study surveying the size and cost of new homes being built.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there might be a significant correlation between the two.
Certainly, there is a direct link with the number of possessions we own and the stress we experience. Every increased possession adds increased anxiety unto our lives. There is a direct relationship also with excess possessions and an overall lack of time, energy, and focus.
The 763-page study on the homes we live in confirms what most Becoming Minimalist readers already know to be true: We own too much stuff—and yet, rather than getting rid of it, we just build bigger homes to store it all.
Here are some findings from that 2014 report and other related sources:
- In 2014, the average size of new homes built increased to an all-time high of 2,690 square feet. In 2015, the average grew another 30 square feet to 2,720.
- While our houses have gotten bigger, our families have gotten smaller. Because of these two factors, since 1973, average living space per American person has doubled.
- The growth in square footage of new homes has wiped out nearly all the efficiency gains. In other words, though energy efficiency has developed rapidly, we’ve increased our home size to the point that we’re still using almost the exact same amount of energy.
- As would be expected, housing costs have risen alongside square footage. In the U.S., the existing home median sale price is $356,700 (up from $154,600 in January, 2012).
- Housing expenses, all totaled, accounted for more than 33% of the average consumer’s total expenditures during 2014.
- Renters aren’t doing much better. In fact, it’s the worst time in 36 years to be a renter in America. The median rent nationwide now takes up 30.2 percent of the median American’s income, the highest cost burden recorded since tracking began in 1979.
- Meanwhile, Americans aren’t even building the largest homes in the world. Australia holds that honor (they are even filming television shows about it). The U.S., Canada, Denmark, and France round out the top five for largest home sizes in the world.
Our homes continue to increase in size, cost, and responsibility. Our biggest investment has become an ever-increasing drain on our resources.
But this doesn’t need to be the case.
Your biggest investment also represents your greatest opportunity.
Consider the benefits of living in a smaller home: less expense, less worry, less upkeep—more time, more money, more freedom, and more opportunity.
When we first began pursuing minimalism, we made a lot of changes in our home. We removed the excess from every room in our house. But when we began removing entire rooms from our home, we started to experience even more significant benefits.
Four years ago, we intentionally decided to downsize to a smaller house. Our mortgage payments were sliced in half. Our insurance and taxes were also lowered. Our energy bills were slashed. Our ongoing repair and maintenance is a fraction of the expense it was before. And our cleaning responsibilities are noticeably easier.
Recently, I was asked by a friend how we are able to make ends meet financially while still doing a fair bit of traveling as a family. My answer immediately centered on our decision to minimize—not just our possessions, but our home as well.
“When the rest of the world was building bigger and bigger, we decided to buy smaller. And that decision has freed us to do many wonderful things.”
Choosing to buy a smaller house is a decision I have never regretted. Likely, neither will you.
We live in what most would consider a starter home, but it is my plan to stay. We will have it paid off in about 8 years. We have so many more options because we choose not to be saddled with all the debt we were eligible to sign up for!
There is a great piece in the first couple of chapters of James Wallman’s book “Stuffocation”, about ethnographic research undertaken about how American’s use their large homes – in a nutshell, they don’t.
I really dream of having a smaller home, but my husband is still of the mind that bigger is better. We moved into our current home 11 years ago before we had kids. It is about 2200 sf. My husband can live with this size, but refuses to go smaller. If we ever move, he would insist on a bigger house. Knowing that, I am trying to be content with the home we have. The crazy thing about it is that half of my cabinets and drawers are empty. We even have a bedroom that is hardly used. Going smaller is a great goal, but only when both people are onboard.
I am reminded of the song “Rockstar” by Nickelback to describe people wanting bigger or better than what they have (like houses) or dream of being famous. I interpret the song discouraging the behavior of the big “rock stars” and their possessions like their “hilltop houses (with them) driving fifteen cars”. D:
Speaking of big houses, my mother and I went to an open house today in a neighborhood we were interested in just to see what the houses were like. This particular house had 4 bedrooms in it and three bathrooms! 3 bathrooms and one was in the kitchen! The realator said the houses with 4 rooms were being sold faster than the homes with 3 rooms. I thought that was ridiculous! The only reason I could think a house of that size would be selling better is that people need more space to put all of their clutter and/or mountains of stuff and as others have said in the comment section of this blog post, they are looking for more house just because they could afford it. Well, the jokes on them because more house = higher mortgage payment every month. That would obviously lead to more stress and more hours on a job eventually down the road. Imo, bad move there. : /
But I’m all for smaller houses! I wish to live in one someday! But the economy is still terrible, so that dream will have to wait until later hopefully. But I have faith the future will be better, but it will take time until it will be. We just have to be patient is all. :C It’s pretty hard to wait for something like that though. . _.
But anyway, I hope your family has a wonderful Easter, Joshua! C:
I’m a real estate Broker in Sacramento and it’s refreshing to find this site and read this article. The vast majority of home buyers are in search of their ‘Dream Home’ which is really just the largest, nicest house in the best area with as much money as they can possibly borrow. While I can appreciate a big lovely home, this oversold image of consumerism is not helping people make wise choices for their happiest life. Dream homes are about bigger, better and more…HOUSE. I think we need to shift our thinking to ‘Dream Life’ and buy the house that helps us create the life truly worth living. http://www.survivingtheamericandream.org/more-meaningful-dream/
Hopefully, this will be a growing trend and we can find a more moderate view of housing and homeownership.
The smallest house we could find in 1976 that had a yard large enough for gardening had 1800 sqf (4 bedrooms and 3 baths). Over the years we entertained and had overnight guests fairly often. When our only child left home, she took her bedroom furniture. We used her room for a library, had a craft room, and a guest room. We mainly lived in the living room, kitchen and master bedroom. We still entertained and thus used the dining room as well as the eat-in kitchen. My husband used the garage for his hobbies, which were large and somewhat messy. Now we are downsizing to a 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo with a single car garage. We gave the most of the entertaining china and glassware to young neighbors who were delighted to have enough quantity to do their own entertaining. We kept enough to handle ourselves and 4 others. Our dining area won’t hold more. We will still entertain but won’t be having 18 people for a sit-down meal. My husband also has downsized his hobbies to go into a one car garage. The library is to be digital and a few shelves for art and reference books that can’t be digitalized. The garden will be a few pots on a deck and in a courtyard. We anticipate more time for our volunteering. It has been a struggle to reduce our possessions, but we enjoy the thought of not dealing with them anymore.
I moved in to a 480sf cottage a year ago. It does help to have a 250sf covered patio….. I do have a garage for my sports toys, but all the “stuff” I used to have was given away or donated this past year. I only keep my precious kitchen things!
I found a way to say ok, you stay or ok, time to go. No reason to look back, either.
I want to move out so I see the problem a lot. My mom bought a big house so that we would have more space, but the house seems still too small for all the stuff we own. But when I can finally move out, I won’t have much so I want to get a small place where I won’t feel lonely. All the places I’ve looked at are just gigantic!
Karolina, interesting that you feel lonely in a gigantic space. I too think smaller homes just have that cozy, welcoming feel. But you’re right, you need to keep all the “stuff” in check so you can enjoy that smaller home!
Also Happy Easter, Joshua! :) :) :)
He came out of an empty tomb…to fill our empty hearts! <3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmMqnU-hN_A
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a bridal shower at a home that was built in 1920, It’s a French Tudor, I believe. One of the prettiest houses I have ever been in. This house even had a tennis court and a greenhouse. It has two dining rooms—and the list goes on! Obviously, the home owner who has lived there for the past 17 years could afford to buy just about anything to fill that enormous castle house up—but it was decorated beautifully. Not overdone at all. It was nice to enjoy the space and the amazing architecture of the home and not have your eyes drawn to clutter. I assume that was her intention. I was looking out her fancy old windows and admiring the beautiful tiles that lined the inside of the windowsill. The house spoke for itself…it didn’t need clutter everywhere. Funny—she said that she plans to retire to a high-rise one day :)
Twenty five years ago, housing prices were outrageous in our neck of the woods. The 14×70 two bedroom mobile home we had just wasn’t cutting it any more for our family of four but we couldn’t afford anything on the market that wasn’t much bigger than our mobile home. After a lot of debate, we decided to have a double wide mobile home built on plans we drew up. It’s been paid off for six years. When my father in-law died two years ago, we bought my husband’s brother’s share of his house. It was a small, four room, one bath house that his parents had added a master bedroom and bath to in the 60s. It totals about 1400 square feet. Our home is approximately 1600 square feet with a garage with attached shop and an older 12×20 shop in the back. My husband finally concluded that the layout of his childhood home would not work for us unless we added on. And then we would have to build him another woodworking shop. We don’t want to have another mortgage! So we’ll be selling that house when the economy has improved a bit and using some of the proceeds from that sale to make a few improvements on our place and bank the rest.
Now, some people would ask why two people need as much space as we have. Why don’t we downsize? Well, housing costs are still outrageous here. The economy is in the tank in our area. My children have each had to move back in with us a couple of times because of the economy and it was great that we had a place to put them even if I had to give up my work room to accommodate that need. Our hobbies require room to work in. Husband is a woodworker and I sew and quilt among other things. We are hoping to turn our hobbies into extra income after retirement. We derive a lot of joy from making things. And, most importantly, what we have is already paid for. We have room for our family and hobbies, a large lot with plenty of room for the dog to run around in and a garden and, hopefully, a few chickens this year. We sure don’t want anything bigger than what we have but we also don’t want to downsize just for the sake of downsizing.
Our home is about 1100 sq. ft. When we bought our home a few years ago, EVERYONE thought it was too small. To us, it feels just right.
Ours is about the same and the most frequent comment, when people had their first look through was ‘You could add an ensuite onto the main bedroom here, it’d be great’
I love it partly because it only has one bathroom to clean!
The house ended up feeling pretty big after we’d been here a while, there’s always at least three empty rooms even with everyone home anyway.
I agree wholeheartedly. The problem I see is that builder’s aren’t designing smaller homes with nice outdoor space – instead they put smaller homes crammed next to each other and charge outrageous HOA fees for a strip of grass.
Bonnie, you’re so right! I hate the big box homes with teeny tiny yards. I’d rather have a small home with more yard for trees and a vegetable garden.
We live in 1150 sq ft house (3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath). Built 1950s. 3 adults, 2 grandchildren (3 & 2). I am continually “minimizing” through donations and use it up challenges. When one of our daughters recently married and left home, we said for her to take any kitchen stuff she wanted. She took Brita water filter & extra filters, bread machine, coffee grinder, and crockpot. We replaced the crockpot because it is great for making vegetarian chili! I have been decluttering slowly for a few years and been very careful with any purchases all that time. We need to do more but we are getting there :)
We went from 2200 square feet to 1200 square feet and that was even overwhelming. We are now renting a 400 square foot house but we take showers and wash dishes in a common house that we share with others in our community. We also have an outhouse! Just the time that I save in not scrubbing the shower every week….
We sold our condo and moved into my mother’s house when she relocated to a retirement community. Having a bit more space is nice, and we don’t fill it with junk. But, our old condo was cozy, simple and perfectly sufficient. We would have stayed there but for the opportunity with my mother’s house. I know a lot of people who upsize to bigger houses and bigger mortgages. My Dad used to say, “Do we own our things, or do they own us!”
Perfect timing for this article. We are in the process of selling our house and moving into a converted bus. Housing in Australia is a nightmare. We have three part times jobs between us so we can look after our toddler and the very scary fact is that after mortgage, insurance, rates, utilities etc half of our income is gone. We only live in a 98m square 3×1! In a lower socioeconomic area too. We decided that it wasn’t worth the time, money and paycheck to paycheck stress of owning a house.
I love everything about your newsletters, website, twitter, etc. As a collective whole, my family works together to reduce, reuse, and save as much as possible. I have toyed with idea of selling our home (@2500 sq. ft. for 5 people) and buying a smaller one. What I get stuck on is this…I LOVE our home. I LOVE our neighborhood and our schools. We live in one of the most desirable, albeit not expensive, neighborhoods in our city. I get that there are trade-offs and maybe leaving our home is not the best solution for our family. At the same time it is a total money pit and in need of so many repairs. None of them threaten the integrity of the house but if we tried to sell it, well..you get the idea. I guess I am not looking for an answer but, maybe some feedback and others thoughts on our situation.
THX!
I want so much to downsize. 2 1/2 years ago my husband was transferred and we moved out of our 1200 sq. ft. home to a 2800 sq. ft. It was too big and I did not want anything that big but we felt we really needed a bedroom for each of our 3 kids (2 girls and 1 boy, with big age differences and personalities). After 2 1/2 years, I am more convinced than ever that this house is just too big. I am tired of cleaning and going up and down stairs. I can never get the whole house clean at once.
We are now moving to a new area because my husband got a new job and have the perfect opportunity to downsize. I have been house hunting, but all the houses that have seen with the bedrooms we need are the same size or even larger than the one we have now. I think approx. 1800 sq. ft. would be perfect for us. We are considering building but I am struggling with that because it cost so much to build custom.
I would love opinions on building in order to downsize.
Building could be your opportunity to downsize and get what you want. If having 4 bedrooms is at the top of the list then take space from somewhere else. living room? kitchen? Do open concept to make a smaller space feel bigger. At the some time, the kids rooms will have to be just enough for them now and as they grow. How does that idea sit?
We cut the size of our living space in half last year by downsizing from a big house to an apartment. We haven’t regretted it a bit. Thanks to lower rent (than our mortgage), mush lower utilities and many bills that don’t exist anymore (i.e. yard care, household maintenance), we’re able to do much more as a family.
We’d like to buy a small house but can’t find one in our area. They are snatched up like hotcakes as soon as they’re put on the market. All the new construction is of huge houses.
I hope the housing industry catches up with the less is more mindset soon!
Even before I stumbled upon the Minimalist lifestyle I had decided against a large home. I did not see the point of buying bigger or spending more.
I have a lovely little cottage house (750 sq ft). Not only is it the right size but also the right price! When it starts to feel crowded I know it is time to remove the excess and I do not have the added weight or high mortgage payments.
There is a lot to be said for simple living!
The NYT article referenced says “[feeling stressed and overwhelmed] is not an individual problem but a societal problem.” I would agree that it is a problem created by society, but it also seems an individual, personal problem. If our society weren’t so BIGGER!BETTER!!NEWER!!!FASTER!!!! then maybe there wouldn’t need to be so many dual-income families working and living at breakneck speed. Except for the working poor and minimum-wage earners, many (most?) families could probably live in one income if they owned less, spent wisely, and weren’t always pursuing the greener grass in the Jones’ yard.
Last year we downsized from 2700 sq. ft. 5 br/3 baths to 1200 sq. ft. 3 br/2 baths, and from home ownership to a rental, and I’ve never been more content. After massively decluttering to make that happen, keeping the house clean is a cinch and I enjoy the freedom of not feeling tied down to a 30 year mortgage. This is all thanks to the fact that in 2013, when I was struggling through the busiest and most challenge period in my life, I ran across Becoming Minimalist. It has changed my perspective, and my life. Our next stop is full time travel in an RV. Thank you Joshua for all you do. You are an inspiration to so many!
I absolutely love this idea and we have been looking to downsize for a year! In Reno, NV the housing market is limited right now and prices have skyrocketed, which is great for us in selling our house, but buying i ridiculous. Houses that are half the size of ours are going for much more than what we paid for our house five years ago, and there are crazy bidding wars occurring. We put an offer on a house, only to find that there were ten other offers and they expected us to put in an offer well above the house’s asking price! I really have no idea what to do; I had no idea it would be so difficult to downsize.
We live in a 1300 sq ft old farmhouse that we bought with cash and are remodeling it the way we want, and at our own pace. (Being mortgage free means you have more control over your life.) When you live in a small space, you choose to keep only the things and gadgets you truly love.
BTW our home is on 10 acres with a barn and a trout creek. It still only cost what most people put as their down payment on a large home. Our boys were raised in this size home through adulthood with no problem. We are able to garden and farm as much as we want, yet take time off to travel occasionally. Wish we had figured this out when we were first married! Finally off of the hamster wheel of life!
Thank you for this thought-provoking post. I just got married two weeks ago and my new husband and I have been trying to figure out how to maximize living in our tiny one-bedroom apartment that is slowly but surely falling apart (we waited until after the wedding to move in together). I have been so frustrated that we have not been able to figure out a better living situation before we got married (we’re trying to move to a different city for work) that I have forgotten to be grateful that we are living in a place that offers us privacy, lots of beautiful sunlight, affordable rent and a memorable adventure. Thank you for the reminder not to forget what is most important. I needed this gratitude perspective!