A little over one year ago, I was interviewed by CBS SmartPlanet on the topic of living with less. The time was exciting for minimalism. Tammy Strobel’s story was in the New York Times, MSNBC, and the Today Show. Everett Bogue was featured on the CBS Nightly News. Courtney Carver’s Project 333 was about to hit the AP. Dave Bruno’s 100-Thing Challenge was in final edits. Each of us were cheering for one another. And I was excited to play a small part in the promotion of the counter-cultural lifestyle.
At the time of my interview, we were visiting family in Nebraska. I can remember sitting on their back porch in the humid August morning answering Christina Hernandez’s questions about living with less. At one point she asked, “What has been the toughest place for you to apply minimalism?” And as good interviews typically do, it pressed me to further define minimalism in my life. My answer went like this:
[There are] two things I want to take the next step on minimally speaking. We bought our house five years ago and embraced this minimalist lifestyle two years ago. I want to live in a smaller home and haven’t been able to take that step yet. I don’t think it’s a sentimental attachment. It’s just a logistical issue of selling and buying and moving. We still have two cars. As part of that suburban mindset, my wife takes the kids to school and runs them around all day. I work on the other side of town. How do we logistically go down to one car? Those aren’t sentimental attachments, but they are steps I want to take.
It was the first time I had verbally articulated those two desires. It was no small coincidence that the two biggest investments in my life (both financially and strategically speaking) were the two that had become the most difficult. They were going to require the most emotional energy to complete. After all, it’s one thing to clean out your garage – it’s something completely different to reduce the number of vehicles in your garage and/or change garages completely.
But subtly, over the past four months, we have accomplished both goals in our lives.
We have been living with one car for the past three months. And we just put our signatures on the purchase of a new, smaller home this past weekend. We moved in on Saturday.
As I have mentioned previously, our family recently moved from Vermont to Arizona and with it, came the process of selling an old home and buying a new one. The housing markets are markably different between the two regions and we could have easily embraced a massive upgrade because of the move. But even in a world where large homes are often considered the greatest symbols of worldly success, we never considered buying a larger home… instead, we looked forward to purchasing a smaller one.
This excitement was based on a number of reasons rarely considered in today’s market (or mentioned by realtors). Downsizing your home has many benefits…
- Less burdensome mortgage payments.
- Less maintenance.
- Less furniture/decorations/housewares to purchase.
- Less cleaning time.
- Less environmental impact.
- Less opportunity to accumulate.
- Less financial risk.
We still had a number of criteria that we searched for in our new minimalist home. Smaller was not the only goal – it still had to function in a way that fits our young family and promotes our values. Our final list of nonnegotiables consisted of 3 bedrooms, dining room/family room sufficient for entertaining, space for housing overnight guests, pleasant outdoors, quality school district, lovely neighborhood, and high craftsmanship. Needless to stay, we were overjoyed to find one that fit our criteria exactly.
Ultimately, through the process, we reduced our home size from over 2,200 sq. feet to less than 1,600 sq. feet (and 4-levels to 1-level). But more importantly, we reduced our mortgage payments by almost 50%, we selected quality over quantity (always a wise decision), we removed anxiety inherent in burdensome monthly payments, and we have fallen in love with every square inch of our new home.
And minimalism made it all possible. Once again, we have found more joy in living with less than we had in living with more.
Now, how we do get this message back into the mainstream media?
Annie says
We are a family of 7 and live in 2000 square feet. I want to go down to one car but haven’t been able to yet. My husband buses but he still has to drive to the park and ride… alas.
lahope says
About ten years as my children grew up and left home, I downsized to a smaller living space in a very expensive Forbes *most expensive zipcodes* list neighborhood in a beach community. The house I have now has a mother-in-law apartment that I have had no problem renting. I can’t even begin to tell you how much stuff I got rid of, not only when I moved, but in the 10+ years since. I live on an intermitently busy street, but because of the way the house is situated, I can get by with no curtains which gives the house a spacious, open feel. I replaced my heavy 1930’s furniture with light weight vintage rattan from a used furniture store. Almost ever week I try to further reduce hidden clutter with a trip to the Salvation Army–I’ve long since gotten rid of the obvious clutter. I have no front yard, but the upper level of my split level house opens onto a hillside which I have landscaped with low water, low maintainence native plants. Instead of a gardener once a week, I have a landscaping service come every two or three months. Best of all, after 9 months on a waiting list, I was able to score an electric Nissan Leaf that came with a free charger installed in my garage. It is well worth the limited range to be able to *refuel* my car at home. Also, it requires less maintainence than an internal combustion engine and along with the convenience of free parking priviledges at meters in the city where I live, the overall result has simplified my life immeasurably.
Joy says
Congratulations! Our current home is 1,700 sq ft and felt smallish when we moved in. Now, after two kids and paring down our stuff, it–oddly–feels enormous. We hope to be even smaller soon. We’ve also been a one-car family for the past 8 years (most days, no one uses it). My husband rides his bike to work, and many things with kids are walkable–one of the fortunes of living in the city.
Enjoying your blog very much!
Jennifer says
Congratulations on your new home, Joshua.
We moved into a smaller home last year and are very happy with our decision. We too reduced the number of cars that we own as well. Having less is certainly rewarding.
Kelly says
I greatly enjoyed this message, Becker. I will certainly be encouraging Mark to consider the same when we plan to a buy a home again in the future.
Bobby says
Congrats on the downsize and move! and welcome to the beautiful Arizona desert!! My wife and I live in AZ and we recently moved homes to be closer to her work. Now she is only 3 miles from her work instead of 32! While we still have 2 cars (for now) it is definitely nice to not have to rely on both and to be able to ride our bikes to stores, etc.
Tanna says
That is great! It is so freeing to go through the process of downsizing. We went from 3900 to 1900 sq. ft. over the summer and we are a family of 5. We looked at many houses and some real cute smaller homes that we considered. 1900 ended up being a good size for us. Our 3 children are 10 and under, we had to keep in mind that one day they would be teenagers and we still wanted to have a house comfortable enough for them and their friends to hang out.
We sold tons of “stuff” before we left. Now that we are all settled in and know hoe we are going to use the space I am going to start going room by room and simplify more!
I hear Arizona is wonderful, will be there next week for a conference. looking forward to checking it out!
LA says
I love it – we realized that we had some large spaces in our house that were unused including a huge, beautiful playroom our son didn’t want to play in because it was too far away from the kitchen and living room where we spend most of our time. We are going to make a kitchen/dining room/living room out of the the space and an apartment with the old kitchen/living room/dining room and the space above it for a bedroom. With less stuff we need less space and by renting out part of the house we will not have to work or clean as much – thus spending more time with our family. I can’t wait to move into our smaller space!
Debi @ One Heart says
Congrats on your big move and welcome to the Southwest!
I just sold my 1600 sq ft home in Colorado to move to a flat in Israel. I’m in transition, so not overseas yet, but I’m looking forward to a smaller space for all the same reasons everyone has mentioned.
1craftynurse says
I would love to see pictures of your new, wonderful home!