If you’re a close family member or friend, you already know about my obsession with the latest Tiny House Movement. If you’re a follower of Millennial Mom, you may have only read a brief mention of our plan to live tiny elsewhere on our blog. Whomever you are, you’re probably wondering what’s with this movement? why a family of four would take on this lifestyle? and how we plan to accomplish it? So this series titled Journey to Tiny House Living will explain just that; starting with why we want to leave our small and expensive apartment in New York City to purchase a small home on wheels. So here’s why we are planning to make the leap from one “box” to another.
The tiny home we are obsessed with… the Mt. Bachelor designed by Tiny Mountain Houses. Click on the image to see more about this jem!
After traveling abroad for seven months with only a 70L backpack, I became obsessed with the idea of minimalism which for me is the art of making the most out of life with less. Before heading overseas, I gave up everything that I owned for a small price and all I had left was clothing; much of which I packed and took abroad with me. While we were on the road, I felt so free knowing there was nothing back home hindering me from genuinely enjoying my experience. Not a subleased apartment in Brooklyn, not a monthly storage fee, not an expensive mortgage…. nothing! When it came to materialistic things, all I had to worry about was my backpack. I was happy that the money we earned and worked so hard for, could be put towards making memories and doing what my little family loved. (Feel free to read more about our extended travel journey and how we financed it in my post on Budget Travel).
Fast forward to today, sadly we are right back to where we were prior to taking on a traveling lifestyle. We returned home from extended travel initially with a plan of working for six months and then getting back on the road. However, so much changed and that did not happen. You can read about what changed for us and why we put traveling on hold in Exciting News & Travel Blues. In summary, we allowed family opinions to sway us into securing an apartment again (worse decision ever). We committed to full-time jobs instead of temp ones as we planned. I put “mini me” back in school. Living in a city where “keeping up with the Jones” is a BIG thing, we lost sight of why we started practicing a minimalistic lifestyle to begin with. We relapsed and starting spending again. Wardrobes became a priority along with filling empty space in our apartment. Dinners and events with friends, a new outfit for every occasion, and a bunch of pointless nonsense was our practice again. Well I should be honest and say was my practice again. Much of this was my behavior and not my husband’s. He simply became a slave to work again while I was guilty of all the other consumerist practices.
Now the universe is teaching me a lesson. Each time I open my closet I experience anxiety and guilt. Each time we want to plan an extended trip, we have to factor in an additional cost of $2,500 to cover rent and utilities while we are away. I’m not happy with how we have failed at our first attempt at minimalistic living but it’s all good. We will try again. This time instead of just putting ourselves in a position to travel backpacker style, we will now work towards our goal of tiny house living. This will put us back to where we need to be and make it much more challenging for us to simply abandon our current lifestyle and come back to it later. We have come up with a list of pros related to tiny house living that will benefit us in so many ways. So here’s why we’re pursuing it.
1. The Cost
Right now what we pay for rent and utilities for our apartment each month is absurd. We are not paying for space as our apartment isn’t that large but instead paying for the location. We are paying towards something that will never be ours and leaving little room to save as much as we’d like. Based on the tiny home we are considering, we will be able to put down a reasonable down-payment, secure a loan with a low interest rate, and pay off the cost within 4-5 years! If you had a choice of paying $2,500 monthly or less than $1,200 monthly (the estimated cost of the monthly loan for our tiny house, the lot rental where we’ll live, and all utilities) which would you choose?
Now a common question that we’ve been asked is what will we do if we no longer want to live in our tiny home or end up not enjoying tiny house living? And we have decided that we will commit to tiny house living for at least 3 years. That’s kind of our leasing period for tiny living. We are locked in for that amount of time and won’t make any major chances until after. If during that time we are unhappy, we will begin planning to purchase an average size home and save to do so. The cost benefit of living tiny will put us in a position to do this.
A follow-up question has been “what will you do with your tiny home if you decide to move into an average size home? And the answer is we will maintain it as a rental property or mother-in-law suite.
The next benefit of going tiny is…
2. Freedom
With a small house on wheels, we have the freedom to travel where we want, when we want. We can go on short or long term trips and not have to worry about an expensive rent or mortgage cost at home. A tiny home can be placed in storage if needed. They have also become popular income properties due to the current public fascination with them. Once we are officially owners, we will take advantage of this and list our home as an Airbnb property whenever we decide to travel.
Tiny house living also gives us the freedom to choose and change where we make our home base. I currently hate living in New York but I am clueless about what states I would love enough to call home. Because of this, my husband and I are not in a position to purchase a home. If we did so and ended up somewhere we did not like, we would bare the burden of selling/renting our home, moving, and taking some losses. Being that my standards and must haves for my future home location are high, I believe it’s wise for us to roam and get an idea of good places for us to live, before we lock down anything.
Another benefit of purchasing a tiny home is…
3. The First Owner Benefit
In customizing our own tiny home, we will be the first people to live and love in it. Based on our current budget, this option would not be available to us if we were purchasing a traditional home. We’d have to buy a home that requires work and put time into completing projects. As much as I love DIY things, that’s not something that I’m interested in doing at this time. My current lifestyle leaves me little room for that. However, a “fixer upper” experience is something that I’d love to share with my family in the future. For now we are excited for the opportunity to plan the building of our tiny home from the ground up.
The last thing that makes tiny house living so appealing to us is…
4. The Motivation it Brings
The concept of tiny house living pushes you to think of doing more in life while living with less. It encourages you to truly live outside of your home and make memories. It reminds you that living with what you need can be comfortable and cozy. And the biggest reminder that it sends to our family is that all we truly need is each other.
I’m excited to work towards this goal with my family. My husband initially thought I was nuts but has since come on board and is looking forward to this journey as well. “Mini me” is super excited and I have been including her in the planning phase of things. We are currently saving for our down payment and researching RV loan options. We will also be visiting tiny home communities starting in March. We have another international travel trip planned and hope to purchase our home sometime in 2020. We will share more about how things are going in the near future, including cleaning out our apartment to prepare for this leap so stay tuned. Until next time…
Xoxo,
Millennial Mom
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Millennial Mom 