Friends and family always inquire about our tiny house obsession. Usually they ask: “Why a tiny house?” Living a tiny lifestyle appeals to us on a number of levels. Below are the top 10 reasons for choosing a tiny solution:
1. Exiting the Consumer Lifestyle
Living in a tiny house is one way for us to exit the consumer lifestyle and decrease our consumption of stuff. (Watching the The Story of Stuff drastically changed how I view my own consumption patterns).
For instance, there is no reason to go shopping for more stuff when you don’t have a place to put it. I don’t need 20 pairs of shoes or 50 different outfits to wear to the office. Earlier this year, I downsized my wardrobe and personal items. For me that meant donating an incredible amount of books and clothing to the thrift store.
My policy is 1 in, 1 out. Every time I buy something new, one of my personal things must go.
2. Saving Money
The cost estimate for our tiny house is about $25,000 (about 2 years worth of rent). The low cost of the tiny house will enable us to save money for future expenses and help friends and family members in need. Our tiny house will be about 200 square feet. Our heating and cooling bills will be so tiny! Right now we live in a 400 square foot apartment and our PG & E bill ranges from $4.00 to $25.00 a month. I can’t wait to see what our power bill will look like in a tiny house. 
3. Freedom
Downscaling from a suburban, 2 bedroom apartment, and 2 car life to an urban, 1 bedroom apartment, and no car has given me a sense of freedom and lightness. Our stuff doesn’t own us anymore. As long as we have each other and our cats, we will be good to go.
4. More Free Time
Last summer one of our family members became suddenly ill and almost died. Since then, I’ve changed my life dramatically and have chosen a simpler lifestyle that allows me to spend more time with family.
Downscaling to a smaller apartment (and eventually a tiny home) enabled us to devote more time to outdoor activities, writing and the important things in life like friends and family.
5. Debt Free
Within the last year we sold our car, paid off our student loans and moved into a smaller apartment. These changes have allowed us more flexibility in our finances. If all goes according to plan we will either build or purchase our own tiny house in 2010.
6. Working Less
Eventually, I want to work part time. The United States is notorious for a workaholic culture. So owning a small home will enable us to work less and pursue career goals that didn’t seem possible a few years ago. Eventually, I want to get out of my cubicle and telecommute. Telecommuting is a feasible alternative to the cubicle forest because it allows people to do their job from any location.
I’d love to look at this view everyday…
7. Less Cleaning
A tiny house requires significantly less cleaning and maintenance and that make me very happy. I didn’t realize how much time we spent cleaning our large apartment until we moved to our new home in Sacramento. Instead of cleaning we spent more time riding our bikes outdoors. Yay for less scrubbing, vacuuming and sweeping!
8. Ease of Movement
Ease of movement to a new location is a great feature. Being tied down to a traditional home doesn’t appeal to me because they can’t be moved. But with a tiny home, if we decide to move we are free to bring our tiny house with us.
9. Going Off-Grid
We plan to take the tiny house off-grid. Hopefully, this will allow us to learn how to live more self sufficiently and insulate ourselves from a system we believe to be unsustainable. The looming peak oil energy crisis is scary.
10. Economic, Environmental and Social Merits of Compact Housing
Last year, I read a few books on tiny tiny homes. Two of my favorites were: The Small House Book and Little House on a Small Planet. After reading these books I realized there are enormous economic, environmental, and social merits of compact housing.
Here are some interesting facts from the books:
- The average American house, which is about 2,200 square feet, emits more green house gases than the average American car;
- The average American house, produces 7 tons of construction waste and;
- The size of New Jersey is lost each decade as a result of urban sprawl.
I see over-sized homes as a debtors prison rather than a source of enjoyment. The average American has a 20 to 30 year mortgage. By going small, we will have our tiny tiny house paid off in less than 1 year.
For the sake of the environment and economic sanity (ex. sub-prime mortgage fiasco), it is clear that we must change our attitudes about house size, building codes and the basic home financing structure.
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In addition to the excellent reasons you give, which entail keeping more of your life energy for what you care about, and using less of the planet’s resources, tiny houses can enrich relationships. They can force you to learn to get along with another person, to learn patience and cooperation. They can also elicit resourcefulness.
While we put in the utilities and added a room for batteries for our off-grid manufactured home (dug the trenches, laid in the conduit, put up the panels, installed a well pump and tanks), my partner Robyn and I lived for nine months in a 28 ft. travel trailer. It was very freeing not to have much stuff — no room for it! (note: the workplace was elsewhere. It’s now here at the house).
We learned how to use a space in multiple, often ingenious ways: the toilet was also a backup chair. The dining booth was also another bed. The dishes had to get washed every night, or there weren’t dishes left to eat on or a place to cook.
We learned how to work around each other in a small room, negotiate for places to do projects or to make noise (turn on the radio vs. wear headphones). It’s cozy and intimate. We loved the simplicity of that life.
Robyn still grieves leaving it, rightly intuiting that she’d never again have that simplicity in “the big house” (which is about 1500 square feet). She’s right. Stuff accumulates to fill the space, and especially as we grow older, family memorabilia comes to us.
And there’s a tradeoff with being supplied for resiliency: extra hoses if we do a garden. Tools for doing our own maintenance on the house. Those tools need to be stored somewhere. As well as the half-can of paint, which’ll be needed to touch up the porch in a few years.
This journey is about tradeoffs. But I think tiny tiny houses are a wonderful and freeing approach to shelter that’s about appropriate scale, and low footprint. I think a little ecovillage of tiny houses is a marvelous idea.
Follow your passion. As Mary Oliver writes, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”
Journey well — Janaia
(host, Peak Moment TV, peakmoment.tv)
P.S. We taped a wonderful conversation with Shay Salomon, author of Little House on a Small Planet, episode 119 (www.peakmoment.tv/conversations/?p=191).
All *excellent* reasons. You make a very compelling argument (not that I needed convincing! lol).
Thanks for reading the post. I’d love to purchase our tiny house today, but I’ll have to wait.
We need to save more $$$.
Do you think living in a tiny house would work for a family with children?
Hi Marte – thanks for leaving a comment.
Yes I think a tiny house would work for a family with children. You might not be able to fit into 140 square feet. But there are so many other options. I’ve spoken with families who live in spaces ranging from 300 to 1000 square feet. If you have a chance read Little House on a Small Planet by Shay Salomon. She offers a variety of housing options for large a small families. It’s amazing what people can do with tiny spaces.
Thanks for reading RowdyKittens! I appreciate it.
Hi,
I really enjoyed this post. We bought our big house I think mostly folloing trend of our friends, but we are so desperate to downsize.
I love the freedom reason you gave.
Me again … on a commenting roll tonight as I devour your blog archives. I have my own ‘almost tiny house’ fantasy … We live in a 1200 square foot house, with 2 adults and two small children. There is plenty of space, and we could easily go much smaller … maybe about 800-900ft would be great. We are ‘at home’ a lot, and its nice to be able to have changes of scenery without having to pack up into the pushchair and head out all the time. So we play in the lounge, then go to the bedrooms, then have a bath in our (tiny!) bathroom. I love the idea of the earthsong ecovillage http://www.earthsong.org.nz .. tiny houses but in an intentional community with shared space. I think this is my ideal.