Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving 2014

Friday, November 28, 2014

Tiny house (on wheels or not)

First blog post for me.  I don’t consider myself a good writer by any means so here are my ramblings

Love these Tiny Homes
Immediately after watching “Tiny” on Netflix my head was filled with ideas of Emily and me living in our own tiny house.  I didn’t think of all the hurdles you would have to get over first to get there and all the problems that could arise.  First and foremost I was most excited about the aspect of getting rid of all our crap.  Crap to me is everything we own that I don’t touch at least once a week.  Whether it is my old action figures and Legos I’ve had since a kid or clothes that I think I might wear sometime in the future.  After that I immediately went on to thinking about how I could possibly have fast reliable internet in our tiny home on wheels.  How will I get electricity and water and heat?  Some of those questions I still have no clue as to how it would be feasible but the idea that one day we could have a tiny house still excites me.  

So after contemplating all of these things I begin to scour the internet for places we could park a tiny house that would be able to provide a water hookup, electricity and internet.  I pretty much found nothing, mobile home parks didn’t respond to my emails and that was a last resort idea anyways.  The only feasible way I see it working is if we could park the house on someone’s land and then just run lines under the ground to our home.  So why not just buy a smaller home?  That is the idea that pretty much killed the tiny house (on wheels) for me.  I wouldn’t have to worry about any of my other problems.  While it will be more expensive and I won’t be off the grid (something that I don’t really care about) it can still by cozy and awesome. 
 
Our Old Apartment!
Not long after all this happened we were presented with the opportunity to move in with a family member who was an hour and a half away.  That meant my commute would consists of a 105 mile drive to work and Emily would have to switch schools and find a new job.  The idea of not paying rent and saving money made me not care about the commute.  We could still get rid of a lot of our stuff and start saving towards a house.  I consulted some of my close friends and parents and asked them what they thought of the idea.  Then a week later my parents offered their basement.  While we would have much less space it was only 1.5 miles down the road from our apartment.  No crazy long commute and Emily could keep her job and stay in the same school.  After we talked about it we pulled the trigger and began making plans to move into my parent’s basement.  Yes I said it my parent’s basement. 

Some might consider moving back in with your parents as a step backwards but for us this is a huge step forwards.  I went out and rented a storage unit to store our “crap” and began making trips, loading up my hatchback with as much as I could.  Then earlier this month we rented a U-Haul and moved everything out of our apartment and about ¾ of stuff went into storage and the rest came to my parents.  

What’s in store for the future?

Well Emily will be going back to school soon and then hopefully nursing school full time in the fall.  We will continue saving money and may have to move into another apartment again but at this point I really don’t want to rent anymore.  I’m very thankful for the opportunity my parents are giving us and plan on using the time well to continue saving our money.  I’ve also taken a look at some USAA loans and think that in the future we can afford our own tiny home in the area.  A lot of that depends on what kind of hours Emily works once she is a full time student again so time will tell.  I think also I won’t use the term “Tiny House”.  A 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house isn’t what I consider tiny.  I’m excited for the future and excited to continue getting rid of crap we don’t need.

2 comments:

  1. Great insight! The average home size used to be 5+ people living in less than 1000 sq feet, now it is 2-2.5 in over 2000 sq feet. That doesn't make much sense to me. We love our nine hundred square foot house. Its less to clean, less to heat, and best of all, we have to prioritize our "crap" and get rid of some periodically. Its also fun to figure out how to efficiently and simply utilize every bit of space we have. It also gives us an excuse to not buy new stuff/furniture! With two little girls its getting harder to see us staying permanently but in the meantime the blessings we have are not stifled at all by our (small) house's size. Again, kudos to you!

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    1. So wonderful to hear! Yeah the "on wheels" house was pretty appealing to us at first but like Kyle states still a lot of what it's. I would be so content with a small cottage of sorts! 2-3 bedrooms 1 1/2 baths. The less you have, the smaller the space, the less the bills, the less you work, the more time you have together, the more you can save, just so many benefits and in today's economy it seems so important to do this for future generations if we so decide to have kids!

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