Simplifying your life through tiny living (Part 2)...
Posted on June 22, 2020 by Ben Brown, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
A deeper look into going against the grain of the Western Culture's idea that "bigger is always better."
Against the Grain of Western Culture
We have for quite some time now, lived in a culture that brainwashes us with this idea that “Bigger is better”. We see this philosophy ingrained into our culture to the point that we are willing to do just about anything to “feel enough”. Nowhere is this more present than the size of our homes. If you look around, there are thousands and thousands of people living in homes that are much larger spaces than they need to be happy. More often, these homes are inhabited by people that are kept up at night wondering how they will ever “pay off” their homes. The majority of Americans spend between one half and one third of their income on their homes. And the vast majority of Americans have little to no money saved for retirement and in recent studies, less than half of the american population “could not afford a 500 dollar emergency” without feeling severe financial stress. These conditions of the American mentality and culture in which we live brings me to one of the first practical applications and appeals of living tiny. Financially…it’s a brilliant decision! One of the very first obvious realizations that come to mind for just about anyone that looks at a tiny home is “how cheap it must be to heat and cool the structure.” Its true! During the peak months of the year, the heat runs 30 dollars a month and the cooling pushes about 40 and rarely 50 dollar each month. Outside the peak hottest and coldest months, my utilities are between 7 and 10 dollars per month. Both heating and cooling are done electrically while propane is used to heat the water for showers and gas stove for cooking. As result, my gas bill runs about 20 dollars each year. It takes me about a year to go through one of my propane tanks and I fill it up in the summer when propane is at its cheapest. If I run out in the winter, I simply use the backup tank until summer comes. The house itself has been paid for. While I do pay a small fee for renting the space in a backyard, its minimal in comparison to the stress-inducing mortgage payments so many other people pay every month. Some have argued, “you’re not earning any equity!” The first thought that comes to mind is, “and…your point being?” Equity is only a valuable asset to chase after in certain circumstances. I have found that the benefits of living tiny FAR outweigh the “benefits of earning equity.” Let’s take a look at a few of those benefits here. The first HUGE benefit to living so small is the minimal effort it takes to keep the place clean. Think for a moment, if you had to “Deep clean” your house from top to bottom, in every nook and cranny of the structure to get it ready to “show potential buyers” or just to have over a really important guest (your family over for the holidays), how long would that take you? On the short end, if you were doing it by yourself, perhaps a weekend, a week, maybe a little longer? I can deep clean the entire house in about an hour. And if I’m just doing a bit of “tidying up”, call it 5 minutes. Broom, dustpan, DONE! In a standard size home, how long and how much would it cost you to “paint the house?” Thousands of dollars and certainly a week or two, depending on weather, the quality of people hired to do the work or the speed at which you do the work yourself. It took my Father and I two days to paint the house and it would have been shorter, but we got rained out. The entire structure was painted for under 150 dollars. How about doing some remodeling? Maybe you want to update your kitchen. New cabinets to house all those dishes you use twice a year to entertain, maybe a new counter-top and certainly a new fridge I suppose if you’re really into the “latest up to date look” whatever THAT means. It would cost most people a couple thousand dollars to do a complete kitchen remodel. I changed my counter-top, installed a new sink and a new double gas burner stove in a day! This next one is my favorite. That little “500 dollar emergency” that I spoke of that most people aren’t prepared for, yeah, that one. Remember that? I had a friend have his water pump and water heater die at the same time. He spent nearly two grand putting in new water appliances. When my pump broke, (actually, turned out to be the outlet), but I replaced in a half hour from the time it went out until I had gone out to the store, bought the thing, and installed it with running water back again. And it cost 120 dollars! So the ease of maintenance, upkeep, and updating cost a fraction of the time and money that those same exercises would cost in a standard size home. Equity you say? Then there’s lovely little nightmare of HOA’s better known as the dreaded homeowners association! While not all of these organizations are “bad,” they do bring with them, and rightfully so, a stigma that leaves quite the poor taste in many a person’s mouth. These organizations will tell you what you can and cannot do on YOUR yard. That you can’t have an American flagpole in your yard (or any flag that your neighbors make enough of a complaint about for that matter), the size of a garden you may or may not grow in YOUR yard, or even that the grass in YOUR yard has to be a certain height. The point is, if you live in a standard size home that’s part of a HOA, your yard is hardly yours. Living tiny, you don’t have to worry about ANY of that nonsense. So one can see pretty clearly, that the cost of living in tiny space is much cheaper than that of a standard home. But interestingly enough, the “cheaper cost of living and maintenance isn’t the only reason that I and many others have chosen to live tiny.
