10 Things I Love About Living In A Tiny Home

After listening to Andrew Bennets TEDx talk (see video below) about tiny homes, he mentioned a list of benefits from tiny living. Heres our quick list below. (order is not important) 

1. Tiny House Tetris

I talk about this in our post called "Tiny Tetris" but it's a funny little game we play with ourselves to find spots for things in our house or a better way of organizing. There's always a better way of doing things in my opinion. Ever look at your fridge and know there's a better way of organizing it or cleaning it? It is sort of like that. You open something like a drawer or a closet or bring another item in the house and randomly a sparks a better way of organizing it. In a tiny home, this happens often. In a way, it embraces my OCD organizing aspect. 

2. Less Stuff in our home on wheels

Living in a physically smaller space you will have fewer things you can fit in it. We often hear people say "I could never get rid of or fit all my things in a house that size". While that is probably half true, you really could. There's no secret way or technique on getting rid of this stuff. You just do it. You throw out what you don't use on a monthly basis.  Put it in your car and take it your donation choice. It's that simple. Yes, you will think about the money you spent on those items and the what if's that pop into your head, but it will be okay. You don't actually need it and it feels great. It's really hard to put it into words but it's a lighter feeling. Be raw and honest with yourself and get rid of a medium box a day. I've never met someone that has felt worse by getting rid of their excess items. 

3. Less Buying

This goes hand and hand with having fewer things but has also been a mental shift. For me, I find myself going to stores or places with friends and think to myself, "I can’t bring anything back even if I tried." I typically smile after thinking that. Take the road trip I took with my buddy Brian when we use to do these trips I always had to pick up things from key moments in our trip. This could have been a hat or a piece of art, maybe a shirt, but not anymore. This ultimately has a positive effect on my bank account. I get to actually stick to my budgets on these kinds of trips or runs to the store, which means more money for adventures. 

4. Tiny Home Kitchen is Closer to the Couch

This doesn't sound important but it's very nice. When watching a show on Netflix or something on Kodi it's so much easier to grab a snack or refill on the popcorn without missing something. When we make dinner we can watch Black Mirror and actually understand whats going on. If the stars align upright and I am on the couch and Sam is doing something in the kitchen, I can pass her something to throw away for me so I don't have to get up. It’s the little things in life :) 

5. Less Impact

Like we said in our Utility post our bills have gone down. We try to be as environmentally friendly as possible but in 2018 there are sometimes you can't. With living in a small home we have a smaller impact in general. We take up less footprint on the ground physically. We use less air/heat since we have a smaller space and our home is spray foamed so it's super sealed and does not let what we do heat/cool escape as fast. We consume less material goods which help in many ways. We even have started exploring compost to help break down our scraps to make super nutrient-rich soil for our plants in our home.

6. Multiple Uses

Who doesn't like items that have multiple uses? When I was a kid and I got that shine red Swiss army knife from my dad, I couldn't help but love it and couldn't wait to pull it out for those random things it has on it. Now take that and apply it to living in a tiny home. You have to have things that have multiple uses, it's inevitable. Every time I walk on the stairs it's cool knowing I just walked in my closet. Plants are extremely multi-useful. There's something satisfying about knowing that the fiddle leaf plant not only looks great as a plant but that it's cleaning the air in our tightly sealed space. We hang our bench blanket on the rails for the ladder to the second loft. The master loft projector functions just as well outside our home as it does inside our home. Our washer/dryer combo unit does both and is also where we fold laundry and have Oliver's little corner. Maybe it's the idea that having an item do multiple things ultimately means we need one less item or space in our life. 

7. Saving Money Living in a Tiny House

We save less money on buying day to day things but more importantly long term. We are almost a year in and knocking the payments off for a year feels great. The home will now be paid off in 3 years which will be great timing for the next adventure in our life. That could be a house to rent out to someone or currently, this month, we have been saying a yurt, but next month will be a double-decker bus or something. Haha Having less or lower bills in life is a huge future stress reliever. 

8. Cleaning is Easy In Our Tiny Home

We briefly talked about cleaning in our post called "What HAS NOT Changed Since We Moved Into A Tiny House" We find ourselves cleaning more often in a small space but it’s pretty easy. We vacuum every other day I feel, but it’s less to vacuum it legit takes 10-15 mins to vacuum the floor, shelves, bathroom, Oliver food place, upstairs loft, window sills, and kitchen. If you wanna pull out the magic erasers for spots that takes another whole 5 mins. Whipping down the toilet, sinks, oven, toaster oven, and coffee maker is another 5-10 mins. So for a really good "mom is coming over" deep clean, we are at 30 mins for 270 sq feet. Not bad in my opinion.

9. More Time

Since we have fewer things around the house to do or account for we have more time to be able to hang out with friends or family. Time is an interesting thing since we can never get it back and never ends. I cherish the time I have with people or myself rather than the things I have. or feel like you have to do. Having fewer things to do around the house means we are able to enjoy the days we can with doing hobbies or more time for a quick bite to eat with a friend. 

10. On The Right Path

I think it’s hard for anyone to know that they are 100% doing the right thing. It's the first time in my life I can say that. Just look at that list above of great things that came from living tiny for me, and it's only been about 8 months. I think over a longer period of time, tiny home living will be one of the best decision of my life, but takes time to see the overall benefits other than a monetary value.  It's weird to be walking the path knowing even more positive things are coming from this. 

What do you think are the biggest benefits you see out of the tiny house movement? Comment below!

-Tim