What HAS NOT Changed Since We Moved Into A Tiny House
Changing your lifestyle to a tiny home is a drastic change but there are some things that stay the same. Here are a couple of ours.
When we first moved into our home we dealt with a handful of problems with the home. Mainly utilities and maintenance issues. While I was on a road trip from Ohio to Wyoming with one of my best buddies, the hot water was not working for half of a month or more. (Sam was a soldier with cold showers for that long, 💪 ). Next, the oven worked once and was broken for two months. Then we had the AC not working for quite a while and found out that the outside needed to be cleaned from all the past festivals Tiffany went to before we bought her. Side note: AC unit is elevated and in the front of the home while being towed. During travel, this can result in all sorts of bugs and debris getting into the system, but also my biggest fear, rocks. Buy a cover if you plan to do this. Also, Sam will be making one! There is a slight crack in our handmade custom front door. And currently, the expensive out of warranty AC/HEAT started not working when a cold (Florida cold) front came in. Asked for some help from the AC guy that lives in the campground. Since its a smart unit (Model number LSN120HSV4 ) I checked my phone to see what the unit said is the error and it mentioned freon. The levels looked good but then after pulling panels and shells off the unit we checked the connections. Ended up being a brass nut that cracked, on the inside unit, all the way through and was leaking freon. He mentioned it could be because of the traveling distance but really has never seen it cracked that badly. These types of things that are going to happen in a normal house. My brother Ryan gave me good advice to always anticipate repairs when buying a home, even a slightly used/new tiny home.
We still have bills and life's bullshit stuff. Some bills have gone down, of course, such as electricity. I think the financial benefits are going to have a stronger impact farther down the road. It takes time to pay off one you built yourself or buy. I would imagine in most cases most people don't have all the money upfront to come out clean after making the life change. So we still have essentially a short-term "mortgage" for now, but this will be the biggest long-term advantage as it will disappear in three more years. We have rent money for our lot that we stay on so "rent money" is still there for now.
On a side note, a weird bill change that surprised me is the grocery bill. I personally have been buying Costco bulk since the college days of the frozen panko-breaded chicken tenders... How I don't have a 6th toe from eating so many of those is beyond me. So I would pretty much have a super steady grocery run once or twice a month while having space to store it. I haven't crunched the numbers too closely but a quick mental math and I think its more expensive now. We just grab more stuff than we think we need typically or get that bulk discount. Try this new thing or have a sale on this or that. Marketing, you son of a gun, you get us with our love for snnnaaacks.
Typical every day house maintenance is still there and could include, washing down the AC unit and cleaning the air filter once a month, clean the washer/dryer drain or releveling the house because of the Florida rain or someone accidentally ran over the water spigot for the homes water supply, cough Sam cough.
We vacuum less space more often. A screw tightened here and there. Since our space is smaller we tend to touch or kick a wall so we wash the white walls and stairs more often, thank you Mr. Clean magic erasers. Restaining the scratches on the wood from our buddy who recently caught himself from falling off the handrail in the master loft and dug his nails so deep that he could pull himself up like Rambo pulling himself up from leaping onto an enemy helicopter. It was epic.
Oliver is still able to run around and get enough exercise. I was worried that having such a small space would be equivalent to having just a large cage for him. But he loves it, I mean loves it. He runs around and has plenty of things to hide under or by. I'm pretty sure he is a tree cat cause he loves being up high. He climbs from window to window and lays down on the beam across the home to watch down. He's still a happy cat.
And most importantly we still don't get sick of each other yet in such a small space and try to stay in bed all day rather than go to work. 😂 I am not posting these things to be negative in any way. There are so many positive aspects of living tiny it almost sounds fake. I just sometimes find that the abundance of positive aspects drains out the other "realistic ", for lack of better words, aspects of tiny living for us. I've learned that there always should be a yin and yang in life and I try to keep that perspective in all areas.
-Tim
