These days it’s all about downsizing, small homes, and living minimally, but it is really right for your family?

Our first home was a whopping 2,700 square foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 2 living room monstrosity of a house. We bought furniture to fill the rooms, decorations to cover the walls, enough paint to drown a donkey, and stuff to fill the empty space. Why?

Why did we feel it necessary to purchase such a large home? To purchase so much stuff to fill it?

Looking back I remember thinking we wanted a few babies. If we had a few babies then we would NEED rooms for each of them, a spare room for company, and an extra room in case we wanted an office. We would NEED plenty of room for them to be able to play whether it was upstairs or downstairs. We would NEED enough bathrooms so that guests didn’t have to share the kids’ space. We would NEED a massive dining room table for all of our family and friends to sit at when they came over for these grandiose dinner parties I created in my head. We NEEDED all of this space.

Granted, we got the house for an incredible price at the fall of the market in 2012. We got it during the building phase when someone’s contract fell through so we got an even better deal on it. If we just stayed in that house for a few years and sold we stood to make an incredible profit, BUT that’s not what we did.

Keeping up with the ‘NEEDING’ trend, I decided we needed a big back patio. A BIG back patio. We stupidly took out a $40k loan, put on a massive patio extension complete with sunken, stone wrapped hot tub, stone and glass fire pit, and massive granite topped outdoor kitchen. Oh yeah, we went big.

But why?

Why do we all feel the need to have these big homes? To then spend even more money to make them even bigger and ‘better’?  To fill them with furniture we never sit on and things we never use? It’s what is engrained in us from the time we are young. You buy a big home, fill it with nice things, make enough money to buy the things that make you happy, and when you make more money you buy bigger, better things. But that’s all that they are, things.

It’s a vicious cycle. You endlessly feel like no matter how much money you make you never have extra. You work to pay for things and have things to… Sit in that big house while you’re working to pay for more of those things?

Yeah, seems pretty stupid to me right now too!

However, at the time that’s all we knew. We weren’t in consumer debt, we could afford the things we wanted, and we had a big beautiful house. We didn’t have any savings and barely contributed to our retirements, but we had plenty of time for that. Sense the sarcasm?

Insert slap of reality. We hit a speed bump. If you’ve got time read our infertility journey. If you don’t, just know that it’s EXPENSIVE. We looked up and were facing over $120k in debt. We didn’t have extra money to pay it off because we had all those nice things to pay for. We realized pretty quickly we were doing something wrong.

Fast forward a few years in to our financial journey and it’s funny to realize how much our perspectives have changed, how much our values have changed, and how much our saving rate has changed! It’s not all about the size of the house or the things you fill it with. It’s about finding what fits you, your family and your lifestyle. People who are ‘keeping up’ will never get ahead.

The Start of Our ‘Downsize’

When we initially started on our financial journey we created our budget, realized we still needed more money monthly, and decided to sell our first home.

We sold the home and built a new, smaller home. It wasn’t a huge downsize. We went from that whopping 2,700 square feet to a more modest 2,100 square feet. It wasn’t a huge downsize in price either, but it was enough to bring down our monthly bills and give us a boost towards or goal of being debt free.

It was a piece to the puzzle that allowed us to pay off ALL of that debt before our daughter was even born, a year ahead of our original goal. A year later we are sitting in our new ‘downsized’ home, debt free and living well within our means. We still have a home loan, but the car payments, medical payments and credit card debt are long gone. We had continued our budgeting and dove in to a new journey, financial independence. We were saving money, maxing our retirements, living conservatively, and loving our time together. One day hubby and I just looked at one another and said “let’s sell it”.

We had downsized, but we hadn’t right sized. The home was still too big for us. It was absolutely beautiful with wood plank tiles, white quartz counters, and custom finishes from top to bottom, but there was wasted space. There was wasted space and that space and the things that filled our home didn’t bring me any value. They were just things.

That idea I had once had about NEEDING 3 extra rooms, a giant dining table, and a designated guest bathroom was no longer a thought that crossed my mind. When we had family and friends over they mostly just stood around the kitchen counter or played on the floor with the baby. When we wanted and office space I just popped a desk in the corner and called it a day. When babes was playing she didn’t care if I had a designated play room or if she got to set her stuffies up right next to me in the kitchen. We didn’t NEED that space.

We put the house on the market the following week.

DOWNSIZING Time

We toyed with the idea of buying a small home, between 900 and 1,200 square feet. By toyed with I mean did thorough research and looked at a million homes while our house sat for sale. If we cut our square footage, downgraded just a bit on the finishes, and bought a slightly older home we could stand to save nearly $700 per month.  We also wanted to get rid of our $310 HOA monthly fee. That was over $1,000 we could put in our pockets EACH MONTH! So we started looking outside our current neighborhood.

We looked at house after house and each one just didn’t feel right. The layouts were either awkward and cut off or just one, big open room. One house would need a new roof, another warranted quite a few cosmetic upgrades, another needed a patio put on. All of them felt like a lot of sacrifice in the name of saving money. After all, we didn’t need to save the money as much as we wanted to get rid of waste.

Time went on and we looked at more and more houses. The pieces just never fit. Some didn’t even have closets! If it was in an area we liked then they were asking more per square foot than even made sense. If it was a nice house then it was probably in an area that we didn’t want to live. We couldn’t win.

I started to get nervous. I was gung ho, on board, full throttle with hubby that I wanted to downsize, but now that I was seeing these 1,000 square foot homes in person I wasn’t so sure. I felt like I would be giving up so much. Not just space but functionality. We would lose the large patio where the baby and I played, the hall where she raced her baby stroller, and the storage space was next to nothing.

To top that off I had become accustomed to our neighborhood. We have miles upon miles of sidewalks with lush landscapes, parks, lakes and areas to sit and enjoy nature. These homes we were looking at were all piled upon one another with some being well kept and others in disarray. There was no where for me to walk with the baby, I already missed our lake views, and I was terrified that I had committed to something that I was going to regret.

I have never once labeled myself as a minimalist, but I liked to look at myself as someone who could live with much less. Buy only what you value and value everything you own was my mindset. Was I still too far away from my husband’s values to be able to downsize? It seemed that he could easily live in 1,000 square feet without a problem. I was terrified.

Get Talking.

Here is one of my key things in this financial journey, no matter whether you’re battling debt or building your future. Talk to your partner.

It’s impossible for them to know how you’re feeling or you to know how they’re feeling if you don’t communicate. Come up with a plan together. That way you have common goals and it will be more likely for you to achieve those goals together.

So hubby and I sat down. I explained to him my fears. I explained to him that by downsizing that much, though we would be saving an extra $2-300 per month on the mortgage that I would be sacrificing too many things that I value. I explained to him that even though living outside of the neighborhood we would save $310 per month, there was so much of value for OUR family that we gained from that $310. That $310 gave us cable, internet, garbage pick up, lawn care, pest control, and pools, parks, and trails for our family to use every day. It gave us the ability to walk out our door and have access to activities so we could spend our weekends doing things together without spending extra money.

Most importantly it gave our daughter, and ourselves, a sense of community. We knew the neighbors so well and they were incredible. Many of them were grandparents who missed their kiddos so they would often offer to watch babes for us, they would come over at a moment’s notice if we needed help, and they didn’t mind when our babe and pup ran around the yard like maniacs. They were wonderful. I also explained to him that I needed that sense of community and added security of the neighborhood for when he was gone. Those same neighbors kept an eye out on us while hubby was on shift for 24 hours.

Oh, and did I mention that grandma and grandpa lived in the same neighborhood? Right down the street. Even moving 5 miles away meant that babes and I couldn’t just run by and say ‘hi’ while we were out for our walk. I felt like it meant less Sunday night family dinners and less baby and grandma play dates at the pool. I wasn’t ready to give that up!

That $310 per month brought us more value than I had given it credit for.

After that long talk I KNEW I wanted to stay. To my surprise hubby saw the same value I did. It wasn’t that he didn’t find value in those things before our talk, it was just that we hadn’t laid out the facts. We hadn’t taken a good, hard look at what we actually value.

Yes, we wanted to save money. Yes, we wanted to have a smaller home and have less to care for. BUT, we didn’t want to sacrifice the lifestyle that we loved so much. WE DIDN’T WANT TO DOWNSIZE!!!!!

Just like so many thoughts we’ve had since starting this financial journey, we suddenly had an epiphany we wished we had had so long ago. The goal of our journey was to find a place that matched our family’s values both financially and as a lifestyle. We didn’t NEED a big house, but we also didn’t NEED to save $1,000 a month and live in a tiny home. We NEEDED to find a home that was right for our family. We needed to RIGHTSIZE!

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We ended up purchasing and adorable 1,500 square foot home in the same neighborhood we loved so much. We bought it at a price we were comfortable with and we didn’t need to spend extra to make it a place we would love. It’s the perfect layout that optimizes every bit of that 1,500 square feet and is perfectly functional for our family.

We didn’t lose anything that our previous home had either. We still have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dining room turned office, plenty of storage, and a beautiful little kitchen. Everything is there, just shrunken down a bit and yet it doesn’t feel small at all. There is still room for babes to play, room for us to have family over, and a view of a preserve that I’ve grown to love.

There is a cozy, welcoming feel that we didn’t have with our last home. Maybe it was the vast amount of space, maybe it’s a mental thing. Whatever it is, I love it. It’s transformed in to our own as we do small projects to customize it. A coat of paint on the walls does wonders, and the things I want to ‘upgrade’ can be cash flowed easily because they’re smaller and cost less! A backsplash at our old home: $3,000. A backsplash in our new home: $500. Less paint, less furniture, less stuff.

We may not have saved the $1,000 a month we originally set out to do, but we saved over $400 per month by losing 600 square feet. An easy compromise if you ask me. On top of that we don’t need flood insurance which is $500 per year, our property taxes are lower, our utility bills have been reduced, and there’s just less house to take care of. That money all ads up to more than we need. It gives us financial freedom to make choices with our lives whether it be traveling more, working less, taking a mini retirement, or ANYTHING we want.

Your time has value too, and I spend much less time cleaning, organizing and maintaining this home. That time translates in to more time with my daughter and hubby, more time to plant and tend to the garden, and more time to do landscaping or fun projects around the house like wainscoting the office (so easy – tutorial coming soon I promise).

Though I lost my lake view and breathtaking kitchen, I feel like I’ve gained so much more. Instead of the lake we now have a yard that our daughter and pup can safely play in. The playground and pool is even closer, a mere 5 minute walk, which means spontaneous slide and swing time for the babes. Instead of cabinets filled with items we never used, we now have everything we need and no more. The furniture we have has meaning and memories behind it because we only kept pieces that we loved, most that I made or redid. The whole house is just perfect, the rightsize for us.

These days, especially in the online financial communities, it seems that people get carried away with the numbers. Trying to downsize to the smallest possible homes, cut their expenses to the bare minimum, and simplify their life to the max. I fear that we’ve taken a turn from Keeping Up with the Jonses to the polar opposite. You have nothing to prove. Budgeting and frugalism doesn’t mean you deprive yourself of things that you value, enjoy and bring you happiness. They mean you make conscious decisions with your money. Just like you can optimize square footage, you can optimize your money, make it work for you and your family.

Some families may very comfortably live in 1,000 square foot homes, or even less. Some even live in more creative housing like converted school buses, true tiny homes, or RV’s. Heck, when I was little our family lived on a boat for a bit! My parents owned a marina and liked to go one long weekend trips on the water. That lifestyle was what they valued. My parents had no need for any material things at the time, could have cared less about a community pool and playground, and privacy wasn’t even close to an issue. The boat made sense for their family at that time. These days their farm equipment wouldn’t quite fit on the boat, so I don’t think that square footage would work for them anymore.

Downsizing isn’t for everyone. You find a home that fits the life of your family. It fits your budget, it fits your lifestyle, it fits in to the parts of your life that you value. Forget the numbers, forget the idea that you NEED more or NEED less for that matter. Step back and look at what’s important to you, TALK to your partner, and make a decision based on your values, goals and financial plan. Sometimes it makes sense to buy a tiny home to get out of debt, sometimes the space of a larger home is what your family needs for homeschooling or indoor gymnastics (whatever you’re in to), and sometimes it makes sense to just stay where you are. Whatever you do, make sure you’re rightsizing for your family.

Related articles:

• How We Paid Off Over $120k in Less than 2 Years
• Our IVF Story
• How to Talk to Your Spouse About Money
• Destroying the Stigma of Budgeting “I could never live like that”
• Is FEAR Holding You Back?

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