How buying a tiny house can make you richer while gaining more free time to pursue your passions

 Isn´t it funny that in most cases our first association with making more money is to work harder and longer, to get a “better” job, or improve on educational level to increase our income? These are all the thoughts that have come to my mind at first, too, when thinking about all the things that I wanted to do in life where money would be a good thing to have.  

Nevertheless, I was also aware that most of these ideas would result in giving up more free time. If you think about it life can be quite short and time very valuable. Why even giving up more of this precious good? 

I had several reasons in mind to do so: 

1. Saving for a higher independence / freedom to take on new challenges without having to worry about that savings wouldn’t last 

2. Saving for a car 

3. Saving for buying a home 

4. Saving for retirement   

All of these saving goals require quite a bit of monthly savings. These were all valid reasons for me to give up even more free time to earn more money for a higher security, independence and being life-long debt free. 

I met the love of my life a few years ago while studying in the US. The two of us have the same ideologies and strive for being as independent and debt free as possible in the future. We were both willing to sacrifice some time to accomplish this. However, our thoughts have changed – quite a bit.  

Time has become a scarce commodity 

We both graduated from renowned US universities and got good jobs. Now, time has become a scarce commodity. Do we really want to give up even more of this precious time to make more money? Do we want to give up our saving goals instead? What if we answer both questions with no – does that make sense, is there a way to make it happen? What could be a solution? I have thought about this for over a year now.  

What is really important in life 

What do we really need in life, what makes us happy and matters to us the most? I think we all know that money is not the answer here. How about spending more time with your partner and your loved ones? How about travelling? How about pursuing your dreams? I think this list could be endless.. and for many, working harder and longer is most likely not in the top 10. 

If one boils it down, you might consider two things that would be good to have to enjoy the things mentioned above:

1. Time and 

2. Money

So what could be the answer to focusing more on what is really important in life by having more free time and money but not having to work harder and longer?  

Having more money in the pocket

Many people are often thinking about increasing their income, have you ever thought about the expense side? How much could you cut down your expenses? Every dollar that you could cut down, is as good as increasing one dollar on the income side, but you might not have to give up much for it, maybe even nothing. Could this be something? 

A year ago, I started running through my monthly expenses and quickly came to the conclusion that there is not enough potential for a “big” saving. It would be a dollar here and there, but nothing substantially enough to make it worthwhile. 

At that time, I did not think out of the box enough - It is not about simply cutting expenses it is about questioning the reason behind the expenses. This is what can bring the biggest savings and big savings mean more money in the pocket at the end of the day. 

What makes you happy the most, is this expressed in your expenses, too? 

If you look at your top expense positions (e.g. rent/loan rate) and you cannot answer the question above with a clear “yes” – I have a few interesting thoughts for you. I choose the rent / loan rate as an example:

1. How many days per week do you have to work to cover the rent / loan rate? 

2. How much do you even spend cleaning the house and maintaining it? 

3. How many sqm do you effectively use? Do you really need every single sqm every day/week/month or has quite a bit just become storage space for things that you have not touched in days/weeks/month? 

4. How many hours do you effectively spend in the house, really enjoying it? 

Many people come to the conclusion that their answer to number one is 1/3 or even more of their income,meaning they have to work 1/3 of the month just to afford living in their house – wow, this is quite a lot isn’t it? After one third of the month you still have not covered any further expenses and earned money which you can put as savings aside. Many might also use a lot of sqm to store things that they accrued over years but do not really need anymore. And if you really add up the time per week where you can really enjoy the house it is not too much afterall, deducting sleeping time, time spend at work, sports and other activities. 

How about taking a few sqm off the house and flipping it into more time and cash? How does that sound?  

Rethinking living – Downsizing for good reasons 

Can there be a substantial saving here? I can truly answer this question with “yes”. Let´s do a simple calculation. Let´s say you consider getting a mortgage for a house worth 300.000 USD at an interest rate of 3% and a monthly principal paydown of 1,250 USD. This would take you 30 years to pay off. What is the total cost over the lifetime until it is paid off? 

If you add up the loan (300.000 USD) plus all interest payments (160.000 USD) you derive at 460.000 USD. Is it really worth it to give up 1/3 of your lifetime for the next 30 years only to have a big house which even consumes more time cleaning it and which you might not use that extensively afterall? 

What if there was a living solution for only 30.000 USD, which would only be 125 USD principal paydown every month, meaning you would have an additional 1.125 USD in your pocket – every month! You could still work the same – or even consider reducing your working hours by almost 1/3. How does that sound? 

More money, more free time - The tiny house dream 

We are ready for a downsize, we are ready for more free time and more cash in our pockets. We know that this also comes with sacrifices we have to make but we know this accomplishes far more – having more time and money for things which are really important to us in life such as family, loved ones and pursuing all of the dreams we have in mind – we are ready for a tiny house! 

Besides the big saving every month, I love to highlight the following: 

1. Very environmental friendly - due to less raw materials used to produce it, lower consumption of energy, e.g. for heating the space 

2. Portable – Most of these houses are built on a trailer – if your lifestyle, your location of employment changes, simply attach it to the car and move on 

3. More freetime – e.g. due to less time spend on cleaning 

4. Encourages family bonding – a smaller home results in more social interaction 

5. Less expenses – e.g. for heating, on decoration or any other item for the house, there is just less space 

6. Mentally freeing – “The more we own, the more they own us.” And the more stuff we own, the more mental energy is held hostage by them.  

Are these a few good reasons? But after all, how does such a house look like you may ask? Here are some impressions: … 

From the idea to reality 

We are now in the process of designing our own tiny house. We found a great, small company which builds beautiful, totally customized and cute tiny houses in the range of 20 – 35.000 USD and we would love to share this adventure with as many people as possible and bring on the tiny house community to steemit!!! We are super excited and can´t wait to share our next steps with you :)!