5 Reasons to Live in a Tiny Home

5 Reasons to Live in a Tiny Home

By Adam Durnham

With mortgage costs going higher and higher by the minute, people have been looking for alternatives to secure a home for themselves and for their families without going bankrupt or without burying yourselves in debt.

Living in tiny homes and going off the grid has been one of the most viable alternatives to traditional living. If you are still in doubt on why you have to try living in a tiny home, check out our top five reasons below:

Tiny homes will save you more money.

When you invest in a tiny home, you don’t have to buy a large tract of land where your house will be erected. This already translates to huge savings on your part.

According to the US Census Bureau, as of April 2017, the average price of an American home is around $368,000. In a different article published in the New York Times, consumer debt skyrocketed to approximately $12.73 trillion, a figure higher than the financial crisis in 2008. These debts include the ones secured to buy a house or to pay for a housing mortgage.

You can choose to not be part of the statistic if you opt for tiny house living. You will only be needing a container van, a camping van, a bus, or a truck you can convert into a living space.

Also, since you only have limited space, you will be forced to be selective of the furniture and fixture that you will be adding to your home. Most of the fixture in a tiny home is customized, thus, letting you save a huge amount of money on the acquisition.

Though you will have to invest initially on the house’ power, gas, and other important systems, these are all just birth pains since later on, you will save a lot more on electricity and other utilities.

With Mobile Tiny Homes You Can Bring Your Home Anywhere You Go

Traditional homes, being tied to a specific location, limit your mobility. If you have to move to another city or country for work or for other purposes, you will be forced to leave or sell your home, and move into another one. This is physically draining and emotionally exhausting, on top of being time-consuming.

This is not the case with tiny houses. Since these houses can be easily tied to a truck or to your vehicles, you can move it along when you travel or when you want to change residence.

If you want to go on a weekend getaway to the next town, you don’t have to sacrifice convenience since you can just rent a parking space for your tiny house and enjoy the view of any place you want to visit.

Aside from enjoying the view, you also get to save on your hotel expenses and food since you can simply sleep in your tiny house and also cook your own food anywhere you go!

Tiny home living encourages you to do more.

Living in traditional houses usually encourages us to just stay inside and enjoy the comfort only our homes can bring. This is not necessarily a bad thing since comfort is the best thing a home can provide. Then again, most of the time, too much comfort can encourage us to avoid the outdoors.

This is not the case with tiny home living where you are experiencing both worlds — you can stay inside your tiny house and bask in its comfort and also enjoy the outdoors by moving your homes into different places and within nature. If you want to enjoy your bed, you can just go inside and sleep. If you’re tired of lounging and you want a breath of fresh air, you can just drive to a park or to a forest, park your house, and get ready for an outdoor experience.

Indeed, life is easier and more exciting if you easily be where you want to be, anytime you want.

Tiny homes encourage us to be more sensitive to our environment.

In a study published by inspectamerica.com, it was revealed that a traditional house usually uses around 100 to 200 amps of electricity. Of course, this will still increase if you have to light a bigger space and if you have numerous appliances.

For tiny houses, you can save around 80 to 120 amps of power since it can run on solar energy or on 20 amps of power. With most tiny houses designed to be self-sufficient even if you have to be off the grid for a week or two, you can greatly reduce your power and water consumption by leaps and bounds.

Consequently, if we lessen our power consumption, we also reduce the emission from power plants, a situation which is very beneficial to the environment.

Tiny house living forces us to de-clutter.

Most of the time, if we have too much space for storage, we mindlessly hoard things even if we don’t need them or even if they are already good as trash. We don’t feel the need to de-clutter because our personal spaces are not yet invaded by the things we hoard.

This will entirely change if you try tiny home living. With the limited space that you have, you will really be forced to cut down on the things that you have to bring inside the house. You will be forced to select which ones are useful and which ones should go.

If you have a hard time letting go of things, you might need to start to list down all the things you need in a piece of paper. This will help you stay in check of your inventory. Go over your things and sort them one by one. At the end of the day, decluttering your stuff will help you organize your thoughts and stick with just the essentials.

Shifting to tiny home living is not an easy decision to make. Before you dive in and set up your own tiny house and join the tiny home movement, make sure that you have done your research well and that you’re physically, mentally, and emotionally prepared for it.

Author Bio: Adam Durnham is a freelance blogger from Detroit, Michigan who loves to write about sustainability and mental health. You can find a lot of his work on the Sunshine Behavioral Health Blog.