Tiny home living has become popularized with the sky rocketing costs of renting in a big city and the growing unstable housing market. Living minimally may have appealing initial benefits but it has drawbacks as well so be sure to carefully weigh these options before you invest and start building your very own tiny home. As with any choice in life, there will always be a trade off so make sure you’re happy with what you settle for.
PROS OF TINY HOME LIVING
Affordability: Tiny home living is very affordable. The average tiny home costs roughly $30,000 (even less if you build it yourself) so you can potentially create the home of your dreams, mortgage free, which is what I plan to do.
Lower Energy Use: Tiny homes not only cost less upfront, but they’re much cheaper to maintain. Your bills for water, fuel, electricity, and waste are much lower since you are powering a smaller space. The majority of tiny homes have composting toilets, which break down waste without needing to be hooked up to a sewage system. This benefits both your wallet and the environment.
You can splurge on high quality materials: Since building a tiny home is much cheaper than building a single family home, you can afford to use top of the line high quality materials. You could even upgrade your floor to hardwood or bamboo flooring for a minimal cost. You could add stainless steel appliances, a farm house ceramic sink or even opt for more exotic woods for your interior. Just be sure to consider weight when choosing the materials.
Improved sleep: Having a designated sleep space void of stimulation such as TV, computers, light and if you can leave it out, your cell phone too. I prefer a smaller enclosed sleeping space and I have never slept better in my life!
Freedom to move: Having a home on wheels allows you to have the freedom of mobility. You can travel across the county and live almost anywhere in any type of environment. Who wouldn’t love to have a new backyard every month or so?
Easy to maintain: Cleaning your tiny home is a breeze. If designed properly, everything has a proper place. Maintaining a single family home is very time consuming especially when it comes to cleaning. With little home to take care of, you will find more time to do the things you really want to do and that’s whats called freedom.
Turn heads: You’ll also become a local celebrity of sorts and random interesting people from around the country will strike up conversation wherever you take your home. Your home could become a community builder, an inspiration or a reminder that we all can live with less.
Sustainability: With off grid options, living tiny is one of the most sustainable ways to live if you care about helping the environment. By choosing a composting toilet, you are essentially saving about 200 gallons of water each day!
At one with nature: The tiny house movement goes hand in hand with the environmental movement. Tiny houses require less material to build and less energy to power. Also, their smaller size makes them easier to site in a place that’s close to nature.
Simplicity: A tiny home doesn’t have a lot of extra space for junk drawers or bonus rooms so every part of the space needs to be accounted for which forces the owner to simplify their down and only use the absolute essentials keeping only the items that truly enrich their lives.
CONS OF TINY HOME LIVING
Legality: Finding a place to legally park your tiny home can be very difficult depending on which state you live in. In Southern Californian where I live, it is very difficult to find land or a space to park your tiny home despite the sky rocketing costs of rent out here.
Insurance: It is hard to categorize rolling homes on wheels let alone to insure them for damage and theft. Luckily, with the popularity of the movement growing, it’s becoming easier than ever to find tiny house insurance. RVs are defined as towable units with a maximum size of 400 square feet, built to stringent standards, and designed for temporary living. To get the seal from the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA), your tiny home will need to be built by one of their members and have a VIN attached. Click here for more information about insurance.
Privacy: Your very own personal space is far and few between when you live tiny, especially if you are living with more than one person and/or pet(s). You don’t have much privacy, including the times when nature calls. Make sure who you know who you’re living with before you move into a tiny home. It gets real pretty quick!
Inconvenience: If you sleep in a loft, you may need to go downstairs in the middle of the night so it may not always be easy (or safe) to get climb down the stairs (or ladder) in the dark when you are tired. Make sure you are comfortable with the ladder or build stairs with a railing. My dream tiny home would have a fireman’s pole!
Weight matters: Not only are you limited to the size of the trailer but you are also limited to the actual weight of home. There is only so much weight you can put on the axles so you constantly need to be thinking about weight especially when picking out materials, appliances, furniture and features. That heavy ceramic claw foot tub and farm house sink may look beautiful but will put you over your weight limit. Work with a builder who also keeps this in mind so you don’t run into problems.
Limited space: There’s not much closet or storage space in a tiny home so you need to be cognizant of everything you buy. Only keep the clothing items you wear consistently. If you haven’t worn something in 6-12 months, it may be time to get rid of it. You’re going to need to get comfortable with the idea of minimalism to make this work.
When Nature Calls: If you have a composting toilet, you would need to explain and even show your guests how to use it. If you are a male you need to sit down while peeing so you definitely need to train yourself to pee in one container and poo in another. You can even have a nightmare experience of overflowing the pee tank and getting it all over the floor like I have done (many times unfortunately). If you have a Nature’s Head toilet, I recommend putting a ping pong ball in the urine tank to be able to clearly see when its nearing the top. Also, when it’s time to dump the #1, hold your breath! 2.2 gallons of urine can certainly sting the nostrils!
tiny home builders
There are a lot of companies out there who build tiny homes so be sure to find the right one that will build your dream home for you. Here are few of my favorites that I hope to work with in the near future.
MORE resources
I hope you enjoyed learning more about how I live and more about tiny home living! This way of life may not be for everyone but it can definitely help improve our world with the option to reduce and minimize how we live, especially with the rising home and rent costs in certain parts of the country. We can even help out our homeless population by creating tiny home communities for them. Even if you are not able to fit your large family or life into a tiny home, let my way of life be a reminder to you that all we need is less and when we can appreciate life with less, we can focus on the more important things in life other than stuff.
