Tiny House or Bust

Lately, I've been obsessed. I've realized that a lot of my current desires stem from one thing: the lack of freedom I have.

Now, I don't mean that my wife never lets me leave the house or that my kids tie me down. Mostly, its exactly the opposite.

I have two kids that I've known for only 5 months and their daycare lady sees them more than I do. I have a job that I like about half the time and during some stretches, sort of consumes my life. I have a mortgage, student loans, and a truckload of other bills that are a direct result of the lifestyle I've lived and the decisions I've made (not that any of these are bad in and of themselves).

There are things that I want to do, other than what I do on a day to day basis now. I'd love to coach, teach some adjunct classes at Hawkeye, volunteer more within church ministries and other non-profits. I'd love to be part of my kids' early morning routine instead of only their bedtime routine. I'd love to meet friends for lunch and pour myself into God and into other meaningful relationships.

Instead, I find that I'm mostly spread (thin) between about... 200 people in a given week, half of which, are my students. I find myself thinking of doing other jobs only to come back to the realization that my current job is the probably the only job that supports my family's lifestyle adequately.

And then, I realized something

My lifestyle is less important to me than all of those other things that I'd love to do. So, why do I have a mortgage, a so-so 40 hour a week job, and lack of time for my most meaningful relationships?

I was too afraid to question the norms.

But now that I am questioning them, I've come to something of a conclusion: I would drastically change my lifestyle to accomodate more time with my kids, volunteering, coaching, etc... So, how do I do that?

Well, changing my lifestyle would start with getting rid of the things that keep me from doing the things I want to do. It all boils down to one thing. Money. Right now, my life requires too much of it. My biggest expenses are: My house, our student loans, and daycare. Now, none of these things are bad, but those three things consume about 70% of our monthly budget.

Lifestyle changes happen only when people question the norms. For me, this means thinking about where I spend the most resources and evaluating whether they reflect what I value.

This is where I got crazy addicted to the idea of the "tiny house." These are small houses that people live in that are exceptionally efficient and modern, but super small. The ones I was particularly interested in are built on trailers, therefore ridding the owner of a mortgage, home insurance, property taxes, and a slew of other costs associated with home ownership. All in all, our costs per month would go down by about a third if we lived in a tiny house.

Now, I've got a wife, two kids, and a dog. The tiny thing just probably isn't going to work for us. Besides, Kristen isn't too crazy about it anyway (I believe 'freak' was the the term she used to describe me during that conversation).

Nevertheless, the idea of downsizing substantially to reduce our monthly costs is very appealing. Another thing that we've had a fair amount of luck with is renting our basement. We've been fairly fortunate to have good friends who've needed temporary housing that were glad to use that space. So, a tiny house is not the only way to substantially reduce our monthly budget, nor is it a 'fix all' solution, its just one that looked particularly appealing to me.