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Tiny homes are no longer a substandard form of living. They are becoming luxurious ways of breaking away from burdens of the same day to day life style that is considered the universal standard. The tiny home movement has allowed the young and old to become free from the burdens of mortgages and financial sink holes of typical standard sized home ownership. Downsizing and eliminating what is unneeded cannot only allow a tiny home to be more ideal option, but is eliminating stress and worries from those who can let go of what is not needed in their lives and thus concentrate on finding their happiness.

Nina Patel writes “Tiny house, big benefits: Freedom from a mortgage and worries – and stuff”, “America is having a big love affair with tiny houses”. As with TV shows promoting tiny houses and more, the movement is being led by millennials and the retiring baby boomers. Since college loans are keeping the current millennial generation from being able to afford traditional homes, they have been looking to the tiny house movement. Unlike the millennials, the baby boomers are looking too downsized in their retirement age. As in retirement, many like to travel in an RV to travel and see the country. Patel writes about two Pasadena, MD. Residents Gregg and Renee Cantori who claim that a tiny house “feels like a real house”. Patel reaches to those of young and old with testimonials about those who have joined the tiny house movement. They are free from the burdens of financial debt, and opens of a freedom of possibilities for one to enjoy life to the fullest. Like the Cantori’s, Patel follows others though their conversion to the tiny house lifestyle like Jay Austin, a young adult looking to make a practical move for financial freedom.

Like Nina Patel’s “Tiny house, big benefits: Freedom from a mortgage and worries – and stuff”, Andrew Morrison spoke at a TEDx in Colorado Springs about what freedoms come with the lifestyle change to tiny house living. Opening the eyes of the audience with a simple equation of housing cost divided by net monthly income times 100 equals the percentage of the net monthly income that is spent on a home owners housing cost. Andrew calculates that roughly 27 percent of a homeowner’s income will go towards housing costs. Opening the eyes of the audience with this, Andrew offers suggestions on how his family adapted to the tiny house lifestyle. The Morrison family doesn’t live outside of their means, building their house out of pocket without the burden of a typical 30 year loan gives them the freedom from a housing payment. Because of the faster paced world, housing sizes have increased 61% according to Morrison while the household sizes have decreased, leading to separation in relationships over the larger square footage allotted per person. This is leading to what he calls spatial separation, which can be damaging to family relationships. Smaller spaces mean less storage space. Morrison encourages a way to eliminate items that are unused and unneeded. Too often do people think about material items in Morrison’s opinion, mentioning that when someone is dying do they look back and wish they had more stuff or worked harder. Instead they always say “they wish they had the simple things in life”

Today the tiny house movement is sweeping the nation. Those who want to be financially free from the burdens of a mortgage and the stress that is carried with it. Both Morrison and Patel drive this point of financial freedom. With a tiny home there is less financial need. Money can be one of the biggest worries that a homeowner will face in their day to day life. Morrison mentions that roughly 27 percent of a homeowner’s income will go towards housing costs. That comes close to two days of a work week that will go to paying for housing. This is not only a burden to carry, but can add stress to a household. Thus the tiny house is a financially viable option. The Morrison’s built their home for $30,000. Which is less than a typical down payment of most typical homes. Since the economy has been struggling the past several years these homes are a logical solution someone who wants financial freedom. Debt is almost nonexistent with a tiny house. Not to mention the emotional stress that can be eliminated by not carrying housing debt. This means that someone doesn’t need to spend $200,000 on a home or take out a 30 year mortgage to pay for that home. With a lower financial investment, one can still have what they need and truly have what they want out of life. This is what Morrison was trying to convey to his audience about financial freedom.

Since the 1970s house sizes have increased while the household sizes have decreased (Morrison). This is the lifestyle that the nation is becoming accustom too. Morrison drives the point that the square footage per person is increasing to unneeded amounts. With any home whether it be tiny or typical, the larger the size the more it will cost. More money spent on housing cost can lead to more debt and stress to a family and relationships. Since the extra size adds more square footage it allows more spatial separation (Morrison). This is damaging to the inner workings of relationships by creating disconnects. In typical homes everyone has their own private space that is cut off from the unit creating a disconnection. If a confrontation or altercation happens a child can be sent to their room, thus separated from the family unit. This puts added relationship stress and prevents possible repair of the situation. When you take away the unneeded sized of the home and the extra square footage, the altercation is not eliminated nor the punishment. However the means for spatial separation is eliminated. The parent and child can talk through the problem and learn and grow. Morrison uses this from his own experience with his daughter. They were able to work out their issue and keep their relationship bond strong.

As with any tiny home, space is a concern, downsizing is a necessity. For many it’s the freedom to take home wherever you go. Patel writes about Jay Austin who made the practical move to downsize to a tiny house. When designing a tiny house there is a level of logic that must be maintained as Austin says “There is a trend in tiny-house design in which everything becomes miniaturized. I was more interested in a space that was small but not scaled down” (Patel). The homeowner has the freedom to choose their layout and scheme to bring their vision to life. The point can be seen that all the luxuries are not lost when joining the tiny house movement. In fact you may gain more with the downsizing and financial freedom you gain to upgrade more luxuries on a smaller scale.

Downsizing is organization and elimination of the unused and unneeded. Morrison speaks of digitizing all of their files. Their home does not have a filing cabinet. Digital files eliminate the need of storage space and can open the space up for a useful need. Scanning of receipts, files and photographs can all be stored on hard disc drives that only take up a fraction of the space that a file cabinet would. Elimination of the unneeded is a key aspect of joining the tiny house movement. Losing the square footage means losing the storage space to store items that rarely gets used. This can be a hard aspect to adjust to, parting with things that may have sentimental value but it’s the only way to truly adjust. Morrison has a system which he calls the 365 day rule which is “if you haven’t used something in 365 days, get rid of it.” Too often do Americans hang on to things that they don’t need that never gets used and just takes up space. What value does this add? He is saying that the nation is too materialistic. They are losing track of what is important in life. Too much of unneeded items adds stress, because it takes up space, because it’s tricking the mind into thinking we need more space because of all the stuff we have. Too much space is not a good thing because it will always get filled with something, many times unneeded junk. This is why organization is a key aspect in the design application of tiny houses and the lifestyle adjustment that must take place.

Eliminating the unneeded, downsizing, and finding the inner happiness is what are at the core of tiny house movement. Items that have not been used in over a year are doing nothing but taking up space and adding no value to the life of the home owner. Redesigning the way one lives their life from a standard scale to a smaller scale does not have to be unattainable task. Using logical steps in planning what the needs and wants are opens up a world of possibilities to be reached. Without the financial burdens of what a typical home owner would face, the tiny house owner has the freedom from financial worry and stress. They can spend their life building relationships, and living their life on their terms by their means.

Works Cited

"Tiny House Movement Andrew Morrison TEDxColoradoSprings." YouTube, uploaded by TEDxTalks, 1 December 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYhtKE-oEEM

Patel, Nina. "Tiny House, Big Benefits: Freedom from a Mortgage and Worries — and Stuff." The Washington Post June 2015.