Embracing a smaller home.

So I am going to be completely frank with you - we originally bought a smaller home (around 120sqm including a double garage) out of necessity and it was definately not by choice. I had always dreamed of living in a large house with a walk in wardrobe, 4-5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a large yard (pool and spa would be great too please).

However reality set in when we were looking for our first home and we did the numbers on what we could actually afford. The mortgage repayments on a bigger home that we initially fell in love with would have been quite a stretch for us at the time (even though on paper the bank was willing to lend the money to us). We worked out that if we bought the larger space (around 200sqm) - we wouldn’t be able to afford to furnish it until our incomes grew, which at the time was not something that we wanted to bank on.

Not going to lie - our initial plans were to upgrade and upsize our home once we could ‘afford’ to (within about 5 years of purchase). That’s what everyone else did right? Get on the ladder and keep climbing! However, we have officially been here for over 8 years now and have no plans to sell up anytime soon. Truth is, although we live in a world where we are usually told that bigger is better (average size of the American home has nearly tripled in size over the past 50 years according to NPR), and Canstar shows that in NZ, 78% of those surveyed own homes with 3+ bedrooms, here is a round up of why we have learned to enjoy and embrace our smaller home.

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Less Cleaning

Our dog sheds alot of hair for such a tiny creature (google says Frenchies are considered ‘low-shedding’ - it is a lie!!!). So we actually end up vacuuming at least once (and sometimes twice a day). In general less house means less cleaning for us which means more time to enjoy life!

Less stuff

Just like Parkinson’s Law where work expends to fill the time available, I believe that your stuff expands to fill your house. Even though I am a big fan of Marie Kondo and like to think of myself as quite an intentional purchaser, our things have expanded to fill our house. When we first moved in from our 40sqm apartment we had 2 rooms that were completely empty. Now all the rooms, including all our storage spaces are filled (not to the brim thanks to my regular declutter sessions).

We use all our spaces

A research tem affiliatd with UCLA studied American families and where they spend most of their time while inside their homes. The results showed that most people spent majority of their time in the kitchen and family/TV room whilst the rest of the house (such as dining room and formal living and spare rooms) were barely used. This means that most space in a large home is wasted by the average family and they are literally paying to store furniture that they bought but didn’t need. Since our home is just the right size for us (3 bed, 1 bath), we use all the rooms in our home everyday.

We can buy less but better

Furnishing just 3 rooms is cheaper than furnishing 4-5 rooms and we don’t have any extra lounges or dining areas to furnish either. Our rooms and living space are all smaller in general so we need less furniture to ‘fill’ the space which means we can buy better quality items. We also found during renovations of our kitchen and bathroom that we were able to choose nicer quality items given that our spaces were smaller.

Save on running and maintenance costs

In general it costs less to run a smaller home (electricity, water, maintenance, insurance, rates).

Financial Freedom and flexibility

Obviously a smaller home means a smaller mortgage and we were able to pay off our mortgage early in 7 years. I am lucky enough now to have my income be optional - meaning that at the age of 34 I had the choice to stop working (even though I choose to continue part time employment right now) giving me more time and flexibility. To me this is priceless and worth more than a large home (what good is a fancy home if you are forced to go to a job that you are not passionate about everyday?). I worked out roughly that if we had purchased the larger home the extra mortgage alone would have taken us around at least 2 more years to pay off early, which also means 2 more years of us not investing much in retirement (as we directed most of our funds towards our mortgage during the early payoff period) which in turn would mean we would have less choice around retiring earlier as a couple.

Do you have or want a bigger house or love the idea of embracing a smaller home?

Photo by Kirill