Category Archives: Small-House Living

Where Should You Go When You Downsize Your Life?

By Claire Posted in downsizing, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , , , ,

For some, downsizing their life is simply a matter of finding more affordable and smaller digs within commuting distance of their job. But if you don’t have a job or you’re about to lose yours, it’s possible you may need to find a new town to live in, possibly even a new state.

Yes, I’m aware of the increasing number of ex-pats out there (people who have left the U.S.), But I’m assuming most people, like me, want to stay in this country. They just need to know how to find a good place to live that doesn’t cost as much as where they live now.

I shared a great tool for discovering your perfect new town in Downsizing Your Life for Freedom, Flexibility and Financial Peace. Now I have two great links to share, which I’ll probably have my publisher add to my book, but that you can check out right now.

First off, here’s a wonderful document (PDF) that lists all the metropolitan areas of the U.S. in order of affordability. What a find! It starts with the most expensive areas. We moved from page 1 to page 5, making our lives so much more affordable in the process. Find your current town in the document and start looking further down to see where you might go to make your life easier, financially and otherwise.

Then, if you’re wondering where other people are moving, check out this interactive map, which shows who’s moving where and what the per-capita income is in every single county in the country. Be warned, though, you can waste a lot of time playing with this, it’s so interesting!

Finding the Motivation to Declutter

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , ,

Decluttering cannot be a one-time event. If you’re not careful, your stuff will quietly multiply when you’re not paying attention, and before long you’ll be back where you started. So you must be diligent about not acquiring new items without throwing out a few things in exchange so you can keep your decluttering equilibrium.

Of course, you also have to be careful that you remain motivated to live the decluttered life. Personally, I find that there’s a tipping point, when the closets are getting a little too crowded, or the cupboards are, and then I start thinking about setting aside time to weed out my possessions again.

Recently I experienced a motivation to declutter that I wasn’t expecting. I bought several bags of potting soil so I could re-pot some plants. I backed out the car so I could get to every spare pot, and brought in other pots that were left in the yard. I wanted to see every pot I had so I could pick the best ones for the task.

Wow, had I amassed a lot of pots over the past few years! Once I found them all and got them into one place, I saw that I had far more than I needed. So I chose the best to use, saved a few empty hanging pots in case mine break (I’ve found them to be fragile), and I threw the rest in the recycler.

Did that ever feel good! And the sight of the garden corner of the garage all clean and organized instead of being full of stacked plastic pots so inspired me that I am now motivated to start going through the house and finding things I no longer need or use so the house can go back to being as uncluttered as it was when we moved in.

You just never know where you’ll find the motivation to declutter again!

An Indispensable Decluttering Tool

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

Some people find decluttering to be easy, but I’m not one of them. For me, decluttering is a challenging process that requires me to be in a certain frame of mind. It also requires the use of my car.

Yes, my car. You see, once I make the decision to get rid of something I’m not using anymore, I need to put it where I can’t see it, and get it out of the house as soon as possible.

It doesn’t matter what the item is. Even though I’m not using it anymore (or maybe it’s a gift I never used at all), if I keep seeing it, I’ll start thinking that I might use it someday, or that one of my kids (all adults living on their own) might want it, and then I’ll want to keep the item. This is not a good thing.

So when I declutter (as I’m about to do shortly to my basement), I take whatever I’m not using anymore and I put it in a box. I keep doing this until the box is full, and then I put the box in the trunk of my car, which is usually parked in my garage. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

And at some point, I’ll either finish decluttering or I’ll fill the trunk, and then it will be time to drive over to the local Goodwill or another thrift store that lets me drive up and drop off donations straight from my car. Before I know it, my trunk is empty and I can be on my way.

Some people might think this sounds silly, but for me, removing the items once I make the decision to give them up is very important, because I know me, and I can’t be trusted not to change my mind. (But once the items are gone, I very seldom regret giving them up!)

 

Is Downsizing the American Dream a Bad Thing?

By Claire Posted in downsizing, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

An article posted at TheAtlantic.com laments the findings of interviews and surveys that show that an increasing number of Americans, particularly young Americans, are more concerned with hanging on to what they have than moving up in the world, and are also more interested in becoming debt-free.

Clearly this is a reflection of the stagnating economy that we’ve been dealing with for many years now. Young people in particular are overloaded with debt, especially student loan debt, which keeps them tethered to whatever job they might have and limits their ability to buy a car or house.

One thing missing from the article, however, is that many of these young people saw their parents overloaded with stuff, and the debt that comes from buying more stuff than you can afford. They grew up watching their parents buy houses with three-car garages when they only had two cars, just so there was more room to store their stuff. They watched them clean around all their stuff and lose spare rooms to all their stuff. And of course in extreme cases they saw them hoarding stuff.

The real theme I see in this article is that people want freedom. They want to be free of debt, and they don’t want to become loaded down with stuff they have to pay for, for years to come.

They also want affordable housing, but not necessarily impressive housing. Note the survey reference to owning a nice home. In recent years, “nice” meant “bigger and more impressive than your friends’ homes.” Given the survey and interview responses, perhaps “nice” can go back to meaning “affordable and comfortable.”

The sad tone of the article could use a little optimism. The fact is that downsizing your lifestyle can be freeing. Moving to a smaller place means you spend less time caring for your home and more time doing things you’d rather be doing. Moving to a more affordable place means improving your financial bottom line, and maybe even helping you become debt-free.

Yes, it can be painful to go through a downsizing of the American Dream. It sure hurt when my family was forced to go through it. But it only hurts for a little while because the freedom you gain is so worth it. Eleven years on from our involuntary downsizing, we are thriving, and enjoying debt-free life in a small, nice home.