Why We Decided to Build a Tiny House Part 1

A lot of you may be wondering why two relatively sane people would decide to move into a 200 sqft. tiny house on wheels. You know, sometimes I ask myself the same thing.

A large incentive for the tiny house movement revolves around environmental reasons; environmentally conscious individuals are looking for ways to reduce their footprint on the earth. Others are looking to simplify their lives and free themselves from useless possessions. I wish we could say those were our primary motivations and that we only had noble intentions, however, that isn't really the case. Don't get me wrong, both Aimee and I care deeply about the environment and we do want to live simply but those weren't the driving forces behind our decision to build a tiny house.

Our primary motivation was financial. For years, we had been dreaming of getting ourselves a nice piece of land and homesteading. We wanted a peaceful and quiet place to live and raise a family. We also wanted the ability to grow most of our own food so we could afford to eat the highest quality, untainted food. This meant we would need at least a few acres and the time to garden and raise a few livestock.

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Unfortunately, before coming to the decision to build the tiny house we found ourselves stuck. Real estate in Canada, as some of you may know, is insanely expensive, especially considering the relatively low population density and six months of winter. Real estate wasn't always overpriced but the loose economic and immigration policies the Canadian government has been engaging in for the past two decades have caused a relentless property bubble.

Aimee and I had been saving money and shopping for land for a few years with no luck when we had a particularly bad set back. A failed career change for myself and a couple of large unforeseen expenses nearly wiped out our entire savings. One night, we sat down and came to terms with the fact that what we were doing wasn't working. Land prices were still climbing while our savings were stagnating. We felt like we were trying to push a huge boulder up hill but if we stopped to rest it would slip from our grasp and roll back down the hill.

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Sure, Aimee and I could have afforded a modest house or half duplex in the city, complete with a big fat mortgage, but that wasn't the lifestyle we desired. We were both opposed to debt, especially excessive debt, but we also didn't want to compromise on the quality or size of our homestead land either. What made matters even more difficult was that we were looking for raw land which, in Canada, generally requires at least a 50% down payment. We had considered an acreage with a house but our price range and the debt we were willing to carry severely limited the size of land we would be able to buy.

When we looked at our finances there wasn't a lot of fat to trim; we were already living pretty frugally. Neither of us drove new vehicles, we didn't have any debt, and we didn't blow a ton of money on dining out or entertainment. Our biggest expenses were high quality organic food, rent and utilities.

We certainly weren't going to switch to low quality food just to save a couple bucks; we both agreed that health is more important than money. Sure, we could try to cut a few more coffees, the rare dinner and a movie or perhaps even our gym memberships but that would only save us few hundred a month at best. Meanwhile, the types of properties we were watching were going up by about $10k each year. That direction just simply wasn't going to work. We found ourselves frustrated. Our family income was on par with average and we weren't spending much outside of necessities. So why couldn't we make any forward progress?

One night, I had an epiphany, I thought if we could just get rid of our rent and utilities we could increase our savings by 3 to 4 times. Perhaps, in hindsight, this wasn't the greatest idea but here we were scrimping and saving and going nowhere fast. After a short discussion with Aimee and watching one particular YouTube video on tiny house living, we started to think we could live the tiny house lifestyle. At this point, we had nothing to lose.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for Part 2 where we discuss some of the advantages that convinced us to build our tiny house. As always comments are welcome and any support is much appreciated.