I appreciate you! More pics and videos to come! Let me know what you think in the comments at the very bottom of this page, looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Thanks!
PS> Excited to get your own tiny house? Have you figured out what you’re going to do to bring in income while living in it? Watch this video here – it could help!
The perks and benefits of the Tiny House Lifestyle are clear: FREEDOM!
(not one freedom, but many FREEDOMS!)
So, how can one begin the Tiny House journey if they’re short on funds?
(Because obviously it costs money to purchase or build your own tiny house)
And while many expenses can be dramatically reduced or even eliminated, life still costs money – especially if you want to maximize the Tiny House Lifestyle and live a rich, full life…
So, how do you make money when you’re traveling around in your tiny house without a job?
Got the subfloor of my tiny house insulated with spray foam the other day!
Here’s a short video I made with Bob, the owner of the company, as they were spraying the foam (only took 90 minutes for them to do the whole 40 feet, ready for the OCB subflooring!).
I hope you enjoyed the additional information about in the video above about insulating a tiny house with spray foam insulation, whether open cell or closed cell insulation.
One other thing Bob forgot to mention was how environmentally friendly this stuff now is.
It costs him a little more to provide this superior product, but its important to him that this foam be non-toxic and it degrades with simple ultra-violet light (so make sure you cover your insulation from the sun or it will start to disappear on you!).
It’s really good stuff. More pics and info will be available on my gotinybefree blog here.
If you’d like to know more about the company or have any questions, let me know in the comments below or send me a message here on facebook, I’m happy to share more about it.I appreciate you.
– Hans Schoff
PS> If you’re looking for a way to finance your tiny house living and travels, check this out – click here.
However, I’m sending the trailer back to the trailer dealer so they can flash the whole underside of the trailer and paint it to keep the elements out from under my house as I drive and while stationary as well as give the spray foam something to spray to (subfloor OSB will be installed directly on top of the steel cross-members, maximizing my vertical interior height in my tiny house).
Try selling your stuff – “pairing down” as it’s termed in the tiny house space – and you too will experience the feelings of liberation and freedom like I’m feeling this morning…
As you may know from many of my posts on both my facebook profile and my facebook page, I’m going Tiny. You can read about why I’m embracing the Tiny House lifestyle in this previous blog post here, but the how is what’s beginning to take shape right now.
I currently live in a 4 bed, 2 bath house in Huntsville, AL. It’s a great house I bought 8 years ago and added a custom extension to with a large covered deck, hot tub, etc. Of course, a lot has happened over the last 8 years and for most of my adult life my aim has been freedom (and more specifically, helping others achieve freedom in their life).
I’ve set my life up in a way that allows me to travel a lot and see the sights, visit family, take courses and classes in other cities, set my own schedule and hours, etc.
However, I was still a slave to the bank.
Each month I still had to make a mortgage payment, and pay my required insurance premium, and real estate taxes, and utilities… even if I was somewhere else across the country skiing in the awesome Colorado powder, at the beautiful beaches on the gulf coast, or catching up with family in California I had still had make all those payments.
On top of that, when I really thought about it, I only used a few rooms in my house (office, bathroom, bedroom and kitchen) but still had to pay for the rest of the house that was essentially just for storage or guests whenever they came to visit…
So fast forward to this week. Here’s a before and after of my master bedroom in my house:
All I have left is my bed and tv which I’m taking with me in my Tiny House. Everything else has gone.
And it feels great!! I highly recommend it!!
I’ll be honest the process of selling and disposing of my stuff at first seemed like it would be hard to do.
After all I’ve had a lot of this stuff for 8 years – some things over 16 years from when I moved out of my parents house!
There’s a lot of attachment to these things but knowing that my tiny house is going to have all the furniture built in and custom created, there’s just no space or need for any of these attachments (couches, side tables, lamps, dining table, armoire, dressers, etc). And that made it much easier to let go of a lot of this stuff because it just wouldn’t fit with the vision I had with my tiny house.
And now that the stuff is gone, I feel so much lighter, free-er, liberated!
Amazing how simply getting rid of stuff and creating space can make you feel so good!
It puts me one step closer to living the ultimate freedom lifestyle in a Tiny House, a house that is super efficient, bright, smart (utilizing all the latest tech) and mobile so I can take my office, my house and my life with me wherever I go (thanks to my internet marketing business). Now when I travel I can still always be at home.
Does it get any better than that?
Oh! Yes, it does. My black lab Claude can also now come with me wherever I go, instead of having to stay behind with a friend for most of my travels which is how’s it been up till now. Very excited.
So stay tuned for further updates. I’ll be sharing pictures of the trailer my tiny house will be built on and the other steps in the process of going Tiny as I continue to pair down stuff from my house and being building my 2 bed, 2 bath tiny house. Talk to you then!
I appreciate you!
– Hans Schoff
(That’s me last week hiking up Horsetail Falls there in the distance near Lake Tahoe, CA)
We like our certainty, to stay within our comfort zones and to live the way we’ve always known how to live. But what if you could have more? What if you could live better? Would it be worth getting out of your comfort zone, changing your ways?
Don’t answer that… yet.
Just suspend your disbelief for a moment and consider the following ideas as ideas for someone else you may know who’s open-minded, adventurous, free-spirited, not willing to settle, tired of not having all they want, or some other way of being along those lines if you’re not… yet.
Let’s first start with some facts and definitions:
The average American house is probably around 2300 square feet.
The average Tiny House is probably between 150 and 400 square feet.
Where I live (in Huntsville, AL) you can get a brand new home for as low as $55/sf on the low-end or as much as $200/sf on the higher end. Alabama is much more inexpensive than most areas of the country, so for comparison sake, these numbers are probably even lower than most people would experience, but I want to make a fair comparison.
So, at $55/sf you’re looking at a 2300 sf home at $126,500 and at $200/sf $460,000 (though houses at that price per sf are usually much larger as well, so probably closer to $700,000 or more).
Now compare that to a Tiny House, which overall would be much cheaper – even fully-loaded with the latest technology, most efficient appliances, windows, insulation, etc and really cool designs and one-of-a-kind features.
A prime example is a Tumbleweed Tiny House company, one of the more popular, bigger and more established Tiny House Builders/Manufacturers, who will build for you a 160sf (24-foot long) Tiny House on Wheels (THOW) from scratch, which you can get with lots of options for 70,000 to $80,000 (that size starts at $66,000).
So if you calculate the cost per square foot of a Tumbleweed Tiny Home , even just using the base model of the 24-foot THOW we discussed above, we get $412.50 per square foot (keep in mind there are many Tiny House builders and manufacturers out there, with prices for a custom-built tiny house ranging from around $30,000 to $70,000 or more, and sizes as small as you can imagine to upwards of usually 400sf, if on wheels).
Quality vs Quantity
So what you end up with is a much higher quality, more functional, custom-designed luxury home for substantially less money than even the cheapest 2300 sf traditional house. You pay much more per square foot for a much higher quality house, making every space you’re paying for count versus spending almost twice as much for the cheapest of the cheap quality traditional homes.
So I’ll leave you with this thought:
How does it feel to be paying so much more each month in housing costs for so much less?
When it comes to square footage and heated and cooled space, more is sometimes less…
—
What do you think? Did I piss you off? I bet I ruffled some feathers with this post! Share below, I’d love to hear what you think. I appreciate you!
– Hans Schoff
(Above, my view today of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains while blogging here in Denver, CO)
PS> Have you seen our facebook page for the New American Dream Project? We’re using Tiny Houses to help people create Freedom in their lives, in numerous ways. Come visit our page and say hi! And don’t forget to LIKE the page so you can stay in the loop and watch the project progress – it’s exciting!
Honestly, is Freedom the first thought you have when you think of a Tiny House?
For most people it probably is not – but it should be!
In fact, you’re probably thinking right now that going to a Tiny House means you’d have to give up some or all of what you have or want, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m going to share with you several of the many freedoms that open up to you, new freedoms you can enjoy by living in a Tiny House and how Tiny House Living may in reality give you MORE of what you actually want, not less…
Tiny Houses – How Letting Go Creates Freedom
As Americans, we like stuff.
We like buying stuff in order to solve a problem or need (which we may or may not have had prior to watching the infomercial… lol). And there’s nothing inherently wrong with stuff (or liking to buy things…).
However, are all those wonderful things you’ve bought because you had to have them actually solving your problem, making your life better, making you more than you were before?
I’m guilty of it.
I have books, courses, even clothes I’ve bought that I’ve never gone through, opened or worn. It was the simple act of buying that gave us the feel of satisfaction right? For a variety of reasons…
But the fact is – the truth is – a lot of the stuff we own doesn’t really do much for us…
“What have you done for me lately?” 😉
It just sits in our house under the bed, in the closet, on the shelf or some other out of the way place so that someday just in case we might need it, it will be there. Or you may even just hold on to them as trophies. And there are some people who actually cling to stuff or hoard because they are afraid of losing something.
First of all, you are enough just as you are and you don’t need any thing or possession to complete you or make you who you are. Again, there’s nothing wrong with having things, but they don’t determine who you are, no more than your job does, your house, your car or your hobbies.
You are you, and those are simply things you have or things you do. I’m getting a little off tangent here but I think this is a key point that many people overlook. They cling and hold onto stuff out of fear (of loss) or perhaps even to avoid something else in their life that they’re trying to cover up.
But when you “pair down” as they say and start to rid yourself of the clutter, you start freeing yourself, layer by layer. You begin to feel lighter, more raw, more free. It can be a scary feeling if you’ve been buried underneath all your stuff for years and years, but once you experience how great it feels, it can even become addictive and your life begins to shift and transform and you really start to LIVE!
You see, I’ve gone through this transformation initially when I went through my divorce. After carrying around all this stuff year after year, home after home – and all the emotional attachments I had added to it all – it got real heavy, figuratively and literally. And I’ll be honest, after 15 years there were emotions there that got triggered by the parting of some of the stuff.
But I got to the point where I realized none of that stuff mattered.
All my “stuff” is what was keeping me from really LIVING life. I was holding on to everything around me so tight because I thought it meant something about me, I thought it was part of my identity (subconsciously of course, I didn’t realize this until after I started letting it go).
Case in point, a few years ago just trading in my car for another, better vehicle was so hard – or so I had convinced myself. But then we traded in the car that I thought defined me in some way (even though I didn’t want it anymore) for the car that had the features we now wanted, and I pretty much completely forgot about the old car! Crazy, right?
I realized that I was holding onto stuff so tightly because I must have subconsciously believed that I wouldn’t have that thing again, or that I couldn’t have that thing again. Again, totally false! In fact, it opens up the space to have something even greater show up.
In terms of dollars and sense, I literally was paying money out each month to store, condition (heat and cool), pay taxes on, insure, clean and maintain the extra space, money that could have gone towards going out, traveling, throwing an awesome party, going skiing, or whatever else. Again, lots of stuff that sat on shelves, in closets, on bookcases, under beds, etc, etc.
I had spent so much time compiling all my stuff over the years and thinking it meant something about me until I got divorced and realized it was just stuff. Throwing stuff out, giving things away, selling furniture, emptying the house out was such an exhilarating and liberating feeling (and you don’t have to get divorced to do it; in fact, it might even help your marriage if you throw out all that baggage sooner than later!).
I don’t know all the psychology behind it all, but I know how it felt and the transformation its started for me in going Tiny. You start to realize what really is possible, what you really do need, what’s important in your life, and how often times a lot of the stuff we hold onto because of our concern for what other people think… (Do they pay your bills? The truth is, they care a lot less about you and your stuff than you may realize… I learned that too!)
So what does all this have to do with Freedom?
I’ve learned through my personal journey that what really traps us and prevents us from getting what we want in life is ourselves. We get in our own way, but then we want to blame all those around us or conditions or politicians – someone else must be responsible, it’s THEIR fault…
The truth is each of us has the power within us, if we so choose, to create the freedom(s) in our life that we desire, if we are so bold and inspired to do so. With that said, living in a Tiny House can be an awesome vehicle (literally) to help you LIVE that freedom lifestyle.
Without further ado, here are just a handful of the various freedoms that Tiny House Living can provide:
Location Freedom with a Tiny House
This is probably pretty common sense if you have a Tiny House on Wheels (THOW), as you up and move to another location whenever or if ever you should feel like it. The house is on wheels and you just hook up your Tiny House to your truck and off you go, be it for vacation, to visit family and friends, to go skiing for a month (yes!), to the beach for the summer, or to explore a new state or region of the country (or world!). All you need is a place to go (learn more about The New American Dream Project and the Tiny House Communities we are creating here).
Personal Freedom with a Tiny House
Each Tiny House is a unique, custom building. There are so many different options, so many different ways to go that you can be free to really express yourself as much or as little as you like. You’re not worried about making sure its got the right colors or landscaping or furntiure in it so that it will resell well, you’re focused on LIVING. So paint it whatever colors you like, decorate it how you want, add a living roof, drape plants over the side, throw a hot tub down in front, whatever. It’s your house and if its on wheels more than likely you have no building codes or restrictions to prevent you from creating just the perfect house, how you want it. That’s personal freedom!
Financial Freedom with a Tiny House
How would your life look if your expenses dropped $1,000 a month or several thousand dollars a month in some places, depending on where you live? Would that help you rearrange your finances to get you out of debt, build up an investment account, or maybe start up a business from your tiny house? Maybe you could retire now and stop working altogether and live off your retirement or investments now while you’re as healthy and young as you are before you’re at a point where you’re physically unable to enjoy a retirement?
With the technology available today, many people are able to telecommute and work from home using the internet, video chat and other technology that allows them to be productive from home. What better way to work and live than to be able to get paid while you travel around the country? (And if your job doesn’t have that flexibility built in, why not consider starting an internet-based business from home to give you the time freedom as well? Click here to learn more)
As you can see, living in a Tiny House is all about Freedom. But it has to start with the desire to be free. If you’re content living in your home or apartment with all your stuff, your finances are in order, you’re happy with your experience of life and have no desire to really live more, then a Tiny House may not be for you.
But on the other hand if your mind is going and you’re thinking of different possibilities and more of life that you’d like to experience and you’re ready to move forward and create the life you want, then living in a Tiny House may be just what you’re looking for.
As I was driving back from Colorado this last weekend during the big freeze that took place and coated everything in ice, I got a chance to visit my cousin in Southern Missouri who I hadn’t seen in a while (first time visiting since he moved there).
It was quite a journey – you can see a few photos below and more on facebook, but in doing some more Tiny House research I found a Tiny House for sale about 90 minutes south of where my cousin was, pretty much en route back to Huntsville.
So of course, I had to call up and make an appointment to see this Tiny House for sale.
So the next morning I drove through the 8 inches of snow that fell (luckily it had warmed up to 34 degrees so everything was melting or it would have taken a real long time!) to meet Ed and take a look at his Tiny House for sale (see below).
He had the tiny house parked facing a small creek in the trees – it was a cool spot showcasing the potential of Tiny House living in that tiny home.
The back story on the home is that it was part of a trade for a couple from Ohio who had built the tiny house and then moved down to Southern Missouri with it and traded it in part for some land.
Own a Tiny House for under $10,000?
Yes. And it’s ready to go. The unit is plumbed and wired for electricity and ready to live in. It has a propane hot water heater, propane oven and stove, small though neat shower and tub, composting toilet, 2 lofts (one big enough to sleep on a queen mattress), a couch, mini-fridge, ample counter top space all in around 150 sf (I can’t remember the exact length of the trailer).
Personally, I would customize it a little more and add my own finishing touches but it has everything you need to live (just need a water and electric supply of course).
You can find the Craigslist listing here and Ed’s website who’s listing it for sale is http://homesteadcrossinginc.com. He sells lots of land all over, so who knows, perhaps we can work together to create the next Tiny House Community there?
Want to learn more about the new Tiny House Community we’re creating? It’s called the New American Dream Project and you can learn more and get involved in the movement here: New American Dream Project.
Until next time,
– Hans Schoff
PS> Blogging is an activity you can easily do from within a Tiny House. Have you thought about how you can earn income while living in a tiny house? I’d encourage you to start creating an additional income stream now so that you can really live that freedom lifestyle and take advantage of the mobility a Tiny House can give you. Click here to learn more.
