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to this forum. i'm very interested in simple living...and living in small spaces.
my situation is a bit unique, in that i'm divorced, and have my kids 1-2 times during the week, and every other weekend. much of the time i'm alone, but of course, i need to have space for my kids, aged 15 and 12.
currently i'm in a 2 bedroom apt. my daughter has a room and my son and i share a room.
i've possibly made a mistake by making a contract on a house (supposed to close in a little over a week). the house is not large by the standards of most...less than 1600 sq. feet.
but i'd really like to spend less on a house so i can pay off the mortgage sooner and not be burdened by the payments. or at least initially...i'd like to have LESS of a mortgage payment, so i am not spending most of my income on that.
i am fairly simplified right now, although probably not so to the devoutly minimalistic, but i'm working on it. do i need time to gradually move into that lifestyle? i mean, i know it's what i want...but sadly, i've let others kind of guide me into the "normal" house thing with mortgage, etc.
thanks for any tips, advice.
As a single mom of 4 teen boys (who are now all grown and left the nest).... the 5 of us lived in a 1300 sq ft home (3 bdrm) with a full usable basement.
WHY do you need a 1600 sq ft house with part-time kids?
You slightly misread that part of my post. "No extra phone service plans with texting or internet," . I do have the internet but not as an extra service on my cell phone. No internet plan, no texting plan, no nothing... I only used 16 minutes on my cell phone plan last month. I'm seriously considering switching back to a regular landline. Depends on which is cheaper these days.
I guess I should update my own situation again, since a few things have changed. I moved out here from TN in early August with my brother and cat. I ended up keeping my bed and all three bikes, but my brother and I managed to easily fit everything we own in Uhaul's smallest truck. It was difficult choosing an apartment from the other side of the country, and we decided on a particular complex due to its proximity to a grocery store and bus lines. The only unit they had available on our arrival date was a two bedroom, two bath apartment that is probably larger than the house we owned! But we took it and signed a six month lease, just to get settled here if nothing else.
Well a mere two months after getting here, my brother decides to move back home for various reasons. He left me enough money to pay for his half of the rent for the remainder of the lease, so that's no problem. It does feel ridiculous living in this large apartment all alone, though. Also, my poor elderly kitty passed away about a week ago, which has been rough on me. However, this is also kind of convenient for me, because now when my lease is up in January, I don't have to worry about finding a new place that allows pets. That was a big concern of mine, as it seems all of the small studio apartments here that are located conveniently don't allow pets. But now I don't have to worry about that.
So in a few months I'll be able to look for a much smaller place, finally. I'm selling some more stuff on ebay, and parting out that third bicycle I really don't need. Before I move again I'll probably get rid of my queen size bed and look for a twin. I've decided against a cot because I fear the material would sag over time and be bad for my back. I've also sort of steered away from a hammock for similar reasons. My back really needs to be nice and flat when I sleep. So, slowly but surely I'm still gradually simplifying my life, even if everything hasn't gone exactly as planned.
Sorry about your kitty, Lamplight. I know from experience that can be a hard loss.
We live simply in a tiny 2-story strawbale cottage that we built with hand tools,about 600 sq ft total. Having the upstairs space for our bed & storage really makes that small of space liveable for 2 of us. We have solar pump & house. We haul water & chop wood. Our bathtub is outside, made out of a chofu stove/ 150 gal rubbermaid stock tank. We have an outhouse. We have propane stove for cooking & a double sink with slop bucket underneath. We're in the mountains & have to go outside to get cell service. We live at the end of an unmaintained forest service road, which can be wild toad's ride.
It sounds pretty simple; yet here I am on WildBlue satellite internet with the fastest connection I've ever had LOL!
You guys are really inspiring me, but not as much as my mother did last week. We had to move her to another house she owns to keep a better eye on her and I went to clean out the old one and it looks to be a never-ending job, due to her hoarding habits for the last 20 years or so. This house is huge--sorry I'm a bad judge of sq. footage so just take my word for it that it's big, and it is chock full of big furniture and every drawer is full of stuff and I found thousands of hankies alone--all of these linens were stuffed into drawers but she never used any of them. There were hundreds of quilts. A huge mantel full of crystal. Big tubs full of fabrics b/c she likes to quilt, but there were enough sewing supplies for 50 fulltime quilters.
I've discovered a trick with her--sometimes she will give me something, esp if I let her know that the kids need it, and then I'll take it straight to the Goodwill. I got rid of all the cake mixes full of bugs that way--told her I needed them for the kids at school and then dumped them in a dumpster.
All of this has cured me of wanting a lot of stuff, or buying duplicates of things so that I can have a pair of scissors in every room and that sort of thing. I found 25 sets of tweezers, 30 pairs of scissors, bunches of seam rippers and thimbles, etc. It's so much easier to know where stuff is when you don't have a lot of other stuff in the way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by leftmyheartintennessee
STEPKA: I can empathize with your situation...
12 years ago I had the same thing happen with my folks.
My brother and I had to try and sort through 50 years of accumulation.
The majority of the things were ruined by weather,critters,and time.
Ended up renting one of those big dumpsters and just pitching things.
Found cardboard packing dish barrels full of dishes wrapped in newspapers from the 40's among other things.It was so sad to see all the things my mother had but never used,waiting for the right type home to live in...also
left a strong impression on me to never want to live like that or put my only child through something like that once I am gone.
Not sure how successful I have been thus far, just hope I'm not as bad as
my folks were.Only time will tell, and a possible move in the not too distant future will really tell.
Update: had the auction about 3 weeks ago and all that stuff is gone! Woo hoo! Now we can concentrate on mom and getting her the care she needs. Which brings me to another point--sometimes your stuff can get in the way of your relationships. We dealt with that for months while mom was in her other home--getting everything ready and all but we were afraid to not do it b/c the longer it sits, the more likely that someone would break in and trash the place and also we know that mom's dementia is getting worse but don't know how long the road will be or how much more attention she'll need later on. It's the closest I ever came to not procrastinating, lol.
How does the speed compare to Verizon Fios for example?
No satellite internet service is going to be as fast as cable or FiOS; but it is significantly faster than dial-up (unless there is a major weather disturbance), slightly faster than mobile modem and only slightly slower than most DSL.
Based on my experience, a heavy page with lots of large images or short video clip:
FiOS: nearly instantaneous
Cable: a couple seconds
DSL: half a minute
Satellite: a minute or two
Mobile modem: 3-5 minutes
Dial-up: several minutes
The bigger (400 to 800 sqft) Tumbleweed houses do seem interesting, they really open the road to a new art of living - not so the tiney ones, they have the size of garden sheds !!!!!!
No satellite internet service is going to be as fast as cable or FiOS; but it is significantly faster than dial-up (unless there is a major weather disturbance), slightly faster than mobile modem and only slightly slower than most DSL.
Based on my experience, a heavy page with lots of large images or short video clip:
FiOS: nearly instantaneous
Cable: a couple seconds
DSL: half a minute
Satellite: a minute or two
Mobile modem: 3-5 minutes
Dial-up: several minutes
We did make the switch to FiOS and you are right; it is nearly instantaneous
When I hear someone talk about simple living I think of H D Thoreau. In Walden he railed against the conveniences of 160 years ago! Recorded music, movies, electric; didn't even exist then. His home was only 150 sq ft.
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