Check out Green Costumes for kids over at Inhabitat

I then stumbled across this video and really liked the message so enjoy.

Freedom from stuff, freedom from excess space, freedom of time, freedom from cleaning.  All of these things take time, energy, money, and resources, going smaller means these demands are reduced drastically.  You then have freedom to do what you want, what is important, what really matters in your life. 

Money

McMansions cost allot of money, I am sure you have noticed.  The average US house costs around $265,000.  But it doesn’t stop there!  In order for you to get into that big house, you have to get a mortgage, which by the time you pay for it; it will cost you two to three times that, so roughly $800,000.  Then add maintenance, insurance, furnishing such a large space, cleaning products, etc.

Then there is the risk that comes with a mortgage, even with buying a house that is conservative for your income, even if you save for 3-6 months of pay in case you get laid off (which 95% of Americans don’t budget for), you could still lose your home after paying it off for 28 out of the 30 years you have on it.  So factor the cost, plus risk, then consider the opportunity cost, you could be well in the hole close to 1.5 million dollars and then be left homeless.

Now consider that the average Tiny house, around $15,000 the best I can figure it.  Furnishing it is pretty cheap no matter how you spin it.  You can’t insure it and with it being so inexpensive you can buy another one flat out if it burns to the ground.  There is no mortgage and your risk is limited to it being stolen or being burned, things that exists anyways in a normal house.

For the opportunity cost, you no have basically $700,000 after you buy land to do whatever with. Lets say you take half of that money and put it in a ok Mutual fund for 10 years, at 10% you are looking at $900,000 back!  There’s your retirement fund from only half your money.

Breaking away from consumerism:

We as Americans, and others too, love stuff!  I am the first to admit, I am a consumer whore!  I love flash new gadgets, huge plasma TV’s but do we need it?  If you haven’t seen The Story of Stuff, you have to.  I have come to realize over the past year I need very little.  I have been donating tons of stuff, I literally go to Goodwill once a week.  My big weaknesses is computer stuff.  But I have been gradually reducing this number, volume and size of all these things to the essentials.  I will soon have a very modest amount, comparable to most Tiny House Bloggers.

Free Time

This is a big one for me.  I am not afraid of work, but I like to get in, get it done and don’t waste time.  I hate the dreaded 8 hour work day.  When you have to sit around because you have all your work done just because you have to be there till 5, it sucks.  I don’t waste time, because time shouldn’t be wasted, it should be used to its potential.  I have an inordinate amount of interests and I love pursuing them, more free time allow me to do just that.

Working Less:

How many times have we wanted to take a dream job, but it simply won’t work because it doesn’t pay enough.  Well what if you could?  You need to make enough to cover your bills, to support your life, to enjoy it.  Your bills are next to nothing, because you owe nothing, your needs are met.  Then you can take life easy.  Don’t get me wrong, you must have money for rainy days, medical catastrophes, and retirement, but doing this up front and front loading your investments pays huge.

But it is not only freedom from, it is also freedom for: freedom to have more discretionary income to use wisely or to save; freedom for economies of scale; freedom for more focused energy to harness one’s will and talents with less encumbrance.

Sometimes our possessions come in the way of our self-actualizing.

Just as sadly, have we reached a point where we have allowed our possessions and the size of our homes or dwellings or that of others to define who we are and determine our self-worth, let alone those of others?

Perhaps the tiny life will bring us more into contact with those who do not allow the amount or type or “size” of one’s possessions blind them to the inherent dignity and self-worth of everyone.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

-Greg

This is your brain, this is your brain when you have so much stuff to do that you literally can’t do it all.  That where saying NO comes into play.  Saying no is harder than you might thing, try it.  Someone asks you to join in on some committee for a volunteer organization, your church needs a Sunday school teacher or you are asked any number of things which add strain to your life.

It’s not that you don’t want to do these things, it’s not that you are lazy, it is the simple fact that there are 24 hours in a day and at a point you are booked solid and you didn’t leave any time for you.

You need to factor in time for you, again it’s not selfish, its not greedy or lazy.  It is taking time for you to take a break and unwind a bit.  You aren’t any good to anyone if you can’t focus, you are always tired or you are running late to everything.

But how to determine what to say yes to and what to say no to?

First Schedule 1 hour of time for yourself, odd huh?  You don’t let anyone know that you are free during that time, you don’t give it up and you take time to be alone for a little bit.  Once you are on YOUR time, you start to think about what you want in life, what are your goals?  See my post about this.  I do my best thinking in the shower, I can beat my head against a keyboard and then get into the shower and find instant clarity.

Now that you have determined your goals, you write down every commitment that you have and go through the list and ask yourself “does this get me closer to my goals?”  If the answer is no, put an “x” next to it.  There are those things like eat or sleep that are nonnegotiable.  Of the things that put “x’s” on go through and determine how much time roughly you spend doing that thing during the week.  The one that takes the most time take it and drop it!  That’s it Drop it.  Send an email saying that because of time constraints and responsibilities you have to your family etc. you need to stop doing whatever it is.  Remember that with big commitments, you might have to phase it out, but you can get there.

Many of you at this point are saying I can’t do that!  Its not possible!  No I WILL NOT!  Haha  Now if this is one of those things like eat, sleep, take care of your child, then no, of course.  But what would really happen if you said no (politely of course)?  If you went to those people at the meeting that you have built a relationship with and said to them, I need to step back because I need to focus on my family, my relationship, my education.  A true friend would see your good intention, listen to them and back you 100%.

Now I really encourage you to eliminate your most time consuming thing that doesn’t work towards your goals, but reality dictates that you have to eliminate the 2^nd or 3^rd instead.   The end result is that you have just freed time to work towards a goal and also time for yourself, so protect it by just saying no.

Knowing where you are going can be an immensely freeing thing.  While you should always leave room for some spontaneity and sometimes we just need to let life take us where it leads us.  There are times where a plan is good.  We all have dreams and it’s never a bad thing to do our best to get to them. The empowering thing about goals is that from them we can determine what actions we need to take to get to them.  We can change our behavior now to get to the goal later.  It doesn’t mean that we drop everything, it doesn’t mean these goals can’t change or be replaced, but we only have so much time on this earth and its good to make it count.

How do you figure out your very top level, most important things to you?

If you were at the end of your life looking back, what would you want to have achieved?

What would make you a better person?

Write them down with some space between them.  These should only be about 10 things or less, like fall in love, learn to fly or spend time with those I care about.  You get the idea.  You don’t need to have a full list or even a list at all, as long as you have given yourself some quality time to really consider these things.  We don’t have all the answers.  Baz Luhrman once said:

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Now that you have your list, in that extra space that you left, below each goal, write a simple action to start you on your way towards that goal.  Such as if you wanted to learn to fly, well the action would be to find the closest airport that offers lessons and call them.  Small right?  You can google it and call in less than 5 minutes and you are on your way!  Divide and conquer!

The answer is found in stewardship– the wise use of one’s time, energy, fiscal and other resources.

Are you wisely using the space in which you live?  Which room or rooms do you live in the most?  What happens to the others?  Are you bothered by all the space within your dwelling that is least occupied?

“Tiny” is the efficient use of space.  Admittedly, there is much less space to “expand” one’s life—one’s possessions and one’s decorative sense are two examples.  Where do we really live, though—in our dwellings or in our hearts and relationship space?

But “tiny” also means less money expended to maintain a larger space that has become for many of us an idol.  In 1963, my parents took on a 25-year mortgage on a new, two-story house with four bedrooms that cost $17,500.  That same home today can sell for close to $300,000.

How scales of economy have changed!  “Tiny” addresses the buying power of present dollars as much as it reflects  the desire not to buy into the myth that bigger is better.

Bigger is not necessarily better.  For most of us fascinated by tiny living, the exploration of all things tiny imparts hope.

-Greg

It’s important to be compassionate: many of us could not but help buy into the belief that as we grew up that we, too, could purchase the type of homes our parents did– homes just as “spacious” and stately– even if we were raised in a row home or semi-detached dwelling.

But for chiefly economic reasons– many of which readers of “The Tiny Life” are aware– the purchase (and sustaining) of long-term mortgages has become less likely, less possible, and fraught with more risk.

For the sake of example, let’s suppose you and I can purchase such a home.  My father worked for a corporation and was employed 33 consecutive years with that same employer before he retired.  In general, such job security today, let alone with a single employer, is not the norm nor the reality for the vast majority of us.

Therefore, taking on a 20-35 year mortgage brings with it the worries of what will happen if one or both incomes become imperiled.  What happens to our long-term investment if 23 years into our 25-year mortgage we lose either our jobs or our health?  What if savings and the help of family &/or friends is not enough to “save” our home?

I certainly do not blame anyone who has lost a house to foreclosure.  That is because my assumption is that they made the best decisions they could with the knowledge and resources they had at the time when they embarked with much excitement upon home ownership!

After all, the right to live implies not only the right to eat but also the right to adequate shelter/housing!

There is nothing wrong in embarking upon the dream to live with one’s spouse or partner (or even live alone) in a dwelling that one desires even if that is considered a “big” home.

Today, though, for various reasons, many of us consciously reflect upon if these decisions for ourselves, and only for ourselves, are the wise ones to make.  Certainly, we can invite others to consider stewardship and that is perhaps best done by our example. “Let your life be a sermon,” wrote Emerson.

There are forces or variables in our economy that we do not have control over.  If stewardship is the wise use of our energy, time, and other resources, then the tiny life movement is well worth reflecting upon.  For in the final analysis, the tiny life is freedom.

Greg

For some time now I have been aware of “The Slow Movement” which touts taking time to savor whatever you are doing.  The two main groups that have really jumped on board with this are travel and food.

The Slow Food movement and the Slow Travel Movement are all about taking the time to really enjoy, living in the moment and developing connections with others.  Slow food movement was obviously a response to Fast Food.  In the US 1/3 of Americans eat Fast Food every single day.  The main reason is because its convenient and easy.  For those of you who don’t know I am 25, and I can easily say that 90% of everyone my age that I know don’t know how to cook a simple meal.  A friend of mine who had been living for several years on their own, I had to teach how to boil pasta…. No…..I’m not even kidding.

We as adults need to take the time to learn to cook, because let’s face it folks, we gotta eat.  The Slow Food Movement is designed to facilitate this learning, to promote sitting down at the table with people we care about, share great food and great conversation.

The Slow Travel Movement is a call back to the time when people had to take long vacations via boat or train.  There was a time, when people would take a vacation for 6 months to two years!  While this was admittedly a luxury of the affluent, there is obviously some nostalgia to this idea.

So what about Slow Travel makes it so great?  I have been fortunate enough to spend allot of time abroad.  I have done it all from the blitzkrieg week long touristy, get driven on a bus tour; To settle down in one spot with no plan and just mingle with the locals.  The two both have their merits, but the quality of experiences, the orientation to the culture and living in the moment is unrivaled to the later.

Slow Travel really lets you get to know the place you’re traveling.  I once spent over a month in Europe backpacking around, but there was one experience that really stuck out to me.  It was a lady at customs in France, she asked me “how can you see Europe in one month! I spent 3 months in Spain and didn’t see it”  While the French do enjoy 5+ weeks of vacation a year, most of Europe does often spend longer time periods while on vacation than we do.  Does it mean that how we travel is bad, no defiantly not!  It is simply something to keep in mind for that time that you can make time.

Check out this great website about this topic: HERE