The Pros and Cons of Living in a Tiny House

Pros

1. Money we save

The biggest pro for us is the amount of money we save. I cannot buy anything I don't need because I have nowhere to put it.

I can't go shopping and buy new clothes all the time, and I can't buy cute furniture pieces I find online, and we can't go to Costco because we don't have anywhere to store that amount of groceries. We only buy what we need.

2. Smaller footprint

We have a smaller footprint or impact on our surrounding environment. We believe that if we can live this way, save money, and help the environment, it's just a win-win-win.

I don't want to discourage people from trying it. We have a low-waste lifestyle because I believe that zero waste is unachievable. By not being able to buy a lot of things, we don't produce much waste.

3. Low cost of living

This ties in with my third pro to living tiny: our low cost of living. Because we live in such a small house, we pay a pad rental to park our house, which is Canadian dollars. That includes all of our power and our water. 

We use propane for our cooking, our heat, and our hot water.

Our cost of living is a fourth of what most people pay for rent in British Columbia. It's just crazy what people pay to rent or to have a mortgage in British Columbia, so that is highly sustainable for us.

4. Home expenses

The next pro is the security of being a homeowner. Chad and I saved up our money for three years to put our five percent down for the first-time home buyers' mortgage plan.

We didn't do that because we went to the bank and were both self-employed, so we didn't qualify to be pre-approved for a mortgage even though we had our five percent first-time homebuyer's down payment.

That's when we looked at each other and realized that we wanted to be homeowners and did not want to be trapped renting forever. We took what we had saved for our mortgage payment and built our tiny house.

We are fortunate to own it entirely and don't have a mortgage. So being mortgage-free in comparison to paying rent is zero stress.

In British Columbia, it's about half a million dollars to buy a fixer-upper. There's nowhere that has affordable housing right now; so tiny I just think it is a great option. If you think you could look at your lifestyle and maybe downsize, I'm telling you it is worth it.

5. A simpler life

Our lower cost of living means we get to enjoy a simpler life because we're not a part of the rat race continuously working to afford to live. 

We have more time to sit back, enjoy our surroundings and time together, and find ways to bring peace and tranquility into our lives.

6. Easy to clean

I can clean this entire house from top to bottom in 30 minutes—everything from vacuuming to washing and cleaning. When we have children in this house or a child in this house, I'm sure it will be a madhouse, but it's quick to clean.

Cons

Let's go over the cons because, to be fair, we need to talk about both sides. I tried to think of as many as possible, but I came up with three.

1. Stairs to the sleeping loft

I've recently learned that the stairs to the sleeping loft have become tricky. It makes things a little bit harder getting up and down those stairs. It started with my broken foot as tricky, and now I'm pregnant, and it's still pretty tricky.

We're going to install a railing so that when I carry the baby up and down the stairs, I have something to hold on to.

2. Washing and drying clothes

This is an adjustment for me, but it is a sustainable adjustment, so even though it's a con, it's something that I believe is important for me to accept and make work.

We have a washer and dryer combo machine, so it's the two in one. It's a small machine that fits in here, but you can only dry half the load that you can wash. It's condensing, so it takes much longer for clothes to dry.

I take out a clothesline and hang a lot of stuff to dry, which is fine, but I can't fit my blankets in the machine, so I have to go to the laundromat.

It's not an efficient way to get a lot of laundry done, but it does work.

3. When you're stuck inside

The third con, which is a very real one I want to mention, especially

over the winter and on days of terrible weather in a row.

You feel like you are stuck inside and can't go outside; that can be challenging.

It's not so bad for Chad and me in the sense that we feel like one of us can be on one side of the house and the other. That part is fine, but if you're in here days and days in a row, like in the winter, I struggled with how small it felt.

Our pros still outweigh our cons, and we wouldn't change it for anything. We have loved living this tiny lifestyle for the last year. It has been amazing.

Pros and cons of living in a tiny house

I hope I've given you some insight into the pros and cons of living in a tiny house. We love it and don't regret our decision. Do you live a tiny lifestyle? Do you have any pros or cons you'd like to share? Comment below!