Living tiny was never an option for J and I when we first started dating. Growing up, we had the same mentality as our parents did; get married, buy a house and have children. We always assumed that we’d settle down in a 3-4 bedroom house with a decent sized yard, but only because that’s what our parents did. We never thought we had any other options until friends of ours built their tiny house.

Before tiny house, we rented. We bounced between a 1 bedroom apartment to a 4 bedroom house we rented with my father-in-law to finally a 2 bedroom condo. That’s where we lived when we welcomed our daughter, along with the thousands of baby stuff that naturally accrues when anyone has a baby.

As a stay at home mom, money was tight. We never got to a point of not being able to pay bills on time, but we had reached the point where we were working just to pay them. There wasn’t any money left over for saving for a down payment on a house, much less date nights (what’s that?!?!?!) or fun day trips to the beach. That’s when we decided to do something about it and change our lifestyle.

Tiny living gives us the opportunity to save money, enough so we can eventually buy a solid foundation home, or if we want to continue to live tiny, the freedom to buy land and build a solid foundation home later on down the line. We can now take spontaneous trips to the snow or save enough money to send our daughter to college. Tiny living gives us the chance to live a much more fulfilling life and I can’t wait to pass that mentality on down to my children.