We’ve never been the sort of people who do things because everyone else is doing them or because it’s what’s expected of us. Our home ownership journey has been somewhat unconventional, starting out with building our first home – a four bedroom, two bathroom house, in our early twenties. Since then we’ve renovated two character homes, bought two rental properties and moved into one of them.
At a time when most people our age are moving out to bigger houses in the suburbs, we decided to do the complete opposite and sold our 1920’s bungalow in a semi-rural township, to move into our little ex-rental townhouse on a postage stamp sized section just a couple of blocks away from the city centre. To most people this might seem crazy, but it suits us for the stage of life we’re at now. Here are some of the benefits we’ve found from downsizing before we’re too old to enjoy it.
Freedom
The obvious reason – a small, ‘lock up and leave’ house opens up opportunities to travel which wouldn’t be so easy with a bigger house requiring constant maintenance. Whether it’s the odd weekend away or an extended trip, the peace of mind of not coming back to a pile of jobs that need to be done around the house is priceless.
Reclaim your weekends
Who wouldn’t want to spend less time on housework? I can whip round the entire house with the cordless Dyson in under 10 minutes, and while I’ll never love cleaning the bathroom – at least there’s only one of them to clean!
Buy less buy better
Living in a small space requires a bit of discipline to avoid filling it up with unnecessary clutter. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a self-confessed homewares addict, but I have become more conscious of what I buy since moving into our townhouse. The old William Morris quote “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” should be any small homeowner’s mantra!
It’s better for the planet (and your wallet)
This one’s a no brainer – as long as your small house is well insulated it’s going to use a lot less energy to heat and cool than a bigger home. Also, if you’re moving closer to work or amenities like we did, the savings on fuel and travel time can be significant. I went from an hour each way commute in heavy traffic, to a 5 minute bike ride or 10 minute walk to work every day and we hardly use our second car at all now.
More choice on your doorstep
It’s not always the case, but smaller high-density housing is usually located close to a wide range of amenities. We can easily walk or cycle to an almost endless array of cafes and restaurants and love being close to events and activities in the city centre.
Don’t be a burden on family
If you’ve ever helped pack up an elderly relative’s home when they need to downsize or move into care, you’ll know how much “stuff” a person can accumulate over a lifetime and what a big job it is to sort through everything. We’d only lived in our previous house for 10 years and thought we were pretty good at culling things we no longer used or wanted, but were amazed at the amount of stuff we had held onto for sentimental reasons or ‘just in case’. Before we moved we filled a large skip with junk, had two massive garage sales of things we didn’t want to keep, and donated anything left over to charity (and I’ll admit we’ve still got some stuff in boxes that has never been unpacked!) It was a massive job but also incredibly liberating, I can honestly say I don’t miss any of the stuff that we got rid of and hopefully we’ll be saving our family a big job sometime in the distant future.
