We sold our 4500 square foot house to build a small modest farmhouse. Follow along to see how we’re downsizing to live mortgage free!
If you’ve been following along on Instagram you know we sold what we thought was our forever dream home. We’re building a much smaller home in the country, back in the town where I grew up. Crazy how everything comes full circle, right?!
It’s funny when someone hears you downsized your house they immediately feel bad for you. Like you must have financial problems that forced you to sell your beautiful home and live lesser in a smaller house. The truth is we weren’t forced into anything. We could have easily kept going through life the way we were, but we both felt a tug to try something different.
Our dreams have definitely changed over the last few years and we’ve realized the big dream house in the suburbs comes with big everything… big bills, big time commitments to cleaning and maintenance, and a big need to always be working and keeping up with the Jones. We decided that our priorities were different now and we were both ready for a change. Trade in the big house and the traditional American dream for time and financial freedom.
We decided to take a big risk. Sell our house. Leave the security of what we know. Move to be close to family. Build a small modest house with the money we got from our current home. And the big one….be completely debt free.
Downsizing to save money
We’re downsizing to live mortgage free but a smaller house costs less money all around. Less taxes, less insurance, lower heating and cooling bills. The financial benefits are pretty straight forward. On top of the up front savings, a smaller house costs less to repair as your home ages and things need to be replaced.
Downsizing to save time
The other big saver with a smaller house is time. More bathrooms mean more toilets to clean. More square feet means more vacuuming and mopping. I love a clean house. I also don’t want to spend all my time cleaning and miss out on the fun of my kids being little. We spent a huge amount of time before the move downsizing. Selling and donating things we no longer need and moving towards a more minimalist lifestyle. We’ll continue to work towards minimalism as we build and move into our new smaller home.
On top of spending lots of time maintaining our big house, my husband and I both needed to work to pay for the bills and repairs. We got a glimpse of what life was like having all of us home together in 2020. It took us two years of different signs before we finally both agreed, we can always make more money later. We’ll never get the time back with out kids.
Debt Free
We already live a very frugal life. Since we got married we’ve both been super committed to open conversations about finances and working together to live debt free. We’ve accomplished this over the last 12 years by:
- Creating a budget and sticking to it
- Driving older cars we purchase with cash
- Paying off student loans as quickly as possible
- Minimizing frivolous purchases
- Learning how to do things ourselves rather then pay to have things done. Adam really shines here! When something is broke Arabella instantly says it’s okay Daddy fixes everything and it’s sooo true. We have saved so much money by fixing our own cars, appliances, plumbing, you name it. It’s amazing what you can learn to do with YouTube and research. Not only will you save money, but the sense of accomplishment you get from learning something new is unbeatable!
The only debt we’ve had for the past 8 years was our mortgage. I was always okay with this mostly because I didn’t see another way. We’re taught to go to college, get a job, buy a house, and maybe after 30 years you’ll be able to pay off your mortgage and retire. I even though of a mortgage as a smart debt since it was tax deductible.
Let me tell you, it’s super scary to break away from this path and try something totally different!
I don’t even remember when or how we came to the decision, but once we did it was full steam ahead towards this new goal. We decided to take advantage of the crazy housing market and sell our house while the market was at an all time high. We’ll take the profits we made from our existing home after paying off our mortgage and use that as the budget for our new build.
Simple Living
Choosing simple living in a modest home means more time freedom. Keeping our monthly expenses extremely low takes away the pressure to hustle trading all of our time for money. We can take time to build the house ourselves, grow our own food, homeschool our kids, and freelance working from home to spend more time as a family.
Since our goal it to keep the house small, simple and within budget we will be choosing modest materials and a lot of DIY to create a cozy charming home to raise our family while sticking to our budget.
Want to know more about our decision and downsizing to live mortgage free? Ask me anything.
Follow along as we build our home and begin our new adventure!