Living small

Moving into a new home, it becomes a little ridiculous with all the "to-do's & to-buy's." The Mister & I somehow stumbled onto a documentary on Netflix about living in a "tiny house." I can't remember the name of the movie, but if you Google it, it sure is one to watch. Any who, it got the wheels in my brain churning, and one particular phrase really stuck with me, "we are living small."

Something about the idea of living clutter free, and having only the things we need sounds so dreamy. I am starting to realize that the more space I have, the more crap I have too.

The next few paragraphs are thoughts that I dug up, and will be using them throughout this process of making our new house our home -

On reality TV shows a lifestyle is conveyed that many of us will never live. It puts on display the lives of millionaires, and the "famous," living lavishly, and way outside of many of our means. The most popular people on Instagram are those with huge houses, and six to ten cars in their driveways.

Is this reality, or is it a notion shown to us that we believe we need to strive for? Leaving us over worked, living in debt, and still working to buy more, and almost always left wanting more stuff that we don't need.

What do we need? What do we want? Recently, and oddly before we even watched the documentary on living tiny, the Mister and I agreed that no matter how much money we may or may not have, living in a big home was never going to be our dream. We loved the idea of a small home, that caused us in turn to be closer to our family, and kids. An open common room where we could all gather, in a ranch or bungalow styled home. Where the kids were never too far from both each other and ourselves.

I hate clutter, and try to live as minimally as I can (constantly going through our stuff and donating it) so living tiny wouldn't be an issue. Living small would also concede with a motto I have for my life, "live clean. live simple." When we live simply we also live clean, and having a clean and organized home is extremely important to me.

With this move I have really worked to get rid of things, and release the shackles brought upon myself by having "too much." More clothes means more to put away, more to clean (doing laundry already seems never ending), more decor means more to dust, and more room means more to spend in filling. I can also see how we all too often outstretch our salaries. People buying bigger homes then they can afford because the big houses are "more ideal." I don't need the most square footage our budget can allow, and extra bedrooms to feel fulfilled, and I never want to have to work just to have "more things." That seems a little sad to me. I want just enough. Enough to have what I need, and enough to get what I can want within reason (meaning a skirt i had my eye on at target).

Living small has become something I want to incorporate in our family. It teaches us to moderate our lives, live within our means, to not spend more than we have, to not be slaves to material possessions, and to learn self control.

Operation living small starts now.
#tinyhouse
#livingwithpurpose

^^ imagine ft. above is from Pinterest (& there is no link to its direct source),  but I think is so dreamy i had to share it.