Ha Ha Shades
"One of the biggest problems people encounter after downsizing is also one of the most obvious: It can be crowded. "You're used to all this space, and suddenly, it feels like you're living in a milk carton because you kept too much,"
Guess I have ALWAYS lived in a "milk carton". Actually people who are not rich have always lived in small spaces, most older buildings have small rooms. Those spacious old apartments and houses were not the norm. As long as you have heat, good food and nice clean sheets on a bed you can be quite happy. My MIL raised 10 children(the 11th child died young)in a small 3 bedroom house. Next time I go home I'm going to photograph it for you. People on the kitchens forum would be absolutely shocked at the kitchen. I would love to rip it out and put in some more counter top. I can't do it because my BIL lives there and once he inherits it any renovation would be wasted on him(he can't cook) It is so difficult for me to cook there. I tend to just buy fish or a steak that I can cook on the Stanley (turf)Range. I love the range and the smell of turf. I look forward to the smell of it when we stop at a village from the airport to call(on a pay phone) Mum to tell her we are on our way.

Heat, food and clean sheets. Sounds great. I have it in my small house and I'd consider myself content if not always happy. We raised 2 great kids in our little shoebox.

I loved the clean sheets part. I was lucky enough to get our sheets dried on the line the other day. IN DECEMBER!! Can we say Freeze dried?? So enjoyed the sweet smell.

I think some people get used to the space they are given large or small. Then some have the large mind set and nothing will change it. To some here our 1375 would seem huge. I could do with less but not as comfortably because of my studio within the house. A 10 by 13 room.

jannie-correction as that article states you live in a milk carton not shoe box.
Shades--of course we allow your "studio" look at all the beautiful tile mosaics you make. Why we could no more take that studio from you as I could never want a smaller kitchen than 10x12'(big for an apt.). I would love a butler's pantry someday(with an old marble counter). My bedroom is approx 8x9' so there's my traditional size bedroom. I must climb over 2 people to get out of bed. AND one of them nips if you get too close or try to move them. Not sure which one is doing that...

>2012 Holiday Rambler Ambassador for $230,000 is. Supposing a motor home.

Yes, it's a very large RV.

LOL EatRealFood!

I had to tell you all about my friend. She is on disability income and she has had a very difficult life at times. She has been substance-free for a year now, and this is such a thrill for her that she is loving life. She lives in one of those apartments that is a half-story underground - halfway basement. I figure that dirt is the best insulation. She is stretching her budget to live alone in a one-bedroom apartment, so has decided she will not use heat or air conditioning. This is in Michigan. We had a mild winter last year, but it was still winter. She NEVER turned on her heat. This fall, she had them remove her meter because she is sick of paying $10.50 a month when she does not use the gas.

So she is happy with the cold apartment, food, and clean sheets!

Wow Nancy, I can't imagine living without any heat at all, even in our mild climate.

I must admit that whenever I have not had heat over the winter I feel like I will most definitely commit a homicide. As soon as the heat came on in late October(2 weeks after the "date") my mood changed instantly. I felt so much better and did not dread taking a shower or washing my hair.
Going without heat is not good, I hope your friend doesn't get sick.

Well, there are people who live without heat by choice. Me, I live in FL so mostly it's not a choice I have to make:

Here is a link that might be useful: NYT on living without heat

writersblock---I can't even comment on that article as I am drinking a cold beer in a (thankfully)warm apt. and I am very content at this moment. But comment I will as reading it raised my anxiety level LOL

Thank you, Writersblock, for that article. My friend's plumbing is all on inside walls that back up to her neighbors' apartments, so she does not have trouble with her pipes freezing. She says that getting out of the shower is the only hard part, and that this is still not too hard. I have given her a space heater for her bathroom, but she is not using it.

I am printing out the article for my friend to read. She believes that you can get used to not having heat and will enjoy reading someone else saying the same thing.

YIKES NO Heat. Brings to mind the time we were having a really cold snap at 30 below zero with the highs of 10 below for about 5 days straight. I stayed home from work (I was working at a real estate office and no one was looking for a house in this temp) to try to keep the house as warm as I could feeding the fire non stop. And feeding the horses and mules hay and grain every couple hours to try to help them through it.Thankfully it was the 800 SQ FT house. Not so thankful is it was a drafty old log house. I was able to keep it about 55 degrees inside and we did not loose our plumbing. I was exhausted when it finally started to warm up.

writersblock thanks on the Holiday Rambler information. I just can not imagine spending that kind of money for a motor home.

Are small home dwellers more frugal with their finances? DH and I were talking today about the economy and how it would be hard for us if we still had payments of any kind other then monthly expenses.Is it easier for us to live in smaller homes because in our lifestyles it just takes less to make us happy? Still pondering...............

...how it would be hard for us if we still had payments of any kind other then monthly expenses.

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you are so right shades. I pay off the credit card in full every month. It's not that I'm always shopping but I need it when I shop over the phone.

I use my credit card quite a bit for larger items and on line and do pay it off every month. I get points back so every once in awhile some thing I buy is bought with the points. That works for me. I NEVER use my card unless I already have the money in my checking account to pay it off in full.

Going to rack up some big points when I use my card to buy the vinyl flooring. Woo Hoo. Excited about that one. Found the perfect flooring and want to be sure it is still available to us come spring. So the store said they will come out and measure and order in what we need and store it down there and when the weather warms enough we will get the job done. This will give me a few months to sort through and see if I can clear some more crap out of here. It is going to be hard to move all out of our master bedroom and sewing room/guest room and two closets.One a walk in. And still be able to keep a path clear to be able to get to these rooms with the big rolls of vinyl.

Time to get going on my day.

Chris

Just had time to finally read the link. A lot of it makes sense, but then there was this:
In 2011, Jim and Donna Hayes sold, for $400,000, a 2,300-square-foot home with a pool and basketball court they had built in Cherry Valley, Calif. With Jim turning 80, they figured it was also time to unload their motorcycles, jet skis, four-wheelers and recreational vehicle.

"We decided we were through with them," says Ms. Hayes, 72.

But shortly after moving to an age-restricted community three miles away, the couple started to re-create aspects of their old life. They spent about $50,000 to install plantation shutters, tile floors, an entertainment system and new appliances in the two-bedroom home that had cost them $245,000.

They also bought a 2012 Holiday Rambler Ambassador for $230,000 and paid more than $50,000 for a storage facility. "You have to keep moving," says Ms. Hayes. "You can't just sit around the house."

The Hayeses say they have no regrets, since the move has freed them from the responsibility of maintaining a large property. James Beman, the couple's grandson and financial adviser, says the spending hasn't put his grandparents at risk financially.

"But with interest rates being so low, they are definitely eating into their assets," he adds. "Downsizing isn't always going to save money. In the end, it doesn't always make financial sense."

In the end, it wasn't downsizing that didn't make financial sense for that couple, it was overspending.

Marti I guess this is what was making me go Hummmmmmm none of that you copied here made sense to me at all. What is the point to downsize if you are just going to go and buy this stuff all over again. And WHAT is an 0 year old man doing driving a great big motor home?

Yes my husband has some boy toys and still enjoys using them but we live in a 150K home on half an acre with nice detached garage. Nothing fancy at all. I would rather have had a smaller yard. but it is what it is and to get what we wanted we needed to buy this much land. There was nothing else for sale at the time here. Now half the town is for sale. There are 6 houses for sale 5 in a row right next to us. Sad.

Nancy, I admire your friend.
Actually, when I bought MoccasinLanding back in 1987, it had a gas heater. I was working offshore on boats, and did not trust leaving gas on while I was gone sometimes for 6 months to work. So I never had it turned on.

I would come home for 21 days like in February, when it was cold. But, I closed off two bedrooms and the den, and used two of the oil-filled electric space heaters to keep myself comfortable for those 3 weeks.

In 1995, I finally realized I'd soon be retiring, and had the money saved to rip out that old gas heater, and instead had an electric heat pump and the whole-house duct work installed. In those days, it cost me $7,000 to do this. I ended up with a great a/c and had heat when I needed it, and no gas to worry about leaking while I was gone.

So I am in Alabama where it is a whole LOT warmer in winter than in Michigan. Your friend is a very determined lady, tell her she has admirers here.

I agree that there was a lot in that article that didn't make any sense. Why would you need a $230K RV more if you live in a less expensive house? I mean, where I used to live, in a ~75K townhouse, I had neighbors who were quite well to do who lived there to have enough money to be able to spend most of their time in their monster RVs on the road, which makes a lot more sense to me than the folks in that article do. (Although I must confess that RV life as most of them do it makes no sense to me at all.) But it makes more sense to me to decide that the RV is where you want to put your money than to spend it freely both at home and on the RV and then complain that downsizing doesn't save money.

Nancy, I'm glad you think your friend would find the article interesting. I believe there was a big discussion about unheated living on Apartment Therapy about the same time.

I think a person that lives in cold country like we can get here some times gets used to living in cooler house spaces. I think our house is about 65 to 68 degrees in the winter. For many that would be so cold. I was just outside for half an hour in a long sleeved shirt and no jacket and it was 31 degrees. I finally started to feel a little bit cold. The house felt almost overly warm when I came in. I do not think I could go with no heat. I am sure the plumbing would freeze up. I want to be comfortable.

Shades, you make a good point there about pipes plumbing freezing.

I suppose in a multi dwelling situation, the pipes are protected for the unheated one by the surrounding structure.

When I left MoccasinLanding with no heat, it was not in a harsh cold climate, so I suppose having the pipes protected by the shielded crawl space and in the slab if that is where they were. Most of the plumbing was at the back of the house, concentrated in one area that was not part of the slab. But, we don't have foundations deeper than one foot for a one story house, because we have no ground freeze.

I want to be comfortable too. Generally, my issues are in the summer, and I go outside to get hot and when I come in, the 80 degrees (a/c set HIGH) seems COOL. Right now, I have the house set for 74 degrees, although I admit it is for the parrots. I might could lower it to 72 but I always worry about their health. Avian vets are very expensive.

even totally under ground level in MI and I'd be freezing! The extreme either way is hard on me these days. I didn't have a heating system in my old place, I just used a space heater in my bdrm at night. It can get very cold here at night in the winter (25-30 and that's above ground in a 'tin box' with no insulation). I remember last winter wearing sweats to bed with my jacket on and gloves - lol! That was because I was afraid to run the space heater with my old girl in there - I had the floor next to the bed covered with padding and a comforter in case she tried to get down by herself at night. She was to the point that she no longer did tho. I didn't want to chance her being hurt. In past yrs I sat my little space heater on a 12 x 12 tile I had so it wasn't directly on the carpet.
In the new place I'm thinking I don't WANT to heat the whole place at night just to heat my bdrm. So I'm using the space heater again. My moveable FP is also a heater but I haven't brought it over here yet.

The people in the article sound like they wanted less upkeep and a place in a guarded community so they could travel without worrying about it. Any large house with property they had there was most likely sold for millions. You can hardly get a basic builder grade 3 bdrm ranch there for under 500,000.00. closer to 1M even for that I think.

I agree, Steph, the people in the article were way out of our league. I cannot relate to spending more on a motor home than we did on our house. They seem very impulsive, too.

ML, taking on parenthood of parrots (parront-hood?) is a huge responsibility. Of course you must meet their needs for heat. From things you have written before, I know that you take your responsibility for your feathered dinosaur descendents very seriously. I am fascinated the more I learn about them. Do you think that they have intelligence that exceeds the rest of the animals? Are they smarter than your dogs? Dogs are good with social cues, food, and territorial knowledge. Are there areas of intelligence that you see your parrots having expertise in?

Chris, about the credit card points - DH saves them up, too. He calls them his "book fund." Last week he was generous and shared his points with me and we went on Amazon and spent them for reading material. With a new roof going in as soon as the weather cooperates, that is Christmas Gifting for us this year. He is off for the next week and a half, so I expect we will enjoy a few meals out together, as well.