GOING TINY
by Bianca Metz
This small, seemingly insignificant statement changed our world forever. Together 12 years, married 6, 1 really old spaniel, 1 extremely cute toddler, a lot of houses and career choices later - we finally found our life long passion project. We find great importance in environmental stewardship, and in this, felt the pull to live a slower, more simple life, closer to nature. A lifestyle where we could spend time building a homestead and a greener future together. Our dream is to live a low impact lifestyle that we can be proud of, reduce our footprint, pave the way for a self reliant lifestyle and show our son and others this way of living is important and meaningful for the future of our planet.
At the beginning of our journey, my husband turned to me and said, “I think we should sell our condo and look for something else to live in, maybe a yurt, or tiny house.” To which I immediately responded with “um, absolutely, where do we start?!”
FAST FORWARD 3 YEARS...
and here we are! Living our dreams in a Tiny House on 6 acres of ecologically sensitive land, caring for chickens, bees, gardens and our greenhouse. My husband (Justin) working as an Outdoor Education Teacher at a land based Montessori school, and myself (Bianca), building a business in the Sustainable Living world as a Tiny House Living Specialist and Downsizing Expert. With downsizing, we were able to focus on our passions, our talents and both build careers we can be proud of.
You might be on a similar path. Maybe you are reading this because you are interested in living tiny, being closer to nature or even having more financial freedom. Your reasoning is what is important. I encourage you to reflect on what that looks like. Keeping those guiding principles in mind will allow this journey to not only be more fulfilling but also much easier for you.
The why is the most important aspect of this entire journey. Every approach in our adventure begs the question “why?” It was monumentally important for everyone in our family to slow down. We needed to free both our time and finances in order to be present with those that we love. Living in an affordable and self reliant manner also freed our finances, enabling us to buy whole local foods and build gardens to produce our own.
Let’s talk about financial lifestyle. We were sick of playing the scale game, where “bigger” and “more” equates to a successful life. It is this concept that often leads to higher bills, increased workload and higher consumption. Both your family and your bank account may suffer as a result. Finally, we just said no. We knew this was not how we wanted to live.
This was, and is, the why - we want time together, life is short, why waste it? We want a simple life we can be proud of, we want our son to see where his food comes from and we want to have time with our son. We want more than just a house, we want a home, a sustainable one we know inside and out. We want less clutter, more trees, less hustle, more community and you are reading this because you do, too. It is possible, so start where you are!
WHERE DID WE START
We searched the internet for resources on tiny house living, downsizing and how to get rid of items that did not have any use. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to live and work the land as Land Stewards. We live in an area where by-laws are moving in favour of Secondary Dwellings and due to this, after careful consideration, we chose our home.
In addition to this, we assessed our finances, created a firm budget and came to the realization that we needed help. Due to credit, our only solution was to sell our home and exit the housing market to fund our journey. For too long we had struggled living paycheck to paycheck which is a glooming reality for the majority of people. This is especially true for those looking to enter a housing market with virtually non-existent affordable housing.
