anyone else rightsizing?

Well, I feel I've already right-sized. My home is 1277 sq ft. While it and the yard are a bit too much for me to maintain now while I'm working fulltime, when I'm not working it's perfect.

I do need to sell some stuff on eBay. (Who doesn't?)

And I'll be passing on a lot of my teacher materials the closer I am to retirement. (That will free up a lot of space in the garage.) Right now I just don't know if I'll be back in a classroom teaching and may need them. (Not at my present location. Now if I had gotten the job I interviewed for I could be getting rid of that stuff now knowing I'd have a secure job until I retire. As is, the funding every year is a crapshoot. So I could be excessed and in a classroom next year.)

I am looking at retirement in 6 years. I am getting rid of stuff I haven't touched in years and have decided I don't need or never will do. Appliances like a deep fryer, coffee pot, toaster, etc. Barware. Glassware. etc. I have many costumes from church and school plays and musicals in the attic. I'll be donating some to school, selling some on eBay, donating some to charity. I'll probably get rid of some games, since no one comes to my house so I have no one to play with. No point in owning Monopoly, Parchessi or Trivial Pursuit. I'll also be getting rid of clothes that I will never fit into again. I live in hope, but I need to embrace reality. I'll never be a size 8 again.

At the same time I do have a "retirement" box in the attic full of needlepoint kits I'm saving to do when I retire. I like to needlepoint but I just don't have the time for it. One of the first projects I'll do, however, isn't a kit. I'll be working from scratch to needlepoint a new seat for my vanity chair. I did a chair seat from scratch already for another chair and it came out great so I'm looking forward to this.

After 20 years I've finally decided on the hardscape and landscape for my yard. I'll be putting in some espaliered fruit trees this spring along the garage. That's pretty much the last of it. The rest of the yard is planned out and planted. Now it's just a matter of weeding, weeding, weeding. I'll spend the rest of my life spraying and killing the bermuda grass the original owners planted. That's my retirement gardening. There will be pruning and I'll start doing vegetables and annuals in select small plots. The yard is on drip and timers (or it would die.)

I have a large chain grocery store a few blocks away and a small neighborhood grocery store around the corner. So I am within walking distance of food. I've already insulated the attic and have a programmable thermostat. I'll be insulating the floor before I retire. The last major upgrade I'll be doing is the on-demand water heater and I'll be doing that by Christmas this year.

My parents are 15 min. by freeway, my sister 30 min. The Prius will be fine for that.

I have my dog. And my PV system.

I think I'm sized just right for my retirement plans.

 

We already live in a rather smallish house (1453 sq ft), almost no yard at all.

I've just resigned my job, so we are moving into a simpler lifestyle, which will entail much more time than money (rather than the other way around).

It's part of reducing stress, reducing impact (less consumer disposables, less frivolous driving, less "things"), while increasing joy, quality time with each other, and encouraging reduce/reuse, use of the public library, taking walks, making tea instead of going to Starbucks, etc.

I like the term "right sizing"...

 

the concept of two of us living in a smaller apartment, if we could find one, is kinda excruciating.

DH is going through the contents of our storage unit so we can minimize there. though he still keeps things he knows he will never use so i don't really get the point. i just donated a bunch of clothing to gcf and one of my errands today will be to finally sell my old soccer equipment [sigh] because i know i can't run like that anymore.

since we move about once a year, we try to stay minimal or it becomes a real pain.

 

Downsized to a manufactured home community where somebody else does the yardwork :lol: Biggest problem is with all the "junk" you tend to accumulate over the years. Stress levels are way down and life is good! I highly recommend it but caution that pre planning is essential. Worked on this for over a year before doing it and although there have been a few minor glitches overall the planning has worked

 

I rightsized my hours by quitting work last Thanksgiving.

But if I downsized my New York City apartment, I'd be practically homeless. E.g., I just looked at a 2 bedroom, walk-up apartment in the East Village. Each of the bedrooms and the living room was shaped like a trapazoid and less than 65 square feet. It looked like the entire apartment totaled about 300 square feet max (yes, much smaller than your motor home). Asking rent: $3150 a month. Makes me want to call the Unabomber and ask about that cabin of his.

 

Wifey and I downsized from 4000+ to 2300 sq ft four eyars ago. Cut back on frivolous purchases. Have two of three sons out of the house, the third (and last) in about a year, and will probably downsize again to about 1500 sq ft. My home and property value has doubled in four years and still increasing because of new construction slump and I lucked out buying in what has become a rapidly growing area of the city. Will probably move to a more rural area we currently visit periodically. Lots of open acreage, rivers, and woodlands there. For the last year or so we have sold lots of crap on eBay, Had on occasional garage sale. We do lots of DIY upgrades and give the old stuff to Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill for a little tax break. Our mutual funds are growing very slow now because of the war and economy. Can’t wait to get Dems back in power soon so the average American’s investment returns improve.

 

I too like the term "Right Sizing". Several years back, I was rolling in more money than I needed. From an internet company (2fords network). I spent the money on the very best automated equipment. Purchased Macintosh servers, and set myself up for a good residual income in my retirement years. Still have trouble convincing people to sign up for our $14.95 service and NOT spend 25 bucks a month on AOL. I always tell people our internet service is just like AOL except for a few million less customers. But now, the machines do all the work. Programmed by paid employees who worked themselves out of a job as soon as they had their task finished. It is all automated now and we have never been hacked once since 1997. My wife and i bought a cabin in the woods, on the side of a mountain in Arkansas. Life is good and the leaves are changing and no more payments.... untill I buy that new Prius...... Gotta love it.... jf B) B) B)

 

Froley, glad to hear that things are going well with this. We are currently "right sized" I think to a large degree. We don't have a lot of "stuff" (well, we do, but it's mostly toys people have given to our 2 kids). 4 of us in a 1300 sqft house. We love the house but I think that we're gonna have to move. I need a dedicated office and a little more space would be nice too. The house is feeling cramped at times. The thing I love about the place is how small our energy bills are (it's tract housing so it's not like it's super efficient). We used 329 kWh last month and 12 therms of NG! We probably could use another 1000 sqft or so, but we'll defo look to keep things simple and avoid all of the clutter that people seem to accumulate for various reasons.

 

I think that what one does with the land surrounding their house is equally as important as the size of their abode. Couple the size of one's abode with intelligent use of rain water (loss of run off), reduced or eliminated use of pesticides/herbicides/chemical fertilizers, reduction of introduced species (yes, turf) and the planting of native species........then you're on to something.

As far as our house, we really don't "need" two additional bedrooms. When designing our next house, we'll also get away from our current ranch style house and use the smallest footprint possible for the house. Maybe something like a bi level. We're also considering the installation of a green roof to sort of make up for the land that we're destroying for the house.

 

Not sure we've ever had the experience of being wrong sized.

When we moved into our dilapidated 1869 farmhouse many years ago it was using roof water. I removed some of the older collector tanks & disconnected the gutters as I was hoping to serve the kids "unleaded" water (the roof flashings and nails are lead). I now run the property from a ground storage tank fed by a trickle pipe leading to a header tank to feed the low pressure water system. Hot water provided by a wetback attached to the coal range during the winter, electric during the summer. Some of you will be unhappy to hear that the coal range and three fireplaces provide a fair bit of our heat in winter. Sorry, we simply can't afford to do otherwise.

It is a very small house (esp. for 5 of us), not nearly enough room for everybody's trash & treasures. Fortunately we have a lot of sheds on the property. Now, our middle kid has moved out, the oldest has said he is going to soon, which will give the 3 of us remaining a little more elbow room.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boo @ Nov 4 2007, 05:27 PM) [snapback]534707[/snapback]</div>

That can't be right. My office cube is 72 sq. ft, you'd be hard pressed to get a twin bed in here, especially if it didn't have square sides.

I would like to right-size. We moved from a 1350 sq. ft. house to 2500 sq. ft, because we always had relatives staying with us and a growing family. Well, it turns out we stopped at one kid, and haven't had relatives stay long term very often since then. But it's a nice house, and we improved the windows and the furnace, so it's affordable, but I'd feel more comfortable, given the peak oil situation, in a smaller house with a smaller mortgage, in case there's job problems again.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Nov 8 2007, 03:35 PM) [snapback]536855[/snapback]</div>

LOL I kidded you not, and I wasn't exagerating!

For old tenement buildings of the Lower East Side, tiny, 65 square feet (more or less) bedrooms are common, and they're frequently odd shaped. A twin size bed is a little less than 21 square feet, so depending on the shape of the room, you can fit 1 - 3 twin beds in. Remember, we're not talking about luxury housing stock that deteriorated into poor people's housing. We're talking about buildings that started out brand new as poor people's housing.

BTW, tiny bedrooms are not limited to Lower East Side tenement buildings. I've seen them all over the world. Think of the older parts of London, Paris, Rome, Beijing or any old world city. When these cities first started, what kind of housing do you think the working class lived in?

 

One of our bedrooms is 6ft x 8ft, and contains a fireplace!

 

I've downsized my entire life!

Being completely honest it is mostly due to economic factors with my trying to go through school again and doing internships/community works. That only leaves two days a week for a job and as such I have very little money.

I sold my 2500 sq.ft home (it was 5yrs old) and plan to never build (or retrofit) any future home that is larger than 1200 sq. ft. or so. I just don't need all that junk anymore and smaller homes just feel much more cozy.

So while I cannot claim to have right-sized my home. I can claim to have right-sized the other trappings of my life. I recently sold my last gas guzzler and frivolous item, a 2001 GMC Z71 Ext.Cab truck.

For those of you who are right-sizing any aspect of your life I give a hearty thank you for myself, my family/friends, and the future generations of life (human and other) who will be harmed less by your choices.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(samiam @ Nov 8 2007, 07:57 PM) [snapback]536992[/snapback]</div>

Exactly!

BTW, here are photos of Unabomber's cabin (which supposedly was modeled after Thoreau's):

Unabomber Cabin, Sacramento, CA: [attachmentid=12385]

Unabomber Cabin, Lincoln, MT: [attachmentid=12386]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Nov 8 2007, 03:35 PM) [snapback]536855[/snapback]</div>

Stay where you are. If you were to sell and buy a smaller house, the smaller house will probably cost more than you paid for your current house. Unless you can find yourself a sweet subprime foreclosure.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Nov 8 2007, 09:32 PM) [snapback]537040[/snapback]</div>

B) It's a good time to buy. I have invested less thean 20K on 4 acres of good land in both Arkansas and Florida. Land auctions are just going to get better over the next couple of years. I love it when I can get something and double my profit on it AND the purchaser is satisfied that they got a good deal..... jf