i am 47…i celebrate my 20th year of employment with the same company this month…i will retire within the next 10 years…sooner if my investments keep earning their current 26%…
my question to you good people is what is the smallest space you could comfortable live in…
i include some of the best examples i can find…
I thought I had been unnecessarily mean to you in the Walmart Surefire thread… but this post has me reconsidering that assessment.
My wife digs those small houses she is constantly looking them up. She wants me to build her a couple on our property. I built a cabin with a buddy of mine for a hunting camp and that got her started I think. I stayed in one up in Alaska for a while and designed the camp after it. Pretty standard, one large room with two lofts. My wife wants one that is “Cute”. I keep telling her that when she finally makes up her mind which one she wants I’ll do it. We’ll see if she ever settles on a plan. Now if it was just for me, I would probably use about four shipping containers and square them in.
it would be hard to go wrong with a 28 ft. shipping container…hardwood floor and 1/4 steel are standard…i am thinking that a four horse trailer would be great also…one stall for the bike…one for the kitchen/dining…one for the bath and laundry and one for sleeping/living…
That, would depend totally on the location. I live in the country and am pretty much self contained. If I lived in a locational that I could walk to stores, restaurants, neighbors, etc, I would need a much smaller space. Small houses encourage you to get out and into the community. That seems like a good thing if you are in the right place.
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[quote=rojos]
I thought I had been unnecessarily mean to you in the Walmart Surefire thread… but this post has me reconsidering that assessment.[/quote
thank you
i do my research and i check my investments once or twice a year…i follow a simple plan…i invest in growth…growth and income…high risk…small company blends and overseas funds…anything with new tech and/or related to energy…
you can never go wrong following author c. clarks 3 rules…
Kitchen and laundry would take up a lot of room. I hate the inconveniences of space saver appliances. I can do without a dishwasher, but I need a full size sink. If it was just me, then 500 sq feet should do. I could do with less if I used a hammock and had tall ceilings. There are a lot of great space saving tricks that small house owners come up with. I think it's cheating to use a shed or sheds for storage and a workshop, but I'd totally cheat.
it would seem to me that the further away you are from civilization the lesser the need for a big house…unless you have a large family…
in 1950 the average size of house was 900 square ft….now the average size is nearly 3000…
Maybe you misunderstood. My post wasn’t some backhanded compliment. It was my pointing out your lack of manners.
I am not begrudging your successful investments. Good for you in that regard. But talking about how you’re going to retire by the time you’re 57 and how you’re earning 26% on your investments is… well, you’re either over compensating or you don’t have any manners.
To each their own. When I lived in Los Angeles, I lived in a small apartment. I didn't spend much time there. Mostly for sleep and down time. I spent most of my awake hours at work, walking/biking/driving to places, at friends, at restaurants, shopping. The close walls did not bother me, but did encourage me to get out.
Here, on 14 acres and no neighbors in site, I need to drive a long distance to get to anything. I spend much more awake hours at home. A small house would significantly limit my lifestyle here. Staring 4 close walls would not work out here for me. Here, I desire to push my walls out even further.
Therefore, I stand my personal opinion that location is a key determining factor in the minimum required size of my house.
By the way, I didn’t join this thread looking to criticize. I actually have an interest in small living spaces.
I like them because they are energy efficient and there’s less to clean and maintain. The trade off is that storage space is an issue and the extra work involved in using the space creatively often offsets many of the efficiency benefits.
If the title of the thread was “early retirement” and “26% ROI” I would have steered clear and not posted anything.
i am not trying to start a fight…i haven’t looked at my investments since my adult daughter died last year at this time of sudep…sudden unexplained death in epilepsy…and i had to pull some out to cover her expenses…my earnings were a pleasant surprise but not unexpected…
as i said i do my research….
i really like the williams cabin…i think a house built with 16 ft. 2x8s with 12 ft. ceilings and a front porch the same size would be as close to perfect as can be unless you want to have an open loft on the second floor…
I currently live in a 1,1 and 1 on the beach in Sydney, ~50 sq metres, it’s absolutely tiny, and cost me almost half a mil. But that’s the price you pay for the location.
This is giving me NZShooter flashbacks.
i have no context for your comment…
They make a lot of sense if you're doing the work yourself since you have a roof over your head from the very start.
i also like the holyoke cabin…park two steel shipping containers side by side with 10 ft. between them…pour a slab of concrete between them and wall it in….kitchen and laundry in one side….bed and bath in the other…living room in the middle…
A good friend today said he’d like to build a 3,000 square foot garage and an 800 square foot house - sounds just about right.
He’s moving to 3 1/2 acres so I told him to call the garage a barn and get an ag exemption …
screw the house…just live in the garage…