Can living in a Tiny House Village actually be affordable?

Hi there. Welcome to my channel, where I take you on tours of unique homes. In this week's episode, we're meeting up with Steve and Erica who decided to downsize their life into a tiny home. They'll talk about what it's like to live in a tiny house village and explain how their new living situation has allowed them to embrace living debt free. And if you're interested in this tiny house community and would like a tour, we have a dedicated video for that linked in the description. But before we jump right in, make sure that you're subscribed and hit that notification bell so that you know, every single time we publish a new episode. Hi, I'm Erica. I'm Steve. And this is our pug, Lily. And this is our tiny house. For a long time, we did exactly what everyone else does. We were up to our eyeballs in debt. We spent as much as we could on the biggest, nicest house in the best neighborhood. We just started thinking differently. Like, you know, what are we doing? It's kind of going nowhere. We were actually looking for a condo to buy, put an offer on one, didn't get accepted. And I just happened to be scrolling through Facebook marketplace and saw this tiny house, you know, all downhill from there. I think you have to decide upfront what's important to you in a house. Like I love to cook. I had to have a full kitchen. We also spend a lot of time relaxing on the couch. Having a comfortable place to hang out was also a deal breaker. We've been living in the house for just over a year. We paid in the low eighties for this house, which is probably a little bit high, but it was here already, you know, on the lake already parked, already set up. So it was, it was worth something for us. The community was the unexpected bonus of this place. We just got lucky with that. We love our neighbors. We've only been here a year, but I'd venture to say they're more like family than friends already. I know no matter where you end up, there's people who live here that I'll talk to my entire life. We pay lot rent. Ours is in the mid six hundreds. So it's not, it's not expensive. Water is included in that and the internet. And then we have an electric bill. Within a few years of us staying here, it basically pays for itself. And the money we saved from, you know, paying $2,000 a month in rent, we're debt-free. There's a lot of freedom with that. We've been able to increase our retirement savings so that we can reach those goals sooner. Hopefully, you know, you do learn what's important, what you need and don't need. And it's so freeing to not have so much stuff. Welcome to the outside of our house. It's 24 feet long, eight feet wide, roughly 12 feet high. So it's a cheap composite siding. It does fine as long as it stays painted and conked, but the minute water actually gets behind it, it soaks it up like a sponge. So if I had to do it over again, I would definitely look into that a little better and make sure that there was quality siding on the house. The roof is made of metal. There's really no maintenance other than some tree limbs or something fall on it. You got to rake it off, but it's, it's pretty low maintenance. So for heat and cooling, we have a mini split. It works pretty well. Our electric bill's really cheap. The hot water here is good, but there's also a downside. You know, when the propane runs out, if you're in the shower, you're going to finish with the cold shower. Come with me and let's check out the inside. Now we're inside the tiny home and you walk right into the kitchen. We're from the South. So the kitchen was very important to us. Believe it or not, we have everything we need right here. Some suggestions I have is the cabinet is all drawers instead of cabinets and you can access a hundred percent of the drawer. Super easy. A big deep seat because we do a lot of dishes and we don't have a dishwasher unless you count me and my husband does. And then we've got a full stove and a full oven. We cook Thanksgiving dinner in here for like 20 people so it can be done. We do have the bar and more storage area up here. We have a food storage over here, way more room than you would expect. To the left is the restroom. It's very small, but it has everything we need. We've got a little bit bigger than a camper size shower. We have a normal flushing toilet, none of that compost stuff. And then we have a little bit of storage in here. We've got a great fridge. It's a full size fridge. I think they call it an apartment fridge, but it has plenty of room in it. I mean you can live normal with this. And we've got a microwave that also does the air fryer and the convection oven. Pretty much if it only does one thing, there's not room for it in here. So we've got a nice size closet here. We fit all of our hanging up clothes for both of us in here. There's a washer and dryer combo unit. It works okay. It takes a really long time to dry, but it does the job. So another big priority for our tiny home was our living space. So let's head over there and check it out. So this is our living area. Having somewhere comfortable to sit and hang out after work was really important to us. We spent a lot of time watching movies, watching TV. We have a super comfortable couch. It actually folds out into a queen size bed if we need extra bedding for people to stay in. We have enough room to have company, but what's awesome about Florida is we can almost always have company outside. The weather is a big part of that. So I work from home full time. And so this is also my office. This table folds up and it becomes a full desk area with my monitors, my phone, everything in there. And then this is my coworker's seat. My dog sits right here by me all day long. And then we have two lofts and the storage is a lifesaver. We have a full loft that we just use for storage. Very interesting feature in this house is they call them witches stairs. According to old folklore, witches could not walk upstairs like this. So if you have any suspicions about your friends, bring them over and test them out. They work very well for us. They are a lot easier than having a narrower stair. I think the only challenge with the dog that we've had is the stairs. Cause she sleeps in the bed with us. She can't climb them. She tried when we first moved in and she couldn't do it. So I have to take her up and down the stairs to go to bed and get up in the morning. And it's funny. She doesn't trust me. So she only lets him take her up and down the stairs. I am not reliable enough to be trusted with this for the dog's wishes. Come on up and I'll show you the bedroom. We have a king size bed up here. That was a non-negotiable term for the tiny house is we had to have a king size bed. Our dog takes up more room than both humans. The large dresser fits an unbelievable amount of items. So one of the nicest things about this tiny home compared to the other ones we looked at is that there is more height in the lofts. We can sit up in there and read and talk. A lot of people that I've spoken to, they have lofts where they're literally, you know, inches from the ceiling when they lay down in bed. So we're lucky to have a lot of room up here. They say the American dream is to own a home, which sure, this is a home, but it's not, you know, a traditional home. Just because everyone else does a certain thing, you know, a certain way doesn't mean that's what you have to do. You don't have to live that way. And we don't need a giant house. Honestly, we spend less time cleaning it, less time maintaining it and more time doing the things we actually want to do. Thanks for watching this week's video. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Please make sure to like share and subscribe and don't miss out on the community tour that we have linked in the description.