What MH SHOULD Be Writing About - Tiny Houses

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The clicks say it all. Check out the number after Tiny House Posts. The page has more than double the views of any other page. People love tiny houses and visit the tiny house posts often on Mesquite Hugger. Strangely, I write very little about them. Tiny houses are very appealing to me in theory, but not very realistic. Living in less than 400 square feet sounds very do-able for a single human being and it sounds like a pretty good way to cut down on one's expenses, but there's a bit of a hole in that logic. I keep seeing different amounts of money and time frames for building a tiny house.

 

$30,000 is not rare, and very few seem to be built in less than 1 year.

 

So, let's hop over to the Lubbock Craigslist for a second:

 

$30,000 will buy you four used travel trailers

 

Tiny houses make very little sense if your first goal is to save money. If you buy a $10,000 travel trailer you can move in immediately. Save $20,000 on the initial investment and save the money from a year of spending all your time and money trying to build a tiny house. And the trailer already has a title - so there's a lot less bureaucracy in making it legal.

Does the tiny house appeal to you because of mobility? Then check out a bus or a motor home. It's all about mobility. Again, you can get into one for very little money. You can even go off grid pretty easily. Many RV's already have 12 volt DC appliances, so the transition to solar is pretty easy. Tired of supporting oil companies? Convert your diesel to run on used veggie oil. If you get tired of the scenery, start her up and head over to greener pastures.

Now, for the pieces I cannot argue against. The value of building something with your own hands and from your own designs is immeasurable, and having the ability to choose reclaimed/recycled/green materials is amazing.

 

A few questions you might want to ask yourself before you start building:

How good are you at working with your hands?

How well do you persevere on big projects?

Whose nerves and toes will you be stepping on to make this happen?

 

A tiny house can be an amazing project and a worthwhile investment if you are the right person. On the other hand, for many of us (myself definitely included) the tiny house could easily be an unfinished money pit sadly hunkering under a big tarp in the backyard of the larger house you pay for every month. Sometimes the greenest option is the thing already built, the one that allows you to spend time pursuing things that matter most to you.

 

So how about it, tiny house dreamers? Where do you want to spend your time and money? What do you want to be doing?

 

May you find your answer and may it enrich your life and the lives of those around me.