By Hari Berzins
Do you dream of living mortgage-free in your own hand-built house? What would you do if you owned your own home without a mortgage? If you already live mortgage-free how does it impact your life?
I asked these questions on my Tiny House Family facebook page last week and got some terrific responses.
What would you do if you owned your home without a mortgage? If you already live #mortgagefree, how does it impact your life?
Posted by Tiny House Family on Monday, May 18, 2015
The lives we lead as mortgage-free folks are the stuff of dreams, but these dreams are attainable. If you dream of this lifestyle, we’d be delighted to help you realize your dream.
If you are sitting there with very little money wondering how in the world you can do this, please take a breath and tell yourself it is possible. We are proof. After we lost our business in 2008, then we lost our home. Our journey to mortgage-free started with $400 in savings. After sticking to a detailed budget and learning to live below our means, we saved enough to buy 3 acres for cash in 2010. We continued saving and salvaging and built an 8’ x 21’ tiny house for $12,000. We’ve lived here with our two kids for four years. We’ve continued saving and building and are almost done with the big house – our 1400 sq. ft. right-sized house. Our garden continues to expand as do our animal paddocks where we raise all of our own eggs and meat. All of this was a dream seven years ago. Dreams become reality with courage and continuous effort.
You can do what we’ve done. You can totally do it. We’ve mapped out every step we took to make this happen and turned it into our 10 week ecourse. We’ve helped over 250 folks started on their own path to zero-debt living, and we’d be delighted to help you.
Join us in this most courageous endeavor. The summer session of our ecourse starts on June 13, 2015. Registration is open now. Read all the details and register here. Read testimonials here.
I am interested in starting a tiny home community and was wondering if you could help me on where to start and what I might need to think about . I am sure that with some help I will make this happen . I am not too sure of the supplies and what all would be necessary to start . I have an ad on craigs list to see if there are any other like minded people out there and have had some good response . any help would be appreciated. Thom
Hi Thom,
You are on the right track by seeking like-minded people. You might also want to check meetup.com to see if any groups already exist in your area. If not, start your own! I also encourage you to contact your local building and zoning departments to learn about what’s possible where you live. Good luck!
Please keep me advised of any communities in No Calif. thank you
Starfate@icloud.com
Here are some of my notes from a sustainable village project I’ve worked on many years. Though now I’m using said knowledge to build a homeless shelter for women called the Helpful Garden. Anyways here are the notes.
*Note : 9*
*1.9 acre per person living in a sustainable village (1.9 or 1.48334 acre * 140 or 179 people = 266 acre )*
– 0.6250 acre of farmland/person or 0.20833 acre of farmland/person
– 0.0892 acre of farmland to be sold/person
– 0.2321 acre of living area/person
– 0.0214 acre of wine vineyards/person
– 0.0714 acre of ponds/person
– 0.0214 acre of coffee/person
– 0.0071 acre of teas/person
– 0.0142 acre of herbs/person
– 0.1428 acre of schools/person
– 0.2142 acre of park & wildlife/person
– 0.1428 acre of village square/person
– 0.1785 acre of livestock/person
– 0.1392 acre of roads & ect/person
*Note : 9-a*
With a mix of permaculture and aquaponics
*1.48334 acre per person living in a sustainable village (1.48334 acre * 420 people = 623.0028 acre )*
One Square mile = 640 acres
0.20833 acre of farmland/person
Township = 23040 Acres or 36 square miles
Other notes:
Land breakdown:
100 acres for farming (87.5 acres to feed the village and 12.5 acres to be sold)
32.5 acres homes (25 homes consist of families of 4 people each and 40 homes of single people)
3 acres for wine Vineyards (2 acres for village and 1 acre to be sold)
10 acres for ponds /2
3 acres for coffee
1 acre for teas
2 acres for herbs
20 acres schools
30 acres for park & wildlife
20 acres for village square
25 acres livestock
19.5acres roads & ect
Total of 266 acres
This was a FABULOUS online workshop where all of us from around the country connected online & are STILL a support group to one another. Absolutely LOVED it!
Yay, Sue! We are so grateful for the fabulous and innovative people who make up the Creating Mortgage-freedom community. We learn so much from each other. Thank you for being a part of our journey!
Good to see a family reading together. Living tiny does have some disciplines. I wish we could have more photographs of all the interiors. I am a photograph fanatic.
We have lived mortgage free our entire lives (60/57). We never had to settle for tiny, but tiny IS cool, don’t get me wrong. You want something, you go for it and it will happen. Nothing takes your worries away like living mortgage free. Nothing good comes easy, but it is SO worth the effort.
I agree! What a great story–being mortgage-free for your entire life. What freedom.
It seems the biggest challenge for us to even build our right sized home 1200 sq feet is not even possible in the county we live in to be economical because of land value and everyone having to build huge homes. Suggestion on how to find a small plot of ground to build a small right sized home?
Hi Lynda,
We spend two weeks exploring the topic of finding your place and locating affordable land in our eCourse. Many folks realize a move is required. There is affordable land out there, but it will take some compromise. Try looking in the rural area between two cities. We’d love to have you join us for the course!
great read….thanks for sharing this info
Great stuff. My wife and I took a similar path. I already had bought 6 acres in a semi-rural area and built a small, livable shed before we were married. I borrowed $10k, and paid the rest from savings. From there, we built our home, buying materials with cash as we earned it, and putting in time after work and on weekends. It is entirely possible for anyone willing to work very hard upfront — rather than being a mortgage slave for 15, 20 or 30 years. And, the feeling of accomplishment is one-of-a-kind.