I’ve never actually put a ruler to it so I don’t know the exact square footage of our home… but… it’s small. It fits in the back of my truck. Yep… we’re one of THOSE families… who live in the back of a truck… and a glorified tent. My Mom is so proud!
HOME SWEET HOME
Our home is so small that you have to step outside to change your mind. Sorry… old joke… couldn’t resist.
And yet… we have everything that we need. A fridge. A stove top. A heater. A comfortable, dry place to lay our heads. And a bit of storage space.
THE GREAT WHITE BISCUIT
We even have a guest house… or pool cottage… depending on where we’re parked.
The smallness of our inside space means that we spend almost all of our waking hours outside. And we think that’s a pretty cool way to go about life. It’s also why we hate rain… cold rain anyways.
Living in a small place definitely changes the shopping game plan. It’s pretty tough to buy a weeks worth of food for five (and still have living space). And gone are the days of stockpiling toilet paper… and light bulbs.
Mathematically, it’s just getting used to smaller numbers. But philosophically… it’s a completely different ballgame. It’s a different narrative that calculates the value of your stuff based upon the amount of life that you exchanged for it? It’s the quest for simplicity. Discarding instead of acquiring. Lifestyle over luxury.
It’s fun to watch peoples faces as they look at our camp and imagine us in such small places. “How do you all live in there?”, is the usual question. “We don’t.” “We just sleep in there.” “We live here…”
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
I think you get the point.
I read a few weeks ago that the average American’s living space has increased by 2.5 times over the last thirty years. And still one of the fastest growing industries in America is personal storage.
So many developing countries are chasing this American lifestyle. I can assure you that our lonely blue dot suspended in a beam of sunlight absolutely cannot support that.
Another major benefit of our small space is that we can see so many different things. In fact, we haven’t found a road too tough for us to explore… yet. From the Rocky Mountains to the teeniest tiniest cobblestone street in an old colonial Mexican pueblo… we’ve made it.
Change is constant. It just plays out over a long time. But our lives are really short so we don’t think in long times. The term “preppers” has come up on occasion… a term I wasn’t familiar with. I looked it up. I don’t think we’re preppers. There’s nothing to “prep” for. It’s here.
The American marketing machine is trying to convince us that we can consume our way out of the mess that we’ve made of things… with “green” choices… of course. But you can’t consume your way out of over-consumption… not even with a fleet of Tesla’s.
Somehow a new balance will be found. We can voluntarily participate. Or it’ll be forced upon us. Either way… it will happen.