RV Tiny Living Yet?

How It All Started
What first started out as a dream for me about 4 1/2 years ago has finally become a reality!  Actually, I have always had the desire to live with as little as possible and on a small budget.  I have this belief that life is not about having things it’s about spending time with family and friends, meeting new people, seeing new places, and being healthy.  If somehow we didn’t need any money to survive, life would be roses for everyone wouldn't it?  Instead every day I hear from my friends, co-workers and people that come into my work how they have become enslaved to paying their bills.  Their mortgages, utilities, ridiculous amounts for insurance, taxes, and then of course there are necessities like food too.  Then there are the families who put their children into every sport, music lesson, and group activity imaginable and the cost is insane. Also, something valuable I learned from working with people in the health industry is that they wait until the age of retirement to live out their dreams and work on fulfilling their bucket lists and sometimes this backfires because of poor health.  Their health has suffered and they are not able to travel anymore, their bodies don’t move like they used to, they’re not able to get travel insurance, etc.  It has been these comments and hearing these stories first hand that have pushed me into this direction of changing our lives now in our forties and not waiting for that magic retirement age of 65.

I took the idea to my husband Dan that we should sell everything and live in our trailer for awhile.  Also, selling everything would free up some money so we could travel without overhead while we would be gone.  Dan and I lived in our home for 21 years and we renovated it top to bottom.  Top of the line materials and a whole lot of labour and love went into our home and here I was ready to sell it!  Dan was not convinced.  He was having no part of it so I was suppose to suck it up and and settle on the idea that I would be in this same home until death.  That wasn't the answer I wanted so I looked at things from his point of view and started exploring ways to make this become possible and feasible for us.  With both of us in our 40s we are not ready or financially able to fully retire yet. So, the whole dream had to come at a compromise and had to be something that both of us would be happy with.

The Plan
Dan and I had always talked about living by a lake since before we were married.  It has always been a dream for both of us.  An untouchable dream, or so we thought.  I began to comb the internet for lake property deciding to take my search into British Columbia.  Two years later, in March of 2014, I found some reasonably priced lots very near a beautiful lake and recruited a Real Estate Agent in that area known by good friends of ours and she helped us find a couple of lots that she thought would have good building sites.  So, we purchased and continued exploring the idea of selling our home and downsizing and eventually living by the lake.
Last fall of 2015, we thought we were ready to sell our home.  Dan and I put a sign on the front lawn “For Sale by Owner” and tried to leave it up one month.  Yes, we realize a month is not very long, but it soon became very apparent that neither one of us had separated themselves enough emotionally from our home yet to be able to let it go so we took the sign down and decided to wait for a couple more years.

The beauty of Spring was upon us and that itch to move on with our new adventures and ideas now tugged at our thoughts.  We decided to take the plunge and list our property with a local company.  The house was photographed and advertised and a big sign was put on the front lawn.  Dan and I both told each other to not look at that sign.  But the truth of it was that we were both ready to relinquish our home we had worked so hard on and raised our two beautiful sons in.  Dan still struggled a bit and I don’t think the whole thing became a reality to him until the offer rolled in.
In the meantime while waiting to sell the home, we had been clearing out our clutter and back in the Fall when we first put out a Sale sign on the house, we had a garage sale.  We also had come up with a plan to sort through our stuff and only keep our favourites and the furniture that would eventually furnish our cabin on the lake. Dan purchased a large sea-can that is stored at a friend’s home for us and we stored our favourites and keepsakes into it.

The offer was accepted and conditions were met and upon packing up the rest of our belongings, we had another garage sale.  It was a spur of the moment, throw signs up and advertise for a day on Kijiji type sale, but it went really well.  On August 3, 2016 Dan and I moved into our “tiny home”.  We have been living in our 2005 Travelaire 28 foot travel trailer since then and loving every minute of it!

Our intentions are to pull the trailer and head South this winter.  That has directed our focus and attention on how to make the trailer more comfortable, functional and organized.