3 BR, 1 BA 1950's ranch house. It has about 1.5k sq ft. of living space and 500 sq ft of mechanical/storage space including the basement.
It's a lot of space, but we're living very modestly compared to our peers.
House is paid for. Taxes/Insurance/Maintenance/Utilities run $500/month.
If we sold the house and invested the proceeds, we could probably rent something similar/better with less headaches.
485 sf (45 m2) one bedroom apartment in the hippest neighborhood in San Diego. The cool restaurants, sidewalk cafes, gay bars and Unitarian churches provide a fun atmosphere for our evening walks.
We manage the place and get free rent, utilities, whatnot. No need for heat or A/C. Landscaping, cleaning and maintenance are done by contractors who do excellent work. The flowers on our front lawn and back patio overlooking the canyon are beautiful.
There are a few storerooms and a workshop that come with the management job so we keep our bikes there. One of my hobbies is restoring old bikes and selling them. Right now I have two projects bikes in addition to our two road bikes and two touring bikes. One of the great advantages of Southern California is year round flea markets / swap meets. My collection of swap meet acquired tools, bikes, wetsuits, backpacks, bike trailers, and other sports equipment seems to expand in direct proportion to the size of the store rooms we have. At the last complex I had a massive room that I filled with sea kayaks and at least fifteen bikes. All were eventually sold.
Furniture consists of an Ikea leather couch, chairs, wall mounted folding kitchen table, desks, and LYCKSELE HÅVET folding bed/chairs which were all purchased on craigslist last year and will be fed back into the craigslist maw when we leave next year.
Balboa Park is walking/biking distance away so we spend a lot of time there. Free museum day is Tuesday. I made my own suspension trainer and hang it from the jungle gym or tree at the park when I don't feel like going to the gym.
When we leave to travel our possessions shrink back down to the smallest storage unit available. We have an online mail service that scans our mail and sends it as a pdf. My business records are all kept online. We've been focusing on digitizing paper records and photos then discarding the originals so as to have fewer things to store.
@bigato: Those are incredibly beautiful grounds, especially with all those beautiful hills. It looks like the sort of place where a writer can retreat and write an awesome novel =).
Thanks dotcom. We were really lucky to find the management gig. The owners of the property management company have since become good friends so it looks like we'll be doing this on and off at different complexes for the foreseeable future. They have a ton of properties under management so they always have a few openings. There is a serendipity to it that we're enjoying. We never really know where we'll end up. It forces us to be adaptable.
I'm your resident MND. I live in da burbia a few miles west of Chad. Nothing remotely ERE about it except its near a bike path and is paid for.
It's been good for the family -- I have serial live-in relatives, mostly young cousins (a/k/a free baby-sitting and exposure to young minds).
I expect we'll move when the kids are all grown. DW will want city. I'd be happy with a back porch and a rifle (for varmints and sich), but I'll probably go where my not-yet-even-remotely-thought-about grandchildren might be residing. I think living where you can cultivate the relationships you are interested in (or perhaps also avoiding unpleasant ones) is more important than the dwelling or location.
But I do have access to a big, nice house - I use the laundry/toilet/bathroom inside, and the kitchen some of the time.
My caravan is from about 1980 and 18' long, someone already modified it a bit before I got it, its got a double bed down one end, a small wardrobe, small pantry and a useless desk-like space that needs to be filled with shelves to make it more useful - I eat and study at the table which has a built in 'couch' one side and cupboards the other.
I have a sink connected to the house water and a 2 burner stove connected to my own gas tank, and a bar fridge - I like not needing to go inside if I want food, I have 7 housemates and don't want to be social all the time (that said, I think they're great housemates).
I'm not sure what other consider the limits of good climates for van living but here we get frosts but no snow and I find it pretty cold in winter - I've hung blankets over all the curtains to help the insulation a bit, but it could do with a lot more (Does anyone know a good way of sticking blankets to a roof without leaving permanent damage/scars on it?)
2 bedroom 1 bath 900 sf with single car detached garage. Large lot with fenced back yard. Paid off now for almost 6 years. Taxes and insurance run about $1,800 per year. Near the center of a medium sized city in Tennessee.
On TT/RV living in winter, I'll be doing it north of 47° in the Rockies... I bought an Avion because they're very well insulated, including the floor. I think the r-value is an excellent 6-9 throughout (including floor, excluding windows, vents) so warmth shouldn't be an issue... Humidity might be, but I think just keeping a vent cracked should do it. If not, dehumidifyer.
Plumbing systems will be the biggest problem, I don't know enough to comment yet (can holding tanks be bypassed?)... I'll be using it more like a big tent (with electricity/propane) and use a regular bathroom few meters away. I'll have some kind of water for cooking/dishes, but I'll just run that water onto the lawn.
I live in a 1.5 storey 950sqft warhome in the first suburb my city ever created. It's about an hour to walk to the city centre. I work 1/2 mile from my house, and my son goes to daycare .25 miles away, so I walk everywhere. The grocery store is across from my work, and there is a mall with a theatre within walking distance as well. My only complaint is the new transit system runs on the other side of the rail line, which bars me from using it.
Our house is paid, but I'm starting to find it's too small for the three of us and our two cats as we have no basement or garage. Eventually, I want to move out in to the country as I'm not from a city. I miss the fresh air and quiet. I am so tired of the sirens and neighbours. On the other hand, it's just so convienient!
As someone mentioned above, I intend to move where my family is once I can, be it back home to take care of my parents, or in 20 years to help my son with his family. All my husband wants out of the deal is fast internet.
350 sq. ft. tiny apartment in North End of Boston. I hardly ever drive my Toyota Yaris which is totally paid. I walk out my door and have grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, etc.
I bike a lot in the city and walk and ride the subway.
I pay 1450 right now for my small place and I'm about to start paying 1650 in September for a slightly larger apartment.
350 sq. ft. is o.k. for just me, but I want the slightly larger place so I can have a guest once in a while and a small couch. My current place isn't even big enough for a couch. I just use one recliner.
I like a lot of things about city living. My salary allows me to save a very large portion of my income monthly.
I walk 15 minutes to work with no commute. I can't tell you how much I despise commuting. I refuse to do it.
1600 sq foot 2 story house in the same neighbourhood that I grew up in. 4 bedrooms and only 500m from two schools, right beside a path that links most of the parks in the city (Regina). Also just a 10 minute walk to most of my shopping.
The house is way too big for just four people, but we bought it because my wife runs a daycare. So for an extra $50K investment (total house cost was $190K), her business gives the house an $9000/year in income. Not a bad return. House is paid for as of last year.
The only problem...I'm 5.5km from work. Sigh, you can't have everything.
I've got an 864 sq ft house I just bought about 2.5 miles from work, and 2 miles from the grocery store. It costs me 0% of my income as I rent out a room and my girlfriend pays me rent, so I get a little profit. Big back yard for the size of the house, cool neighbors, etc., located in a suburbia. I enjoy it thus far.
I live just outside NYC. 3rd floor of a 3 floor building. It's a really old building - above each doorway are windows (painted over) which would have been used for airflow in pre-AC days. Each apartment in the building (700 sq ft) was previously two apartments w/o running water. All the water was added on one side of the building and the bathrooms are also an addition. The stove is on a pad that would have been used for a wood-burning stove. I believe the building was a tenement circa 1900.
That said, it's cheap (1225/month), has nice wood floors, has a lot of space, and has large southern-facing windows, so it can be bright during the day. The downside is some plaster cracks on the walls, far too many layers of paint, and no doors between rooms shut (they all have a hook to keep them closed!) - also, it's a railway apartment (the rooms are simply lined up). The building owner has been reasonable and also recently added a washer/dryer in the basement (I only use it for drying dress shirts). The neighbors were fighting for a while and I could hear it through the walls, but they seem to have calmed down significantly over the past 2-3 months.
The neighborhood is ~20 minutes via public transit to Manhattan, is composed of brownstones and feels very safe. There's a medium-sized park nearby which is popular, with a small playground, tennis/basketball courts, benches/gardens and a lawn to lay on. On the other hand, there are some bad parts of town fairly close and my apartment was robbed at one point.
Inside most of my furniture is from Ikea and their second-cheapest option. The other half of my furniture is stuff my father built - a custom bedframe, desk, and some movable kitchen counters. I've got four useful appliances in the apartment: a tiny personal washing machine (awesome!), my computer, my Vitamix, and a personal dishwasher (the dishwasher and washing machine hook up to the sink). Also, a tiny cat who installs herself in front of any screen I try to use, chair I try to sit on, etc.
I'm lucky to have found this apartment. The drawbacks are all in areas I don't mind (lots of layers of paint? awkward kitchen setup? so what!) and the benefits are where I care (bright roomy layout, cheap, good location). I made some furniture replacements recently and I've got a very comfortable setup going.
@JasonR--Congrats! It's nice out that way. I'm jealous of the screened porch. How does DW feel about commuting?
@ffj--I really don't know how you get by living that way
I own/have no monthly expenses in a 320sq foot cabin on a river. About 45 minute walk to the road in the winter, short boat ride in the summer. Two solar panels, thermo couple chips, battery, and the water runs right by in the river.
My bed is a foam pad I paid $20 for 5 years ago on plywood and cinder blocks. I have a silky comforter that's made my whole bed experience so nice. Table/counter thing and shelves all the way around about a food under the ceiling are beautiful hardwood closet doors that were free from the dumpster. Kitchen thing is plywood, I'm gonna add tile counter soon. Awesome Blaze King wood stove. Propane cook stove from the 70's that I should replace someday.
Shed. Sauna. Smokehouse. Trails and rivers and beavers and owls and bears.
It tends towards being a dirty little hovel in paradise, but I've been making some improvements.
@riparian: "I own/have no monthly expenses in a 320sq foot cabin on a river."
Now THAT's what I call ERE material. How much did you pay for the place/land?
I live in the bay area in a 2011 Ford E250 Cargo Van. It looks like a normal work van, providing almost total stealth (no one would guess someone lives in it).
My van serves as my bedroom and closet.
My showering, internet, most meals, etc are from work.
I've been doing this for almost exactly one year.
I made the decision because I wanted to lower my rent and was planning on living in student shared situations (giving up a lot of privacy) and going to a mostly if not all bike-transportation situation. When I started thinking about going the van route, I realized that it would provide me more flexibility of places I could stay/explore and provide me more privacy. I valued the ability to move around far more than living in a "normal" house/apt.
I have hardly ever felt inconvenienced. I felt like "surviving" the coldest part of the winter was pretty painless and made me feel like a badass. I learned a lot about how your body adjusts as needed to your environment.
I've come out of this experience so far being much more patient and with a deeper understanding of what I really need and don't need when it comes to a living situation.
Things that have suffered: eating quality & eating expenses suffered (I miss cooking!!) which I could do more batch cooking at friends' houses to help out with.
