Why would we strive to live in a small mobile home?
Isn't the goal to have a nice big home on a piece of land?
Seems that way, to most anyway. But we see things a little differently.
When people own their home and land, are they really theirs? Well, there are laws in place within the system that makes the home they worked their life away paying for, or even the home that was passed down for generations, disposable at the government's will.
Most people do keep their home for generations, or at least for their lifetime. You'd be likely to keep yours as well. But there are two ways you could suddenly lose your heritage or a lifetime of hard work. (This doesn't include a natural disaster)
Not sure what I mean?
Ask yourself these questions;
•What happens if you lose your job/income after you've paid the mortgage off completely?
•What happens when the government wants your land?
The first question really should be a simple answer; you've paid for your home in full. It's yours. So at least you'll keep a roof over your head while you struggle.
Think again...
"Your municipal or county government has a big stake in collecting property taxes so it can meet its budget. Local governments do not look kindly on homeowners who don’t pay their property taxes, and they have some incredibly powerful collection tools that ensure that property taxes will be paid sooner or later—including selling your home."
Lawyers.com
So if you don't keep paying for something that's "yours", the government will take your generations-old family home so that they can get paid. In times of prolonged struggles, they have no remorse... They just want the money. You never truly own your home... at least not with complete peace of mind.
The second question should be obvious. If the government just decides one day that they want to use a big piece of land to build some sort of facility or even just a road, and you happen to be living somewhere on that land, they will get you out. If the government wants your property, they will take it. Even if your family's been there since the dawn of time. They don't care. You pay property tax, that's essentially land rent. And since your home is built on solid foundation, well, if you can't stay on the property, that means you lose your home, too.
This has happened many times in the past, and will continue to happen. A recent case in P.E.I, Canada, left a family without their generations-old farm, even after 2 years of court battles. You can read the article here.
"Expropriation" is a legal term for "the taking of "land" without the consent of an "owner" by an "expropriating authority" in the exercise of its statutory powers." Yikes.
Renting isn't always a walk in the park, either. You have no control or authority over major issues, and you have a "boss," in a sense... Laying out ground rules, and having the potential to make your life a nightmare. That's what mine did to our family, it's been a waking nightmare living under that landlord...I won't wander off into those stories, though, because that's a whole other article. (Maybe another time, but that type of article isn't my drive for writing, so likely not.) The gist of it is that even though we are quiet and always pay the rent, we had to worry about losing our home every few months. We've faced homelessness with very young children, multiple times, over technicalities that were out of my control. I've even had to frantically stop the sheriff from locking my doors simply because something got lost in the mail!
We've grown very tired of the frustration and uncertainty that comes with renting. We don't have the finances to mortgage or buy a house, and if we did, we wouldn't want to spend that kind of money to "believe" it's ours. We aren't ready for sovereignty yet. So what's the solution?
We came to a decision to make ourselves a small, mobile home! A tiny house that we can pick up and move when we can no longer stay on the land. A tiny home that meets our budget, and that we can actually call our own. No worries about losing it over land grabs, or tough times. In time, we will figure out sovereignty so that the government has no authority over our land or belongings, but for now we just need to get out of the rat race. That's step one.
Upon looking to buy a "tiny home", and researching personal experiences, we decided that outright buying a tiny house, and relying on the grid, (water, electrical and sewage hook-ups,) was just plain too expensive. There are so many people that document how expensive it is, and difficult, while warning others away due to the price and extra work.
Normally, this would have deterred us. But there had to be a way to do it conservatively. After a bit more research and conversations, we realized that those people were in the wrong mindset for that type of living. It's very expensive and difficult to just join the tiny house movement simply to live in a tiny house. If that's what you want, you may as well just rent or mortgage, unless you're very well-off and don't mind spending lots of money on a small country getaway. But in general, if you really want a tiny house to work, you need an off-the-grid, conservative mindset and lifestyle.
The idea is to have everything set up to be self sufficient, so there's no utility bills. Buy a used home and fix it up, like a boat, RV, fifth wheel or something similar. Plenty of research will allow you the knowledge to do so... But the key is to make it yours right away. Don't do payments or financing of any kind. Save for a while and then buy if you have to. I mean... If you are going to rent a $30-$40,000 tiny house, then rent land or pay a trailer park, then hook up to the grid and pay utilities, it's pointless. Because now you still have all the same bills and expenses, plus the extra work of tiny house living. It just doesn't work on a modest budget.
The way we figure it, we can save and research at the same time. Then when it's time to buy, we'll have all the knowledge we need to make the purchase that's right for us, as well as do any renovations ourselves that might be needed. The biggest thing that came up at the very beginning of our research was not to trust the salesmen at their word. There are many things in this business that seem to only work well when a salesman is trying to sell it to you. You should be looking at potential purchases when you feel that you'll know more than the salesmen; don't let them sell you things you don't want or need because they wrapped it in pretty ribbons.
Much like everything else in this political world, when it comes to moving into a tiny home, you need to research, research research! Don't let yourself be manipulated into buying something regrettable.
To get an idea of rookie mistakes to avoid, we started watching videos of the mistakes and regrets that new tiny home owners and full time RV folks made. There's a lot of those out there. All the videos about why you don't want to do it, why people gave up, what they did wrong, what went wrong, how it's not possible, etc, is invaluable information. It tells us what to avoid and how to do things differently, in order to prevent being defeated early on and giving up... We can't give up... Once we go, we're committed. We aren't going to be keeping our current home.
Do you have a dream like this?
Start with learning the mistakes of the people who are already living your dream. It really is priceless knowledge to engrave right from the start! Just don't let it deter you; use it to find alternative and better ways to suit your situation. There's always ways around everything that can trip you up!
Pipe dreams are simply goals that haven't made it through research and planning yet.
**This article is part of a series of our research and thought processes on switching to a mobile tiny home and traveling the country. If you'd like to see the rest, check the tag "mooretravellers", otherwise, here are the links to my previous articles:
•Hello Again Steemit, I'm Back! May 28, 2018