Ultimate Personal Downsizing

Personal downsizing is about reducing the size of your home, car, and workload.  And in doing so greatly reduce your expenses and impact on the planet while increasing your financial security, free time, and fitness.

We’ve been taught through advertising and social conditioning that we need a certain size home, car, and workweek.  We’ve been so thoroughly indoctrinated about these issues that it’s very difficult to imagine the possibilities for extreme personal downsizing.

The benefits and advantages to personal downsizing are enormous.  For example, if you have a small home and car your cost for insurance, utilities/fuel, and maintenance are greatly reduced.  The smaller they are the greater the savings.  With a small to tiny home, you’ll also need to reduce the size and amount of your home furnishings, personal belongings, and electronics.  This will also decrease your expenses both short and long term.  They’ll be reduced short term by the decreased cost to run and maintain them and long term by the greatly decrease number of items that you’ll need to replace as they wear out. 

Once your monthly expenses are significantly reduced, you’ll be in the position to decrease the number of hours that you put in at work.  Or you’ll be able to take a less stressful position or a part time job instead. 

All of these personal downsizing changes will result in less stress and more free time to do what you enjoy and maintain your health and fitness to optimum levels.   

I discuss many of these issues in more detail in an article entitled, “Living with Less to Have More.”  In this article, I am going to take it one-step further and talk about ultimate personal downsizing. 

Part of the goal of ultimate personal downsizing is not only to reduce your expenses to the bare minimum so that you have more financial security but also to greatly increase your freedom.  Here are the two components. 

The first component is to give up your stationary housing in favor of mobile housing.  This means getting a motorhome!  Or a land yacht as some people like to call them.  The motorhome lifestyle enables you to reduced your monthly expenses and home maintenance duties while enabling you to travel and/or live in many new and incredibility beautiful locations.  Motorhome living also gives you complete freedom and control where you live and how long you stay there.  If you have a noisy neighbor, an annoying relative close by, or your town has become unattractive, you can simply walk a few feet to your motorhome’s driver’s seat, start the engine, and move to a new city without delay!

The design, technology, and gas mileage of motorhomes has made huge advancements in recent years.  And considering the massive downturn in the value of real estate (2011), a land based home purchase isn’t the guaranteed investment that it once was.   

This lifestyle clearly favors couples and singles.  But adventuresome families with only 1 or 2 children could also pull it off with home schooling or by limiting travel to periods when school is not in session.  Imagine the education and character building experiences your children would get from this lifestyle. 

The second component is income generation.  You should be able to make a considerable amount of money by selling your stationary home, most of the “stuff” inside with a garage sale, and any vehicles that you’ll no longer need. 

If you’ve retired and you receive income from social security, a pension, and/or savings you should be in able to enjoy this lifestyle comfortably.

If you still need to work to support yourself and secure your retirement, than you’ll need to have the ability to generate income along side the motorhome lifestyle.  Creating income using the Internet is the perfect match.  The Internet and wireless technology enables us to have a level of freedom not enjoyed by human beings since the days when we were hunter-gatherers.  

There are many possibilities for generating income using the Internet.  You can telecommute to your job via the Internet.  You can manage your own land-based business via Internet.  Or you can become completely independent and create your own income generating website(s).  

If you have little or no knowledge on how to create an income-generating website or you’ve tried and failed in the past, I strongly recommend that you look at SBI.  My review of SBI is here.  If you have a substantial amount of knowledge about how to build a viable online business, I recommend HM or BH.  My review of HM & BH is here.  

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The goal of personal downsizing can be to reduce your expenses during hard economic times.  But the ultimate goal of personal downsizing is to create more financial security and especially freedom!  You do this by fulfilling your housing, transportation, and income needs in intelligent and uncommon ways.   

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were not following the latest fads or traditional thinking when they created the personal computer (Apple).  And they were handsomely rewarded with great wealth.  You can do the same and build a rich life for yourself by not following the heavily traveled path but instead by creating your own.  And your reward will be extraordinary freedom!

Brad Paul

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