I spent many years as a student living in one room residences and loved it. Bigger homes are nice once you have a family, for sure. But my heart remembers the simplicity and freedom of living with much less stuff. As we age, most of us come back around to scaled down housing; even if our egos may fight it. Less overhead, less upkeep, less expense, no debt and more freedom. Makes perfect sense. After 20 years of the opposite trends, ‘downsizing’ is a social evolution who’s time has come.
Small is Beautiful is a documentary following four people as they build their own tiny houses in pursuit of a mortgage free lifestyle, discovering that living tiny is about so much more than just the house. Here is the trailer direct link.
You can download the full documentary here.
On a related note, the German word for debt – Schuld – means guilt. Guilt in the sense that the accumulation of debt represents a lack of personal discipline: of spending more than one earns and of buying things before we have the money. After having been through an era of insatiable consumption where debt has been sold as a magic lifestyle enabler with no apparent embarrassment, the idea of debt being something to shun and pay off as quickly as possible, is also coming back into vogue. This is also a positive development.
