Top 5 Reasons to Downsize Your Home
Given the current economic climate and the condition of the housing market, you may be thinking about downsizing your home. It is something that my husband and I did several years ago and we haven’t regretted it for a moment. With that said, here’s a quick rundown on why switching to a smaller home can be a blessing:
No Mortgage
One of the best reasons to downsize is the opportunity to lose your mortgage. Prior to downsizing, my family was saddled with a large mortgage payment. Because of where we were living, we also had to pay hefty insurance premiums and taxes. When we finally sold the home, we were able to pay off all of our debt and buy a new home outright with the proceeds. The new home’s location also gave us an opportunity to reduce our insurance, tax and utility burdens by more than half.
Less Clutter
Another benefit of downsizing is that you ultimately end up reducing the clutter in your life. For example, my family and I went from a two story, single family home with a finished basement, a full attic and a two car garage to a one story, single family home with an attic crawl space. In total, we lost a good 1,000 square feet of living space. We also moved over 2,000 miles away from our original home. Thus, we could only afford to make one U-Haul trip. That required a lot of paring down but it also led us to discover an additional benefit of downsizing.
Extra Money
The additional benefit that we discovered by losing our mortgage and selling our excess belongings was extra money in our bank account. The savings didn’t end with the initial move either. Because we chose to relocate to an area with a lower cost of living, we continued to find ourselves with a bit more breathing room at the end of every month. Of course that extra money caused us to experience more benefits.
Less Stress
For my family, that extra money translated to less stress in our lives. We no longer had to worry about making a mortgage payment or paying a humongous utility bill at the end of the month. Thus, with our financial burden lessened, we found ourselves able to relax and enjoy life more. Being less stressed also allowed me to sleep better at night.
More Leisure Time
The final benefit that we received from downsizing was more leisure time. Part of the reason why we ended up with more leisure time is that our small home is quick to clean and easy to maintain. As such, we can spend more time doing the things that we love like hiking, fishing and biking.
Source: Personal Experience
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