Challenges and Opportunities in Tiny Living

The podcast episode features a conversation with Mic, a tiny house enthusiast and content creator, discussing the motivations, challenges, and opportunities associated with the tiny house movement. Mic shares insights into the generational perspectives, financial considerations, and lifestyle choices related to tiny living. The conversation also explores the appeal of tiny houses, the impact on personal values, and the potential for community building within the movement.

For full show notes and more information visit: https://bit.ly/4bPPxzs

Transcript

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It takes a brave and independent mindset to go tiny. If you are trying to figure out your tiny pivot, this podcast is here to inspire and connect you with the other unconventional, gritty, inspirational people within this community. I am Laura Lynch, your tiny house friend and host. On this show, we are always going to come back to money because as a financial planner, this is the question I hear the most. How do I make this work for me financially? Well, that's my jam, so jump in, let's go. New episodes drop every Thursday. Hello, YouTube friends. I have a confession. So I was working on an audio only project on my recording software and I forgot to turn video recording back on. This is affecting two episodes of Les Housemore Moolah podcast. One is episode 53 with Nick Talks Tiny and the others is episode 54 with Eric Ratzewski with Family Trucksters. So I'm so sorry for this mistake, but. To make it up to you, I decided we would do a YouTube exclusive. So the three of us, Eric and Mick and I are gonna all get together and talk about entrepreneurship as we are all building businesses in the tiny living world. And so I want to explore the ideas around risks and our favorite platforms and what's motivating us. And I thought this might be useful for those. who are interested in some sort of side hustle or entrepreneurship. So again, so sorry for forgetting to turn the video recording on for these two episodes, but I hope you enjoy the YouTube exclusive, which will be coming out soon. So Mick, welcome to Less House, More Moolah podcast. I'm super thrilled to have you here. You and I are doing the same thing out, talking to all the people in the tiny living community and kind of getting the word out there about why and what's great about it. So thanks for joining me. Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. I think it's great to just have as many, honestly, as many channels as possible, just putting out information that can help people make. informed decisions about going tiny and just learn more about the movement. I'm all for it. So super happy to be here excited to chat. Yeah, great. So Meg, please share with us your tiny living story. Yeah, sure. So I'm I would call myself a tiny house enthusiast because I'm not currently living in a tiny house. My goal is to buy a tiny house in the next few years. So Based here in San Diego, there's a bit of an issue with like trying to figure out where to put stuff. So that's kind of where I'm at is just figuring out, well, if I buy one, you know, if I was in a perfect world to buy one tomorrow, where would it go? but yeah, I fell in love with tiny houses, just like most people, you know, like watching HGTV, like I've always sort of loved, things related to real estate and tiny houses just makes sense to me. so I've been really excited to be a part of this and I worked as a designer for a tiny house company for a little bit. So that's sort of how I kind of got my initial entry into the industry. And then. I decided to create the YouTube channel just sort of based on some of the things I saw in the design space. Yeah, I love that that you kind of came into the content creation in the tiny house world just out of out of passion and interest and enthusiasm for what was happening. So let's talk a little bit more about what brought you to the movement for your professional endeavors, because this wasn't what you were doing not that long ago, right? Yeah, yeah. So by trade, like my training, I'm a professor, like I'm officially retired from that now. But yeah, so no, it's not really what my formal background is in. But when I moved down here to San Diego, I knew I wanted to, you know, hopefully get into the tiny house space. So I found a posting to work for a tiny house company. And I found the design side was really exciting because I got to learn how to use the software tiny easy, which I've done, you know, a couple of video on I had the. software developer on the channel before, like it's a really cool software for 3D designing for tiny houses. And when I was doing that, I just learned that most mostly what I saw was that like people really excited about tiny houses, but they really don't know what they are. So I had a lot of people who were, you know, giving, you know, giving someone like tons of money to build them something without a lot of like understanding of what it was, even down to just like, What are the dimensions of it? So I think that there's some things when you learn about tiny houses on the professional side, you take for granted. Like most people don't even know how wide tiny houses are or how tall they are or like how long you can make it. Can you put a deck on it? so that made me sort of think about how there needs to be a space for people to be able to find answers to these questions. And I don't think Google does the industry enough justice because there's so much more sort of nuance to. each company, each builder, each design process, everyone's tiny story is so different. So that's why I created the channel, hopefully to create a situation where anything you could ask, you know, in Google, there'd be a video for that. So that's kind of what my initial thought was. And I just love talking about tiny houses too. So I thought might as well just try making a channel talking about something I really love. And yeah, it's gone pretty well. So yeah. Yeah, awesome. So you were a sociology. Professor, right? So you've done a lot of studying of sort of human movements and change and what happens within societies. And so what is your particular perspective on this, you know, movement? Maybe it's not everybody, but sort of really growing momentum around the movement away from the American dream and the big house and all that comes with that. Yeah, sure. Well, the American dream is an interesting concept because As much as we've taken ownership over it, over the past few, you know, like hundreds of years, it actually was created for us. So like the, the basis of it is to sort of get us to go out and like produce more in order to buy a house where you can have like the white picket fence and the 2 .5 kids and the dog, like sort of like the original traditional sort of image we saw on mainstream TV back in like fifties, you'd have to work a lot. You'd have to either have one job that pays your bills where you can put in 40 hours a week, which is just not. the norm as much anymore. Like wages haven't gone up in like 50 years. Like we just don't have that kind of job market anymore. Or you have to work a ton of jobs. So I think that at least from my perspective, people are sort of moving away from it because it's really not attainable. And with housing going up, you either, you know, you risk being like house poor. I know that right now on average, people spend like anywhere from 40 to 60 % of their income on their mortgage. And that's just not sustainable. So I think that people are just kind of tired. of sort of giving into this idea that in order to be happy, you have to have a really big house in a suburb with like all of the bells and whistles. And they're trying to find a way to carve out what their version of that dream looks like. Hey there, Laura here. On Less Housemore Moolah podcast, we hear so many stories of people living unconventional lives. Each of them is literally building their alt -American dream. Are you tired of putting your dreams on hold because of money? Then let's fix it. If you'd love to buck the system, quit your nine to five job and park yourself outside while you work towards financial security, but you can't seem to get past step one money. If you have a vision of an all -American dream and are sick of making Pinterest boards, then let's make progress. I have a two -part offering that's gonna help you. First, I'm gonna give you access to my financial freedom calculator so that you'll understand your numbers and have a tangible starting point. This is free. Second, we're gonna book a session to figure out your finances so that you can live your all -American dream as soon as possible. This is paid. Why am I giving you something for free? Because I'm passionate about empowering people to choose an unconventional path. I walked away from a six figure corporate salary to live in a tiny home to start this podcast and launch my firm. I am here to help people plan a life based on their values. If that's not literally putting my money where my mouth is, I don't know what it's. Now I'm going to ask you to put your money where your mouth is. That is, if you're actually ready to fix this. Let's work together to figure out money. so that next time you're scrolling, you will know that you've officially taken action on your plans. This offering is for you if you don't know your net worth or how to calculate it. You are unsure of your cost of living or how much savings you need to take action. You don't know what money move you need to make next. Your dream of an unconventional life is built on your terms. This offering is for you if you want to feel confident about your money overall. You are seeking a permanent solution and not just a one -time motivational boost. And you want to learn about money from someone who shares your interest in breaking away from the norm. So what do you think? Are you tired of starting sentences with, someday when I, then go ahead and go to altamericandream .com and sign up for the Financial Freedom Calculator. Yeah, I love that. I just posted a marketplace, which is a, you know, it's a, it's a NPR show about the market. They just did a story about how housing inflation has gone up 400 or the prices of housing has gone up 423 % in the last 40 years, which is double the rate of inflation. And so that means that house. and housing costs are going up faster than regular costs rising. And so I think you're right that people are starting to see peek behind the curtain a little bit and realize that, you know, that dream may not be attainable, which is a huge, maybe process that we have to go through to let go. of the American dream, maybe some mourning is required of letting go of that dream. And yet, you know, the reality is, is that we can't have everything. And so what are the trade -offs that we're willing to make in order to achieve what is more important to us? And so as you're seeing that movement away from, you know, what is attainable, what do you think people are drawn to? It seems like at least from my understanding, and I can speak from my own personal experience, I think people are just moving towards more freedom in terms of how they spend their time. Like I worked in person as a professor for the first five years of my career, so up through 2019. And by 2019, I was kind of burnt out. Just like with changes in the political climate in the U .S., it really affected the way that schools were sort of, you sort of experienced things as a professor as well. So I actually went and switched towards remote teaching. Like I was fully online before the pandemic by fall of 2019. I did that for five years and that changed my life. It allowed me to be able to move wherever I wanted to move. In those five years, I moved to three different States. So I think that there's that piece of it. And when you can sort of like free up your time and you feel like you have more control over your tasks that you do every day, it helps your mental health and it helps you get more clarity on what you want in your life. And that's sort of how I've experienced things. So like the pandemic and going remote. All those things combined made me realize that like, this isn't what I want to do. I don't want to be a professor anymore. I don't want to work outside of the house anymore. So I just made a shift. And so that's what I think people are sort of looking towards more like, how do I get more, how do I get my time back? Right. Yeah. And I refer to this as time autonomy, which is, you know, personal agency over your time. And that is actually kind of the root of what we define as retirement, right? It's having control of your time. And so I think people have started to realize that retirement doesn't have to wait until you're age 70 and you're however many years away from, you know, moving on to whatever the next version of life is. Instead, that's something that we can balance more today if you kind of. are willing to make some trade -offs. So what are those shifts that you're trying to make? But I totally agree with you. I think people are wising up and realize that their time, especially after the pandemic, super valuable. Your time is super valuable. How do I get, how do I claw more of my time back, right? For sure, yeah. So for folks that are moving in that tiny house direction, what do you see as the opportunities and challenges for people who are attracted to a tiny house? I think like the biggest opportunity is that freedom piece. You know, the people that I talked to when I was doing the design work were so excited because they were able to have more time with their kids, more times with their families. Some people were actually buying them so that they could put them in their backyard for their kids. So I think for some people, it's going to be opportunity for more like community and more time with their family. For some people, I think it's going to be opportunity to save money and spend less and maybe travel. and then I think there's a creativity element that we don't really talk about too much, but I think that's something I really love about it. just the ability to be able to dream up your space and then design it and have it cost less because you there's less materials involved in your overall build. So you could put some pretty cool things in your tiny house that maybe you wouldn't be able to do in a 400 or $500 ,000 house. So I think the freedom time with family, less, less spending, getting to figure out what you want to do is like a huge opportunity. You're not going to find. by making any other sort of shift in your life, in my opinion. Yeah. And what about the challenges? gosh, there's so many, but I will say before I get into the challenges, I think that the challenges are outweighed by the opportunities and the benefits. So I think it's worth it overall. I think the biggest challenge is figuring out where you're going to put it and where you're going to put it and then also who's going to build it. Because now there are so many different builders available to you. If you put like a Google search in for tiny house builders. It's hard to know who to trust and what builder to go towards. Or if you want to build it yourself, you want to go the DIY route. Are you going to finance it all the way? Do you have the ability to pay for it out of pocket? Are you going to do a loan? So I think the money and where to put it are going to be the biggest pieces. And then also like you're saying, just the shifts that we have to make as we continue to move towards this different version. I'll put different in quotations, like different version of living your life. Just thinking about downsizing and what you have to let go of and maybe you have to move. So I think that's something that people aren't talking too much about is like, maybe you do have to move to a different state because it makes more sense to be in a tiny house community compared to like an RV park or just like a pot of land somewhere. So I think those are the big challenges because there's a lot of questions you have to answer before you can even put any money down on your tiny house. Yeah. Yeah. And my my move to my tiny house is intentionally a state move, right? And that is actually an opportunity because it allows me to live in a place that I couldn't probably afford to have someone build a house there because it's kind of remote. So I love, you know, the opportunity for people to align their geography with what is the lifestyle that they want to live to and to do that through tiny living. So I'm interested because you are a content creator. So you are collecting sort of an overall view of an audience which is growing tremendously that is seeing your content and you're seeing particular trends as far as generational perspective on who is interested in the tiny house lifestyle. And I think. you know, the non validated stats we see on the internet, you know, kind of breaks it down into, you know, 40 % younger people and 40 % middle aged people and 40%, you know, more like retiree downsizers. What do you think about, you know, the generational segmentation of those folks headed down this path? Yeah, sure. I think that what I see on my side, like data wise is that the majority of the people watching my channel are in that like 45 to 65 plus range. And I think that that fits with what some builders are saying in terms of who are the people that are buying the tiny houses. And while I do think that millennials are kind of, they're a big part of the movement, I'm a millennial myself, I don't think that millennials have the money right now to be the group that's buying them in like a large quantity, but I do see a lot of millennials sort of building them themselves. So I would say if you were to break it up by like people who are going the traditional route, which is like paying for it out of pocket, maybe they sell their house to buy the tiny house. maybe that's in the 45 to 65 plus range. But if you're looking at the people that are building it themselves, trying to find creative ways, going the van route, that might be like younger demographics too, which makes sense. Cause I think that that fits with sort of like the remote worker, sort of like traveling the country sort of vibe, like that sort of thing. So that's what I would say is kind of like split in terms of who's buying them and how they're buying them. Yeah. And I take it from, you know, other conversations that I've had that really the younger, younger tiny house buyer is held up by the challenges on the financing. And so as soon as we bring a lender to the table, who's really embracing this, then that will change as soon as the path is a little bit more paved for the first time home buyer, that will change things dramatically. So if any listeners out there know of anybody in and lending, definitely, you know, put a bug in their ear because you know, you just never know. So, Speaking, you know, you mentioned that you're a millennial. So how is it that this has appealed to you specifically? It doesn't sound like it's so much from a downsizing perspective. Certainly you've talked about some time autonomy piece and that. Is there anything else about this that really just resonated with your values? Not that you speak for all millennials, but kind of what is your thoughts on that? I think part of it also, I think a big thing with my generation's passive income. So I think another aspect of the tiny house movement that is getting a lot more traction definitely in YouTube is Airbnb is in the short term rental potential. So I think that, you know, for some people, you know, there's this idea of like, well, maybe I'll buy a house so I have the land and I'll put a tiny house in the backyard. They would buy like a cheaper house somewhere. And then you can rent out the tiny house or you could live in a tiny house and rent out the larger house. I think that appeals to me too, because I think that the more experience you can get in different areas in terms of where your sources of income can come from. I think my generation focuses a lot on having multiple sources of income. And so the tiny house movement offers that at a much cheaper rate than if you were to get into real estate investing where you have to put in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of us don't have like 300 K lying around to like buy a house or flip it, but. maybe they have like $50 ,000 to build it themselves and then turn it into an Airbnb. So that's something that appeals to me. And I think that that's something that appeals to millennials too, outside of this sort of like just the freedom piece and being able to just sort of take control of your time. What about the community thing? I'm seeing so much on the Instagram, right? Which I share this mentality. Can I just bring all of my friends together and put together a tiny house? village and like be around the people that I want to be around. Are you seeing that too, as far as the interest with millennials, that kind of notion of community and bringing people together? Not really. I think, I don't know if it's that we're used to being like more isolated, but yeah, I think even with the tiny house communities, the people I've talked to, like the majority of people living in tiny house communities are in that 45 to 65 plus range. So it doesn't seem like millennials are necessarily gravitating towards being in communities themselves so much as just finding a way to build wealth or spend more time with their families or just travel. But I could see it over time. I could definitely see a group of millennials getting together, going in on the land and then putting their tiny houses there. I definitely see that as something that's a possibility. But I think right now as we enter into our late 20s to like... early 40s, I think it's not really like at the forefront of our minds to sort of like create that form of community. So I do think a lot of millennials are not interested in being in one place. Like they want to be able to move around. So that's interesting. That must be my algorithm. My Gen X algorithm is trying to figure out like, I really like I'm kind of a little bit of a social isolationist, but there are some people I really, really, really like, and I'd like to be around them more. So. So interesting. So talk about the solutions. You've talked about your channel a little bit and how you're trying to make sure that you have every topic available to search. What else are you bringing to your audience to help them move forward? I think just like a variety of people on the channel is something that's really important to me. So just sort of like in addition to trying to answer as many questions as possible, just making sure that if I want to answer the question of, who's a builder you can go to, then I'm not only picking the same type of builder so that there's people that build like shipping containers, there's people that are doing the more traditional builds, there's people that specialize in like ADUs, there's a variety of people that have gone tiny, not even in the US too, like sort of like branching outside of the United States so that people can see what's going on internationally. And I think there's a tie between the tiny house movement and trying to improve society in terms of like affordable housing, that sort of thing. So just opening up the conversation to talk about what is the tiny house movement? Like what sort of topics relate to tiny house living, like health or finances or housing and affordability and travel. So just sort of like creating a lot of different options for people and just trying to keep it as informative as possible and authentic and fun too. But I really do want to make sure that people can get a lot out of each of the videos to really learn something. Yeah. Yeah, good. It is lots of topics. We will both be at this work for years and years to come, especially since things are changing so fast and, you know, new people entering the space all the time. A really fun community to be a part of, too. Everybody's super welcoming. So please share with listeners how they can find you and your content. Yeah, sure. So you can find me on YouTube, just at Make Things Tiny, all one word. You can find me on Instagram at the same handle minus the at sign. And then I also have a website. So www .makethingstiny .com. That's for the consulting side of things, which I'm sort of like still ironing out what that's going to look like. But just if you have any questions or you need help in your tiny house journey, I'm here for you guys. And I'm really excited to just be a part of people's journeys in any way that I can be. So awesome. Well, Mick, thank you so much for being on Less House, More Moolah podcast and sharing your perspective on generations and. segmentation and motivations and all of that. I think that was super valuable to get some insight into what you're seeing of people's interest and hurdles and all of those things. So thanks for sharing. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you. Awesome. Hey, I'm honored that you listened to this episode of Less House More Mullah. I hope something in it will help you continue to move toward a life aligned with your values. Every algorithm out there is trying to tell us what to prioritize, but we get to choose. If you haven't ever identified your key values, I have a free resource on my website to help you. Just have to go to thetinyhouseadvisor.com. It's the tiny house. adviser .com. At the bottom of the page, you can grab the Tiny Life Values Worksheet. When we design a life around what is our core truth, we shortcut to deep fulfillment. See you next Thursday. Please see the show notes for important disclosure regarding the tiny house advisor LLC and this episode.