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Just over a year ago, my family and I owned a big house. Actually … I mean we owned a BIG HOUSE.
The “American Dream” embodied in brick and mortar form.
Forget 2,500 square feet and 0.33 acres. Our house was 4,500 square feet with a large finished basement set on 11.5 acres. It even had a huge in-ground pool. This house was so big that it had two staircases!
Now, I know that you are probably thinking that I must have inherited some money or perhaps robbed a bank in order to afford such a house. One of my friends even jokingly referred to me as a drug kingpin and to my house as a compound. However, this type of house in my little town in Michigan costs probably less than a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.
The point is that my house was very large and I didn’t have to pay too much to be able to afford it.
So … why did I sell it?
The most important reason is that houses … and material objects in general … do not make a person happy. I am happy because I am able to spend time with my family. I am happy because I get to spend time in nature and time working out. I am happy because I do meaningful work. I am not happy because I sleep in a 300 square foot bedroom. I am not happy because my basement is 60 feet long by 40 feet wide. I am not happy because I could choose any one of 6 bathrooms to go potty in. Yup … there really were 6 bathrooms.
These things didn’t make me unhappy (except when I was cleaning the bathrooms), they just didn’t significantly add to my level of happiness.
My level of happiness, and the pursuit of happiness in general, is something that the founders of the United States were thinking about when they started the country. Even urban planners were thinking about happiness and owning a little piece of the “American Dream” as they expanded cities from an urban core to suburbs around the city and then to exurbs farther out of the city.
We all want to increase our level of happiness and I used to think that a larger house would automatically make me happier. Fortunately for me, it did not!
If a larger house made me happier, then I would always need a larger and larger house. My current house would never be large enough and I would always be a little bit unhappy because I don’t have the biggest house on the block, or in the subdivision, or in the town, or in the county. There would never be an end to my need for a bigger house.
Fortunately for me, a larger house does not produce happiness! It produces larger bills. It produces the need to work more as I pay for it. It produces more chores as I clean it and cut the lawn. It even produces a great knowledge of pH levels as I cleaned and chlorinated my pool. It did lead to some enjoyable times running around the yard and some large parties that we were able to host at our house … but, as a whole, the house did not produce a ton of happiness.
So, my family and I moved a little while ago. Our new house won’t qualify us for the “Tiny House” movement, but the house and yard are significantly smaller than our previous house.
It has only been a bit over a year since we moved in, but I can probably say that we are a little bit happier. We can travel more! We can walk to friend’s houses and bike to the downtown boardwalk! We can be satisfied that we are hurting the environment a little bit less through our utility bills!
Most importantly, we can spend more time together as a family and with other friends. We aren’t cleaning 6 bathrooms, spending 3 hours mowing a lawn, or working dozens of hours more to pay for it all. Instead, we are enjoying the company of loved ones!
Tell us about your living quarters! What do you love about the place you live and what would you love to see change?
And thanks for reading!
~Nathan
Let’s keep living a great life … with the help of money. So what’s next?
- You can travel for free by using rewards credit cards.
- You can get motivated and get out of debt.
- You can check out the next post or the previous post and continue to learn.
But no matter what you decide to do, let’s leave the ordinary behind and take action today!
2 Comments
Dan
We have the smallest house on our street. We have actually had two “friends” comment that they thought our house “should have been a bit bigger”. I wanted to ask if they would be prepared to pay the extra on the mortgage. Happy with our house size, and we plan to move out of the big smoke to the country later down the track and use the difference in equity for income. People are too materialistic that it traps then.
Life Before Budget
“Keeping up with the Joneses” is alive and well. Congrats on not falling prey to that trap by following your “friends.”
Contentment with what you have, not the size of your house, is one of the keys to happiness.