Home Squeezed Home: Why I Love Living In 160 Square Feet
Hello FOGA Readers!
We have a guest post today! Today we are featuring the awesomeness that is Radical FIRE. Radical FIRE is a 24-year-old financial consultant from the Netherlands who is working to retire early at 35. You can learn more about her on her About page.
We have been talking about her doing a guest post on FOGA for a while now, and one thing that always intrigued me was how she lives in 160 square feet. Now, you have to understand; I live in Florida. Most homes here are much bigger than they need to be. The average square footage of a home in my area falls between the 1800-2200 range. When we bought our 1866 sq ft home, it was one of the smallest & lowest priced homes (looking at either new construction or resale) in the area. Therefore, I was fascinated with her living in just under 9% of my current living space.
I’ve gone on long enough. Without further ado:
Home Squeezed Home: Why I Love Living In 160 Square Feet
Hi friends, I’m Radical FIRE and I’m excited to talk about my shared apartment life.
Full disclosure: I have never lived in an entire apartment without roommates. When I started studying I shared my apartment with three others. I was moving out when I finished studying, convinced that I would try to find a small apartment for just myself.
Things changed when I started working back in April 2018. I was living at my parents after I returned from my four-month trip to South America, looking for a job. As soon as I found one, I would be looking for an apartment. However, the job that I found was over 100 km (65 miles) away from my parents’ house. That would be okay. Due to traffic, it would take me over 2 hours one way. I was exhausted, and I decided that I was done with this situation. Within a week, I found a shared apartment, where I live again with three others.
Meaning that I have lived in a shared apartment for all of my life.
While I enjoy sharing the apartment most days, some days, I really wish I could have my own apartment. I love to chat with my roommates, cook with them, or have drinks with them. I don’t like when I have to actively ignore other people’s mess (no, I don’t clean it up for them), there are no clean plates left, or my bread mysteriously disappears. There are pros and cons of living in a shared apartment, and if you’ve lived with flatmates, you know what I’m talking about here.
Today I want to talk to you about how living in a 160 square feet apartment has benefited me financially. You don’t need to live a 1500 square foot apartment to feel happy. Here are my reasons why I live in a 160 square feet apartment and enjoy it.
1. It’s Cheap
Obviously, living in a 160 square feet room and sharing all facilities is cheap. I live in a city, reasonably close to the city center, and I pay $310 rent, including utilities and WIFI. That’s insanely cheap compared with would you would pay for a 1000 square foot apartment.
Ms. FOGA: This is crazy inexpensive. Nothing in my area is under $1000 a month if we are including utilities and internet.
When I went looking for an apartment in the city I live in now, the prices started around $1000 per month for an apartment that was far from ideal. It was not close to the city center, it was in a terrible neighborhood, or there were no facilities nearby. Call me spoiled, but I’ve always lived in the city center close to supermarkets and other facilities like bars and restaurants.
I was extremely happy when I ran into the apartment I live in now, which met all my demands and was extremely cheap.
2. Strive For Your Financial Goals
When I first learned about FIRE and the benefits that it could give me, I noticed that living in a cheap apartment already put me one step ahead in the game.
Whatever your financial goals are, you can achieve them by living in a smaller apartment and by paying less rent. You can start building your emergency fund, pay off your debt, strive for financial independence or early retirement.
Ms. FOGA: Living in our old apartment definitely allowed us to make some serious headway on saving for our down payment and eliminating debt. Would highly recommend it.
There are all these kinds of financial goals that you would LOVE to achieve, but somehow, you don’t. Living in a smaller place can be a good start of saving more.
Related: FOGA Goals Updates
3. You Decrease Your Wants
Moving is always a lot of work and to be honest, I hate it. Luckily when you’re moving from or to a small(er) house, you don’t have to move as much stuff.
When I left my other apartment to travel, I sold all my furniture to the next tenant. The only thing I took was my bed. When I came into my new apartment, I had only my bed to fill my room. Quickly I got a table and a few chairs from my grandma and a secondhand closet. That’s it.
When you don’t have too much space, you don’t feel the need to fill it with all this stuff. You don’t feel the need to buy all these new things to make your apartment cozy. Because let’s be honest, when you live in a 160 square feet room, it’s already cozy no matter what.
In the personal finance space, there is this continuous discussion about needs and wants. People think an awful lot of things are needs when they are actually wants. If you live in a single room it’s easy; you don’t need a lot. You might want it, but it’s not even an option because of space.
After some time, you realize that you don’t need as much as you thought you needed. It’s perfect just the way it is now. When you realize that your needs were really wants, that’s when you can decrease your wants and be happy with the things you have.
I realized that having a lot of clothing options was a want. I had only one closet, so I had to make use of it effectively. When I read why successful people wear the same clothes every day, I began decluttering and downsizing.
4. You Live Lighter
When you have decreased your wants, this will shine through every aspect of your life. You don’t need that fancy car, entertainment budget, big wedding, fill in the blank. Because you know you can do it without that.
Your life becomes simplified, you know the things you value, and you become lighter. You know what makes you happy and what fills your cup. So, you do more of what makes you happy and less of what doesn’t. You don’t have so much of the things that don’t make you happy, the things that used to weight down on you.
If experiences make you happy, you don’t need to buy more material stuff. You might as well impose a one-year clothing ban because buying more clothes doesn’t make you happy.
If quality things make you happy, you don’t need no buy more stuff. You will buy those beautiful Jimmy Choos, instead of shopping at H&M.
If your family makes you happy, you don’t need to work more. You will spend more time with them, instead of spending more time in your cubicle.
5. It Forces Good Habits
Besides all of that, it forces good habits. It forces you to edit the space, and move things around to make use of the space as efficient as possible. You stop accumulating things; not buying new things that you don’t want. It forces you to declutter, getting rid of the things that don’t make you happy.
Essentially, the things that I have in my room has a purpose. I have it because I love it, or because I use it. Small living spaces force you to keep it to the things you love and other essentials.
Since I’ve been selling things over the last few years, I’ve come to a realization of how little things I actually need. Not to say that I’m a complete minimalist, but I know the distinction between my needs and wants perfectly now.
One thing that I still struggle with though is keeping things organized. I’m coming home and I don’t hang my jacket and put my bag in the middle of the room. I go make dinner, eat it, and don’t clean up my plate. I remember to do laundry and I come back into my room: BAM, it’s a complete mess. Keeping things organized and on top of that is extremely important when you’re living in a small room.
Due to living in my current apartment, I saved around 75% of my income so far this year, which I feel incredibly lucky to do. A lot of it is due to the fact that I was able to keep my rent super low. If this was not the case, I would have saved much less for sure.
If you’re curious about how to save more than half of your income, you can read more about it here.
Photo by Evelyn Paris on Unsplash
In Summation
And that was Home Squeezed Home: Why I Love Living In 160 Square Feet by Radical FIRE. Hope you enjoyed it. 🙂
How big is your apartment? Would you be able to live in a smaller apartment?
If you’re interested in doing a guest post here at From One Geek to Another, feel free to reach out to me at fromonegeektoanother@gmail.com or on Twitter.
Until Next Time!
-Ms. FOGA
Yikes, I stopped and did the mental math and realized I’m reading this post in a 295 sq ft family room in our house which has over a dozen other rooms in it. I think the mental gap between rural boomer life out in the sticks and metro apartment living is more than I can comprehend. I’d hate to be surrounded by people and businesses. I love being surrounded by hundreds of acres of wooded wetlands that have no people but lots of wildlife. But we do share the concept that by controlling housing and other large costs you can reach FI. We did that by staying in this same paid for house for 40 years so far and by saving aggressively allowing us both to retire early.
Glad the article got you thinking Steve! I guess it’s all about what’s best for you at any given moment. I live in a medium sized city and not at all in the center, it’s more about saving money on rent so that I can speed up my way to financial independence.
I have to agree that it’s amazing to be surrounded by nature, that’s something that I aspire when I’m able to break free from the busy city. Living in a paid for house is an amazing hack toward early retirement – glad that worked for you!
Hi Steve. I know what you mean. Our great room (dining, kitchen, and living) is about 550 sq ft and then we have the bedrooms and baths on top of that.
Living in a smaller space/apartment definitely helps in saving funds. We were able to save up our down payment for our house and I was able to pay off all my debt by living in a crappy apartment just 15 minutes outside the main area. 🙂
Your house sounds great and I am glad staying in your home helped you both to retire early.
Thanks for reading!
I live in a house that’s about 1,200 square feet. I’d definitely have to downsize a lot if I moved to an apartment — even a two bedroom — but I could make it work if I had to. But 160 square feet would definitely be a problem for me. I’d have to switch to a queen sized bed to make sure I could fit!
Thanks for stepping by Abigail – I’m loving my home for now, but I need to scale up when I’m going to live together with my partner. Living on that space with two people won’t keep me sane for sure!
I have to say that 1,200 square ft home sounds like a dream. If you’re happy living in your current home and you can still save a good amount of money, that’s the most important thing. Living situations are very personal and can differ depending on situation, location, and preferences!
Love this! I’ve also never lived alone, and I’m good with that (unless you count the times I lived “with” my husband but he was gone on training etc when in the marines).
That’s amazing Angela! When you’re husband is not there I would say that is okay, as it would be inconvenient to take in someone for just the few weeks and kicking them out again when he is back lol
Months, but yes 😉
when i was single until my mid 30’s i always shared apartments. i had one little place that wasn’t too expensive by myself in a great neighborhood in a great city and mostly hated it. it turns out i like having people around! then i met mrs. smidlap and she already owned a massive 2800 sq. foot house where we live now with just us and a dog named banjo!. i like the place in that it was also cheaper than rent at the time and now it paid off but it’s way more than what we need. there are pictures of the dog on the website. cheers.
Lol yeah, you don’t know you like having people around until you’re living by yourself. I would love to have some time to myself every once in a while, but it’s great to have people to eat with, talk with, and generally having a lower rent helps.
I saw the dog on your website, he is too adorable! When you’re having a dog extra space is much appreciated – for them to play around. 2800 sq foot is huge, in a good way, you can always decide to move when you feel the need to size down!
Our family has been thinking about downsizing when we buy our next home. Our current home is about 1400 square feet, which at one point felt way too small but after getting rid of a lot of our stuff, we now have tons of open space and it honestly feels too big now. I don’t know if I could downsize to this small, but certainly a smaller house would be fine. I think it’s great that there are people who can happily live in smaller spaces. Maybe one day I will live in a significantly smaller space.
If you’re sharing your home with a family, for sure you would need more space! It’s a good thing that through getting rid of stuff you’re opening a lot of space – perhaps directly that stuff wasn’t costing you money, but indirectly you can save a lot by moving to a smaller home. Well done!!