In the last seven years, 35-year-old Ryan Mitchell has saved more than $100,000, traveled the world, paid off his student loans, and started a successful business. And he says he owes it all to his 150-square-foot tiny house.
In 2009, Mitchell had just graduated from Western Carolina University with a master’s degree in human resources and was six months into what he calls his “first adult job.” Suddenly, he found himself unemployed: “My boss came in and said, ‘We’re closing the company. You’re all out of a job.’”1 He recalls feeling helpless and realizing he had to take a serious look at his living expenses if he was going to get by. He tells People:
“It’s hard for me to put into words, the impact is so profound. I attribute me living in a tiny house to me having a higher quality of life. It helped me to be more open to opportunities.”
“I realized half my income was going to rent, insurance and maintenance, and I said, I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but if I could eliminate housing from my budget, it would set me up to be in a better position.”1
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He discovered the tiny house movement online and knew right away he’d found his solution. He dug up information on the internet, and began saving up to build a house of his own design. (He now runs his own website that helps aspiring tiny house dwellers). He worked at a non-profit during the week, and he worked on the tiny house every weekend.
By the time he was finished, the materials for the house and the solar panels to power it cost him $30,000. The labor was free because he did it himself. The only other expenses were the help of a licensed plumber and electrician. He recalls that he had doubts when working on the project, saying:
“It took me a year and a half [to build], I was nervous that living in this tiny house wouldn’t work, that it wouldn’t be for me, but I told myself I only had to do it for two years to get to the break-even point.”1
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Confirmation that he had made the right decision didn’t end up coming from the house, but from the apartment he was sharing with a roommate during the process. Mitchell says:
“I realized I had boxes from when I’d moved in there that I’d never opened. I hadn’t needed whatever was in them for years. That opened my eyes to the role stuff played in my life.”1
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Mitchell says that realization made it easy to start getting rid of almost everything he owned to prepare for his tiny move. He donate some things, sold a few others, and kept a few things he decided he needed. He held on to a few books, some keepsakes like his yearbooks, but that was about it.
“In that process, it wasn’t just my housing I was rethinking, it was my whole life, my priorities and goals. I realized the thing that made me the most happy wasn’t stuff.”1
In 2014, Mitchell moved into his tiny house, which he built on land he says he helps pay taxes on (but doesn’t pay rent) in an upscale Charlotte neighborhood. An abundance of windows and natural light make the small footprint feel much larger than its 150 square feet. Mitchell says:
“My house is built just for me. All the counters are the perfect height for me, the closet was designed around my wardrobe and even the kitchen storage was designed for the foods I like to eat. It really is like a normal home. Everything is just on a smaller scale.”1
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The front door open straight into the living room. In the back is the bathroom and kitchen, and a queen size bed is located in a loft above. He admits, he sometimes misses having a guest room.
Thanks to his scrupulous saving and profits from his website, he ended up having some cash left after finishing the house and used it to launch a successful business. He says:
“I had an extra $20,000 that I took and started a co-working space and then sold for a big profit.”1
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He even wrote a book about tiny house living to help others, and runs his website full time. And while he says he’s loved the tiny house lifestyle, he is planning to live in a more traditional house sometime in the near future. He’s also hoping he will have enough money saved to retire by the time he’s forty. He added:
“The tiny house fueled all of it. A lot of people see it as just a stepping stone and that’s how I went into this. I was going to use this to enable things to build income, build wealth, [and eventually] build a more traditional house. That’s what happened. It let me start a business, helped me reduce my debt. It let me live life on my terms.”1
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