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tiny living

Four Months of Living Tiny – Airstream Style

We are closing in on our fourth month of living tiny in our Airstream and things have definitely started to feel “normal”. In the beginning, the quirks of living in such a small space with another person plus four dogs was a bit overwhelming. At this point, we have worked through most of those kinks and barely remember what it is like to live in a normal sticks and stones house. I don’t even remember what it was like to take a shower with the water running continuously or what a normal size stove looks like.

We have come to LOVE boondocking. We have gotten very lucky in the places we have found to stay for free in that they have been some of the most beautiful, less trafficked, neighborhoods. It makes the days of staying in cramped RV parks worth it. In order to make the boondocking experience a little more enjoyable we will need to up our solar power game, but at this point, our little generator does just fine.

boondocking montana

We have visited some of the most amazing places in all of the world. Really. Over the last four months we have visited multiple state parks plus a few different national parks and Glacier National Park is hands down the most amazing place on earth. It has some of the most gorgeous lakes, mountains, glaciers, and wildlife we have yet to witness. And some of the friendliest folks! It is where we saw those three adorable grizzlies after all.

highline trail glacier

There really are some AWESOME grocery stores out there. Mr. TCP jokes that this should be called the Grand Grocery Store Tour. He doesn’t get as amped up about a good grocery store like I do. We have visited some of the most amazing, to me, grocery stores in the Western United States. About a year ago, I was following a family on Instagram who lives full time in their 30ft Airstream and they had posted about this great little locally owned grocery store in Missoula Montana called Good Food. All I could think about was, “Gee, I will probably never get to visit that grocery store.” But guess what, my dreams came true, and we visited Good Food in Missoula Montana just last week. I wish I had gone alone because Mr. TCP made a quite the scene in the middle of the grocery store regarding the cost of some bread. Granted, he has done very well up until this point, he hasn’t yelped at the cost of anything so I wasn’t too embarrassed when I heard from across the store, “SIX DOLLARS! FOR A LOAF OF BREAD! GET OUT OF HERE!” I immediately knew it was him because A. it sounded like him and B. he is known for yelling out the price of something when it finds it ridiculous. I agree, six dollars is a bit much so we didn’t buy the bread.

good food store

I have fallen in love with cows! In northern Montana their cows are “free range” and just roam all over the place. And they are everywhere. It’s just the cutest thing. One day, I’d love to have a little farm with farm animals such as cows. One thing that is growing amongst the hipsters and health nuts is buying a cow and having it proceeded so they have their very own “free range” beef. When I think of our little farmlet, I imagine raising cows for that purpose. However, I can see this getting out of hand quickly. As in, I’d never be able to let the cows go to the slaughterhouse and we would end up with a ton of old cows that have now become pets. Living in an Airstream, with no real place to park it, makes it a bit difficult to acquire farm animals, so I think Mr. TCP is going to push for our Airstream living as long as he can.

free range cattle

We have put ourselves in somewhat of a pickle. As some of you know, we have had some trouble leasing our duplex from afar but we FINALLY got it leased! Raise the roof. Before we were able to get the duplex leased, our tenants in the house asked if they could extend their lease through next year. We agreed to let them, I mean, why not? We had planned to just move back into the duplex when we got back, but fortunately (and maybe unfortunately) we found tenants. So at this point, we do not have anywhere to go “home” to. This should be interesting.

When we realized that we weren’t going to have anywhere to live when we got back to Texas, I thought I could start looking for a new property. Potentially another duplex, so I started to apply for a loan. Ha! Jokes on us. Apparently, my debt to income ratio is a bit much at the moment, which duh. It seems they are just giving home loans away so I figured I would qualify, but apparently, not. I feel like I make a great debt candidate. All of our properties are fully leased and generate a decent amount of income per month. So here we are, with our plan B no longer a viable plan at this point so we really are kind of up a creek without a paddle. Anyone have a nice driveway they want to lease out?? Joking aside, we will find a nice little trailer park in the Austin area to call home until we figure things out.

When I think about how this journey ends in just two months it makes me very sad. Knowing we will be going back to the hustle and bustle of Austin traffic, sitting in cubes, and living our old life gives me a small panic attack. This just means we will have to put it into high gear and figure out how to get back on the road!

August 11, 2016

Two Months of Living Tiny – Airstream Style

written by Mrs TinCanPlan

At this point, I am sure even our parents are tired of reading our blog but I am going to keep writing because, well, I kind of enjoy it. There is a service where you can have your blog turned into a book and that is my plan when we finish roaming around.

We’ve successfully reached the two month mark of living full time in our 27′ Airstream. In the beginning, we believed we were being extravagant with our 27′ Airstream opposed to the 25′ or 23′. Boy am I glad we landed with the bigger home. It affords us the opportunity to have hallway space and a designated “living room” and “bedroom” area which can be a game changer. Especially with four dogs.

After rereading my post about our one month milestone, I can say they all of the good things about our tiny lifestyle are still true one month later. I could even add to the list.

We are still laughing, a lot. While there are many time when it’s one of us laughing at the expense of the other, it still feels good to laugh. To add to this, we are not nearly as grumpy as we were back home. It helps that we no longer have a commute or deal with some people face to face. Now, we meander 10 ft from the bedroom to our desk. No traffic jams there people.

Having the flexibility to change our surroundings is priceless. There are days when we end up somewhere and it’s just not up our alley so guess what? We don’t have to stay. We can hitch up and head out. This my friends, is amazing.

We are both sort of introverts so that makes meeting new people kind of difficult. I am super awkward in social settings and usually say something that will embarrass both of us. Mr. TCP just generally doesn’t like most people so that keeps the social encounters at bay. However, when we do meet someone new it’s always a nice surprise.

I am being 100% serious when I say this, I have learned SO MUCH from Mr. TCP. First of all, he can spell. I cannot. This is HUGELY helpful when I am spelling something so incredibly wrong that even autocorrect isn’t picking up on it. Second, he reads wikipedia for pleasure so anytime we arrive somewhere new he has already read everything there is to know about the place and then proceeds to dump that knowledge on me. It’s great!

An update on the bad. While we are still spending money, it’s definitely slowed down since we got out of California. We are getting to dry camp more in Oregon which has been super nice. Don’t worry, it’s not in the middle of nowhere with no one around. The spot we found in Bend, OR is actually right smack dab in the middle of a highly trafficked bike trail with yuppies blowing through every hour on their $4,000 mountain bikes. We have some neighbors too which is good. We are in the market to purchase a different vehicle so that will fall under the “bleeding money” category but it is what it is.

Oh, and I still hate laundromats but I think I have found a solution. We don’t generally stay RV resorts because they have a lot of rules (read: limit on dogs) and are kind of stuffy BUT they do offer clean laundry facilities. If we have been staying somewhere were we didn’t have easy access to laundry facilities then we will find a nice RV resort to spend an evening. RV resorts are interesting places too. You know those expensive rigs that you rarely see anywhere? They are all at these resorts and they amaze me for some reason.

At the end of the day, we are happier, healthier and love this new way of living more than we had ever imagined.

June 16, 2016

One Month of Living Tiny

written by Mrs TinCanPlan

We hit our one month mark of living tiny a week ago. When we had originally thought of this new life, we didn’t really think it would happen. It’s one of those things you talk about but in the back of your mind it’s just too crazy. It’s something that “normal” people with “normal” jobs just do not do. I mean come on, we got married a year or two ago (who is keeping count anyway) we should be having babies! Right?

Here is a quick recap of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good:
We laugh a lot more than we did back home. Even at the annoying things. Well, I usually laugh while Mr. TCP is dealing with the annoying thing, but at least one of us is laughing. Right? You’d think spending so much time together would result in annoyances or just down right hatred of one another. It’s in fact done the opposite.

Downsizing is good for the soul. Or something like that. Living with less is actually fun. Transitioning into a much smaller space wasn’t as painful as you’d expect. Our home back in Austin was around 1250SQFT so we weren’t living in a macmansion to begin with. And clutter really bothers me so filling our home up with a bunch of stuff just doesn’t do it for me. Living small is perfect for us in that we can’t acquire much and picking up after ourselves has been an absolute must.

We waste very little. Just before we left town, we looked at our past water bill and noticed we had used 3,000 gallons of water. GASP! What the hell were we doing? Watering everyone’s lawn in the neighborhood? Six times a day? The Airstream can only hold 39 gallons of fresh water, well 45 if you include the hot water heater, and we go through that in about 4 days. If you do the math, that is roughly 300 gallons of water we are using on a monthly basis now. That is 10% of what we were using before. Obviously, we aren’t including the water we use at laundromats and any bottle water we buy at the store (which is very little). I’d say that is a win!

We are spending a ton of time outdoors. After I wrap up my work day, I am ready to get out of the Airstream so we head to the beach or the mountains. Whichever is closest. We ride our bikes to places we are wanting to explore rather than drive and we are walking the dogs. A lot. I’d say we are spending on average about 30% more time outside than we were in old life. And we spent a good amount of time outdoors before.

The bad:

Laundromats are, um, disgusting. While, yes, some might actually be clean, the thought of doing laundry where others have washed their clothes and other things is quite disturbing. However, on the business side of it. I’d love to own a laundromat. What a cash cow.

Clutter can happen fast! As I mentioned earlier, I am not a fan of clutter and so when you have a small space and stuff starts to pile up it can become a disaster zone quickly.

We are bleeding money it seems. A lot of big expenses seem to keep hitting us around the same time so that has been kind of painful. But such is life and if you plan right it doesn’t hurt too bad. If you ask Mr. TCP how bad it hurts he would say he has severed a few limbs.

The ugly:

Dumping stations. Yeah. It’s just as glamorous as it sounds. This is something that Mr. TCP has the joy of dealing with while I stand back and observe. It can be rather disturbing, have I mentioned that I am kind of a germophobe, so the thought of being in the vicinity of other peoples grossness just about does me in.

All in all, we absolutely love this new way of living and all it offers. It’s something we are truly grateful for and don’t take a moment for granted.

May 18, 2016