Downsizing sounds like a failure–we didn’t live up to our dreams.

Maybe we need to see it a different way!

Every Wednesday here at To Love, Honor and Vacuum we talk marriage. This whole week has been about finances in marriage, and today I want to take a step back and ask: could downsizing help your marriage? Let’s give you some fodder to think about and share with your husband!

Look at that picture of that house.

Small, isn’t it? And yet the majority of North American families in the 1950s lived in something that looked pretty much like that. After World War II, we radically expanded the idea of home ownership. Instead of renting, people bought these little houses, and they, by and large, thrived in them.

Was it tight? You betcha. Often three bedrooms with four or five kids, so 2-3 kids would have to share a bedroom. Bunk beds became major furniture items. The living room was small, so people sat on the couch and the floor to watch TV. Kids did homework at the dining room table.

My husband grew up in a house like that: four boys, one bathroom, small kitchen, under 1000 square feet. And they survived just fine.

In fact, I’ve heard it said that the quality of sibling relationship is inversely proportional to the size of the house.

The smaller the house is, the closer kids turn out to be, because they have to play together!

I think that may be true for families as well. When we first had our children we lived in a tiny apartment in downtown Toronto. The kids would get grumpy if we stayed in that confined space too long, so everyday we’d do an errand: the library; a playgroup; the YMCA; the museum on free days. We didn’t spend money, but we got out of the house. And when we went out, the kids had my total attention. They used up a ton of energy. Then, when we got home, they’d play together better and leave me alone a bit more.

When we moved to Belleville and lived in a medium sized house, suddenly it was easy not to go out everyday. And I noticed we were missing something important. So we resumed our habits of daily outings.

We had a great life when we lived in a small apartment, and we were able to save in those days for a small house. But the most important thing, to me, was that we were together more.

What if you’re missing out on relationships and family time that you could have because you’re focused financially on the wrong thing?

Disposable income, you see, is directly related to expenses, and not just income. Lower the expenses, and a job is not as much of an issue. Increase the expenses, and you have to work–a lot.

Some of the thorniest reader questions that I get on this blog have to do with work. Someone’s working 60 hours a week at two different jobs, and someone else is working full time as well to pay off debt, and they have no time together and no time with their kids. Both of them work opposite shifts and have no time for sex. They’re in so much debt that they fight all the time and the kids are picking up on the tension.

Money problems can wreck marriage.

But money problems are largely the result of choices–choices that we make about what kind of life we want to live.

What if we could decide to live a smaller life? What if living small could actually help us to love much larger?

Let’s do a little thought experiment here to see what I mean. What was the quality of life like for people growing up in those tiny homes? Of course, so much depended on the family. But the size of the home was not necessarily bad because people adjusted. It was all they knew. Let’s also remember that in most parts of the world, far more people are squeezed into far smaller spaces than even that house represents. We are the strange ones, living with our huge homes. Our grandparents, in these small homes, were not strange. They were more the norm.

What did people do with less space? The kids played in the living room together, or in the basement. They didn’t hang out in their own rooms, away from their siblings. They went outside more since inside was cramped, and thus they got more exercise, even in the winter. They didn’t spend as much time on television, because families usually only had one, and sometimes Mom and Dad would want to watch their programs, and the kids had to scatter. They played board games together. They made Lego. They used their imagination.

And that was okay.

Do We Dream Big in the Wrong Way?

When you were 13, did you love bridal magazines? Did you stare at the pictures and imagine what your own wedding would be like? Many of us did. But many of us still do–we just replace the bridal magazines with Home & Garden, and we dream of a beautifully decorated, spacious home. We want to have “arrived”.

But what if that space and luxury comes at the expense of massive amounts of your time–or your husband’s time? And what if there’s another way to peace?

We can surely survive on less than we think, and yet at the same time society is lecturing us that we need more–and we’re believing it.

What if We All Collectively Decided, “Enough”!

Imagine how we could change the culture if we just said, “Enough!”. Enough credit card debt. Enough working round the clock to afford all the latest gadgets and the big cars. Enough stress from living beyond one’s means. Enough of both of you working opposite shifts and never seeing each other.

Perhaps you need two incomes, or shift work, to get you to the minimum that you can afford a house, even a small one. That’s okay, as long as you’ve prayed about and you’re trying to meet your family’s NEEDS, not WANTS. But many of us are on a treadmill trying to meet WANTS, and it doesn’t work.

The Benefits of Downsizing

The best thing some people could do is to sell their home and downsize. Buy a used car instead of a new one. Eat out less. Learn to save money on the big things, like electricity, insurance, utilities, car payments. And learn to save money on the small things, like groceries, eating, shopping. Many women basically “earn an income” by staying at home and putting a lot of time into saving money!

Is downsizing fun? It can be! Think of it like a challenge to make the money last.

Give up some extracurricular activities with the kids, but replace it with fun family time, where you play family board games or have parties every week. Stop going out for dinner and have people over more. All of these things are “fun”.

Our society cannot go on with so many living beyond their means. We are crushed in debt at every level–personal, state, federal. We have built a beautiful society, but it is built on sand. One day it will come crashing down, as it has already begun to. That’s why, when I was raising our kids, one of my biggest aims was to teach them how not to need a lot of stuff. And they both are the best thrift store shoppers and budgeters and planners that I know!

But let’s go beyond just saving money. Let’s ask: can you change your lifestyle so that you can actually enjoy life more?

• Can you downsize your house so you’re not as burdened by debt?
• Can you move to a cheaper neighbourhood?
• Can you move to a whole different city where the cost of living is much lower?
• Can you or your husband stop working an insane job and start a small business that you’ve always to?
• Can you drastically reduce your expenses so that you don’t need to do the shift work anymore?

Because it all comes down to this:

Can money be the vehicle that you help others with, instead of something you’re always desperately worried about?

For some it’s a hard switch, because you’re already living bare to the bone. For many of us, though, we just need to change our habits.

Tell me in the comments what you think. Have you ever downsized? Have you ever chosen to forego something big? What did it feel like? Let us know!