When I think about the idea of downsizing to living in a Tiny house, my first thought is, “Oh my God, I need to figure out how we’re going to be able to do this.” In other words, I need some tips on planning for our Tiny House!

And so the search began. I started looking up websites, and blogs, and videos, and podcasts, and books galore. I needed to get as much information as I possible could. I needed to be prepared.

But where does one even begin? I’ve already started talking a bit about downsizing, and I will continue to do so as we progress in our journey towards living a more minimalist lifestyle. But aside all that, where do we start to prepare ourselves for the adventure we are about to embark on?

The first thing that came to my mind was reasoning.

Make sure you know WHY

This tip can literally be applied to any facet of your life, but especially when it comes to a big (financial) decision like building or buying a Tiny House.

If you aren’t sure about something, you should probably do a little bit of self reflection and figure it out. Now, I’m not saying that you should be 100% sure about everything – we are human after all, no one is perfect, everyone has doubts. But what I do mean is that you should make sure you ask yourself why you want to do this, and be mindful of the reality that you might want something for the wrong reasons, or for no reason at all.

As for us, we had our own personal and individual reasons as to why we wanted to build our own Tiny House, such as:

• Financial Stability
• Environmentally Friendly
• A very personalized home that meets our every need
• Sustainability
• Self-sufficiency

Make sure you know HOW

Now, I’m not going to pretend to know how to fully build a house on my own – but fortunately, I have friends and family who do.

I never wanted to start this adventure before figuring out at least some parts of the “how.” I am so lucky to have such wonderfully talented and skilled family that I am confident a lot of it will work out very well. For starters, Max is trained in woodworking, insulation, plumbing, and welding. My dad used to be a carpenters, and so are half of his brothers. My step-sister’s boyfriend is a plumber, and a family friend is an electrician. And lots of other family members and friends are very supportive and willing to lend a helping hand through the entire project.

The one big “How” that we – and most people – worry about, is how to finance the build. We do have quite a bit of money saved up for it, and will be using it little by little as we begin our journey. However, we will definitely need financial help, either in the form of a loan, or as a credit line. We’ve already met up with a financial advisor, because we are looking to buy land before we start the build, although we haven’t gotten to the final stages of doing the application.

There is also a LOT more stuff that goes into the whole “how” process, but the important thing, I believe, is to make sure you keep thinking about it and talking about it so that you have some part of it figure out. And if sometimes you don’t, that is completely OK.

Make sure you know WHEN

This has been the toughest challenge for me – time frame. You can’t just rush into things – really, you can’t rush into anything. Timing and planning is very important, especially when you’re talking about a big investment. Personally, I’m a rusher. When I get an idea, I want to get it done, I don’t want to wait around. But obviously, without proper planning, that idea would never be half as well executed as it should be.

We first started talking about the idea of building a Tiny House about 2 years. The idea had already been on my mind for a while, but it didn’t seem realistic for where I was at in my life back then. But all of a sudden, I had this very skilled boyfriend who was even more dedicated to the idea than I was, and things started to take shape.

That first year, we attempted to make plans, start building a mini model of what we thought it should look like. Unfortunately, we did not share the same vision and we had a very hard time making compromises. Definitely off to a rough start.

We put the idea on the back burner for a while, because we weren’t even where we wanted to be yet – at that point we were both living in Alberta, and we knew we wanted to be building and living in New Brunswick. A couple of months went by and we started mentioning it again. The Tiny House project  still held just as much room in our hearts as it did when we first talked about it. Alright, I told myself. This is actually something we’re doing!

And when I finally felt like it was a realistic goal that was achievable because we knew the “why” and the “how,” I forced myself to try to plan out the “when.” For me, that was in the foreseeable future. For me, this whole project was a two-year plan. One year to find land and start planning the whole thing out, then one year for the actual build. Side note: Setting aside only for year for the build is due to the fact that Max and I don’t work all year round so we have a lot of time at home to work on it. Also, my dad is retiring soon so that’s gonna help too.

Another reason why I hope that this will be a two year plan is because I’m tired of paying rent, and the sooner we make the investment, the sooner we will start saving more money.

Now we just have to wait and see if it’s actually possible or not. And another tip I should make sure to add is:

Always be flexible.