Are you thinking about downsizing your home?
It could be that you have too much space in your home. Or perhaps you are recently divorced or otherwise forced to downsize.
Such a big change can be intimidating. But don’t worry; we have good news.
There are plenty of great reasons you should be happy to downsize. Check out these 10 awesome benefits of downsizing the family home.
1. It’s Good for the Environment
Yes, downsizing your home is good for the environment. Why? Because a larger home uses up more resources than a smaller one.
For example, heating and cooling a large house consumes more energy. When there are not enough people living in the house, that energy is wasted on heating and cooling empty rooms.
By moving into a more appropriately-sized, smaller home, you waste less energy. And, it frees up your larger home for an appropriately large-sized family. Thus, downsizing is the environmentally responsible thing to do.
2. It Helps You Organize Your Life
Moving, in general, forces you to organize your life and possessions in ways you’ve been avoiding. But that’s even truer when the house you’re moving into can’t fit everything you now own.
Downsizing your home means downsizing your unnecessary excess of stuff. As daunting and unfortunate as this sounds, de-cluttering your life is actually very liberating.
For one thing, it helps you break free from the unhealthy habit of hoarding. You’ll learn to let go of unnecessary items.
And that means you’ll fill your new home with only the most useful and meaningful of your current possessions. This purging experience will also teach you to make wiser and more meaningful purchases in the future.
Next, you can have a moving sale to sell purged items and furniture for cheap. You’ll have fewer items to move which makes the process easier and cheaper. And you can use the garage sale money for the move and for buying nice, new items.
This also increases your generosity. Selling things for cheap helps those in need. And whatever isn’t sold can be donated.
3. You’ll Have Less Housework
Oh, what a joy it will be to have less housework! It takes much less care and cleaning to maintain a smaller living space.
Less square footage means less vacuuming. Having fewer possessions means less dusting. If your yard is smaller, there’s less yard work to do, too. Even decorating for holidays will take less time.
This gives hours of extra free time every week. What will you do with all this extra time?
4. It Saves a Ton of Money Upfront
In addition to your moving sale, downsizing your home should save you a ton of money right off the bat. Automatically, smaller homes tend to be cheaper, whether you rent or own.
If you’re selling your home, you’re likely to profit from the sale. Moving into a smaller home means this money will go towards a smaller mortgage. And that means smaller mortgage payments and/or smaller payoff time.
If you’re downsizing into a rental, the monthly payments should still be lower. And if you’ve sold your house, you can use the money from the sale however you’d like.
5. You’ll Also Save Money on Bills
No matter what, moving to a smaller house will save on other bills, too. You’ll use less energy for heating and cooling. And if you have a smaller lawn, it takes less to water it.
However, if you move to a location with a higher cost of living, the price of these utilities may be more expensive. In this case, your utilities bills might actually increase. But, fortunately, there are still more bills you can save on when downsizing.
Regular maintenance, such as roof repair or flooring replacement, is definitely cheaper for smaller properties. That’s true for landscaping as well. Even having fewer light bulbs to replace will save you money.
Since you’ll have less cleaning to do, you’ll spend less per year on cleaning supplies. Even professional cleaning is cheaper when you have fewer rooms.
6. You’ll Finally Pay Off Your Debt
In addition to reducing your mortgage, all these monthly savings make it easier to quickly pay off other outstanding debts. Paying a few hundred more on each credit card bill can shave years off your repayment period and save thousands of dollars in interest!
The average household pays $904 on credit card interest per year. But pay them off, and those bills are gone forever! That means hundreds more saved per year.
Alternatively, you could pay off student loans or your car.
7. You Can Save More for Retirement
You can also use your extra savings to store up more for retirement. Putting just a portion of this savings toward retirement will drastically boost retirement funds.
This could allow you to retire sooner. Or it can mean more spending money during retirement. That opens more options on how to spend your retirement, such as traveling the world.
8. You Can Put Your Adult Children Through College
If you’re downsizing because you’re an empty-nester, you can use your savings to pay your college kids’ tuition. This is great news if you were never able to save for their education as you’d wanted.
Or perhaps it’s you who were never able to go to college. Now you can finally afford your own higher learning.
9. You’ll Have Less Stress
As you can see, your smaller home means less housework, less clutter, and less debt. It also means better spending habits, more security, and more time and money to do the things you’ve always wanted.
It means more freedom and a better-organized life. You can’t ask for a better scenario for reducing stress than downsizing.
The move itself is a taxing ordeal. But the lasting benefits of downsizing far outweigh the stress of moving.
10. You’re Free to Invest Elsewhere
Lastly, it’s never a good idea to have all or most of your money invested in the same place. Let’s say most of your money is invested in your house. Then a fire comes and it’s all gone.
Having other significant investments you can pull from can save you in a time of crisis. These other investments could include stocks, a second property, or a straightforward “emergency fund.”
Downsizing the Family Home
There’s no need to worry about having to downsize. As you can see, downsizing the family home is one of the best things you can do. Keep these benefits in mind so you can tackle this transition with confidence.
Now check out 7 Advantages of Selling Your Home “As Is” for Cash.
