Are tiny houses/vanlife a good idea or is it all just cope?

Solid Snek said:
This. I remember seeing globohomo propaganda on TV a decade ago - Daily Show or Colbert or something like that - about how cool it would be to live in a box and have the Democrats own all your property. I thought it was bizarre at the time, but then I started reading Malthus, and the usual suspects' attempts to normalize low standards of living suddenly didn't seem so mysterious.

A tiny house on a large parcel of productive land would be fine, but living in a pod and eating bugs is definitely a cope.
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Isn't Japan essentially like this in the major cities? You pay exorbitant amounts for a small one bed apartment in a major city like Tokyo or Osaka. I think the majority of people are renters vs land owners there as well.
 
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Rebranded trailer. The elites trying to prepare the populace for losing property rights. Here's your box and be happy. Isn't it cute? Watch the hundredth show about how even large families are happy to live with 1 foot space each and totally won't end up with a break up or murder. Why else would there be all this propaganda about it? Same with the minimalist decorating and the endless shows and magazines promoting it. Everything is white, tans, and greys. Your home, the walls, the decorations are all bland. Cheap furniture. Disposable products. Colorless standardization. Never have humans had so many choices, but everything is the same. It's all to demoralize and make it feel more just like a random place you sleep and not like a home you love. People become more comfortable moving because there is nothing personal to the property. Communities fall because there is no emotional tie to the property or the neighborhood. It's all part of the plan.
 
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Tiny houses, van conversions, and even off-gridding as a concept are nice and in theory solve a lot of housing issues. The problem with them imo isn't so much the lifestyle, but the endless government meddling. From taxes to zoning and code laws, there is a lot of work and research that go into making the choice to go any of those routes and imo a lot of people are unprepared when they jump into the fad. That is the second and more apparent problem: it's been cool for the last few years to get a tiny house.

Because of the rise in interest and demand, the cost for such living has skyrocketed. It's not exactly cheap anymore. Cheaper than an average home? No question. But it can turn into a money pit real quick if you don't have a plan and most of the people you see online living their best tiny life are loaded or have access to money. When they do their cost break downs, they never even give the full picture either for the average person.

It's cheaper long term and easier too to just buy and maintain a single wide. Tiny house people love to act above the trailer life, but in reality, they're a step or two downgrade from a fucking trailer in every way lol.
 
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Why would deliberately lowering living standards solve anything lol
 
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Pissmaster said:
It'd be fun to have a winnebago as a second little home that I could park next to my mansion that's so fucking big it has empty rooms I don't even know what to do with so I just fill them up with cat litter and use them as gigantic litterboxes for my one cat
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If you have a mansion, might as well go all out and get a fancy restored Airstream trailer to park beside it. That curved aluminum body is classic and looks great.
 
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Car Won't Crank said:
Isn't Japan essentially like this in the major cities? You pay exorbitant amounts for a small one bed apartment in a major city like Tokyo or Osaka. I think the majority of people are renters vs land owners there as well.
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It's not an exorbitant amount at all compared to US cities. If you want to live in tokyo and don't mind a 10 minute walk to a train station $1000 will get you a small 2br. My first apartment was about $500 and was the size of a dorm room, but I was also 30 minutes from the city center.

People are renters more often than not though because houses are a depreciating asset. Most opt to tear down a house and rebuild a new one when buying a plot and you're hard pressed to ever see something from before the 90's for sale.
 
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gampboonerisms said:
I bought a 450sqft house. I know what I want in life and a tiny house is perfect for me. when you use the space right, it won't matter how big your place is. I used to rent a 290sqft place. that's a little too small for me but i also had way too much stuff there (i got rid of a lot when i moved out of there).
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Jesus Christ..... My "domicile" is 650 square feet and that's about as small as I can go.

Howo, I'd be A ok with a 1200-1600 square foot house with a garage. Too bad those are NOT BEING MADE a anymore.
 
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Car Won't Crank said:
Isn't Japan essentially like this in the major cities? You pay exorbitant amounts for a small one bed apartment in a major city like Tokyo or Osaka. I think the majority of people are renters vs land owners there as well.
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Yeah in Tokyo, a 500 SQ foot apartment is very normal. Even thrnz the people live in those don't have much stuff so to speak. No car usually as public transit in Tokyo is amazing. Computer is probably a laptop, etc.
 
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You can only justify a tiny house if:

-It's not your only house. The smallest any primary dwelling should be is an 800-1000 sq ft A-Frame. If a tiny house is your bugout shelter somewhere out of town, that's actually pretty cool.
Or
-You live alone and possibly plan to live alone for the rest of your life. Suicide is preferable, in my opinion, but you do you.
Or
-You have a small house with a very large workshop or garage on-property. I think that's easy to justify, because you're at least not hurting for storage all the time, and have room for activities that aren't long distance biking or eating granola. A tiny house with a pole barn or quonset hut is a neat setup.
 
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Just get a trailer or learn to DIY a shipping container yourself. Don't pay some people ridiculous amounts of money for tiny house bullshit and definitely don't live in a van like a filthy hippie.

Finally, embrace the fact you're living in a glorified trailer. Put it on a nice rural property of a couple acres and do redneck shit like 4-wheelin' and muddin' and huntin'. Use the money you saved on an actual house to buy yourself a nice set of guns and fishing poles and have yourself a good time on the weekends.
 
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Vanlife is just a cope for people unsatisfied with renting. The living conditions are awful but they’re so desperate to ‘be someone’ that they choose to be the ‘van guy’. They’ll start a social media page… plaster the van in stickers… start blogging… but slowly inside the feeling of regret will be creeping up on them.

Living in a van doesn’t make you a ‘someone’, it makes you a faggot. Micro houses are no better, they might give you a permanent address but it still limits your options greatly in what you can do. Not to mention the price ratio is far from cheap, it being much more effective to just mortgage a small countryside home but that wont satiate these peoples lust for a modicum of individuality that they cannot create through personality so they must create it through their own brand of consumerism.
 
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Blamo said:
It is mostly a fad for people who only need a laptop to watch Netflix.

I think minimalism on some level can be a good idea to shift down economically so to speak. Of course the problem with minimalism is... you are not flexible. You lack tools, storage space etc. Your tool box is basically your credit card. Ultimately it depends who are you, what you do and how do you wish to use your house? I mean, if you are just a guy chilling with a laptop and building up some crypto wealth, sure why not. But be mindful that small houses make you dependent on getting tools and services more and going out a lot, because you can't do much at home.

I would say the frugal living beats minimalism, because one is designed to be cheap, the other is designed to look good on Instagram.
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What tools and services? I've lived in a tiny bug box for 10 years now and I've never once had to borrow or hire anyone to come fix anything or bring me any tools. Nor do I go out much, except to take walks in nature, but you can't do that in any sized house. I eat home cooked meals 7 days a week.

As for OP I think it's a bit of both. I personally couldn't live in a van, I need my indoor plumbing and a shower with good water pressure, but I would hate to have some giant house to take care of. Of course the situation would be different if I had kids. I don't agree that avoiding McMansions is just "a cope for people who can't afford it", in fact I think a lot of people in McMansions can't afford it either but have a strange fixation that it's what they're supposed to be doing with their life. Working all the time to buy things and buying things to justify said working.

All that said what is there really to lose in trying any of it if you're curious? Yeah you might take some financial losses if you buy and sell property in an unwise manner, but fuck it, that's what money is for. It's better than living your life afraid and always wondering "what if?" A group of internet strangers will never know the answer as to whether you'd enjoy it.
 
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longjohn said:
Tiny houses, van conversions, and even off-gridding as a concept are nice and in theory solve a lot of housing issues. The problem with them imo isn't so much the lifestyle, but the endless government meddling. From taxes to zoning and code laws, there is a lot of work and research that go into making the choice to go any of those routes and imo a lot of people are unprepared when they jump into the fad. That is the second and more apparent problem: it's been cool for the last few years to get a tiny house.

Because of the rise in interest and demand, the cost for such living has skyrocketed. It's not exactly cheap anymore. Cheaper than an average home? No question. But it can turn into a money pit real quick if you don't have a plan and most of the people you see online living their best tiny life are loaded or have access to money. When they do their cost break downs, they never even give the full picture either for the average person.

It's cheaper long term and easier too to just buy and maintain a single wide. Tiny house people love to act above the trailer life, but in reality, they're a step or two downgrade from a fucking trailer in every way lol.
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single wide, double wide, either way, trailers have pretty much no resale value. Houses usually gain value. Real Estate is a sure thing.
 
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For a man who paces a lot. It's a huge no. I mentally cannot live in tiny cramped areas especially with other people around. It would take a massive uprising if they try to evict me from my Real Estate.
 
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Small house that is laid out and designed/built well that you keep low on clutter: actually really comfy

Van or RV you live in full time: usually becomes hellish pretty quick. You need to find someplace eventually to deal with black/grey water and maintenance quickly becomes a issue. Gas mileage is also usually terrible and you will have $100+ gas bills every time you need to fill up. If you need internet, pray you find a service provider that let's you use your phone as a hotspot for cheap. Also, remember that many places won't deliver to PO boxes and you need a stationary address for taxes if you file. Parking can be a problem nowadays now that Walmart ended their overnight rv parking in most stores.
 
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Off-gridding is pretty fun, but the current trend leans more towards tiny homes being an actual replacement for city homes, which is a net negative overall
 
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