Living Small: The Beginning

airstreambefore1

Remember how I told ya’ll living small was the answer? Well, when I meant small, I meant 31 feet of small!

This weekend George and I picked up our new-to-us home. We will live in this 1978 Airstream Sovereign for the next year to save money and get out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Is it an extreme scheme? Yes. Do I like to rhyme? Yes.

But seriously, folks, sometimes extreme schemes are necessary to make extreme changes. And you know what? I feel unusually calm about our plan– and I’m never calm about anything. I think this crazy ideas is actually going to work. By cutting out our major expense, rent, we will be able to save the majority of our paychecks. We will also cut out our water bill, (we’ll be using well water) and cut down on the electric bill.

We paid $5,000 for this beauty and we are planning on putting about $1,000 worth of renovations into her. We have already sold a bunch of unnecessary stuff to make up for the initial costs and in the next few weeks, we plan on selling a lot more at flea markets and online.

We will truly be living small and testing our ability to distinguish want from need. And of course, I’ll be posting our progress along the way.

Have you ever schemed up an extreme idea to save money? Did your plan work? I want to hear about it in the comments!

love and airstreams,
melanie

 

 

15 thoughts on “Living Small: The Beginning”

    1. lovelibrarianmelanie

      Haha, thanks. We are definitely going to be the coolest people in the old folks home!

  2. ctanktforever

    Hello Melanie. Thanks for browsing my way!
    Love your new project! I’m excited to see your progress. You guys WILL have a Blast!
    Christy

  3. jasminecara

    Hi Melanie! Thanks for liking my blog post! Figured I’d stop by and take a look at yours and I really love what your doing here! I can’t wait to see the progress you guys make. I’ve only come by your blog this once and you are already inspiring me! 🙂

  5. msbonbontan

    Hi Melanie! Definitely an inspiration! I tried looking for airstreams for sale and I could not find anything close to $5000. Any suggestions where to look? I would love to do this one day.

    1. lovelibrarianmelanie

      Ms. BonBonTan- We found our on Craigslist! Our airstream is definitely a “fixer-upper” too which helped lower the price. I would also talk to people you know about it. I found a surprising amount of people I knew actually owned an airstream after we bought ours. I had no idea! Some folks even wanted to sell their airstream to us! I’d put out my “feelers” in social media and stalk Craigslist if I were you. Hope this helps!

      Melanie

      1. lovelibrarianmelanie

        Are you in the Philippines, Ms. BonBon? That would make your price point much higher too! In America airstreams are easier to come by since they were manufactured here.

  6. Pingback: Things I Wish I Knew Before Living Full-Time in an Airstream | love library

  7. James Mckoy

    Your so lucky, that airstream of yours, totally un-renovated would be between $70-90,000 in Australia. A new 25 foot model is $135,000 AUS!

  8. rebeccarogge

    Did you ever do a post on the process of downsizing and getting rid of most of your belongings? My husband and I are in the process of looking for an Airstream to live in, but I’m totally overwhelmed by the “in-between” part. How soon should I start getting selling things? What if I sell everything, and we still haven’t found an Airstream? What if we find one quickly and then it takes forever to sell our things? (I don’t mind donating a lot of it, but obviously would prefer to make some money off the bigger items.) I’m also at a loss to know the best way to sell … everything. I’m pretty experienced selling on both Craigslist and eBay, but this feels like a whole different ball game. Anyway, sorry to overwhelm, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this 🙂

    1. melanie Post author

      Hey Rebecca, good question! I’m spilling the beans, but I’m actually am writing an e-course about that right now. I don’t think a blog post would be comprehensive enough. In the meantime, you might be interested in these posts:

      http://wp.me/p3FoBC-qK (25 ways to declutter your life)
      http://wp.me/p3FoBC-kp (How to make money at flea markets)

      I also do consulting for people who are interested in living in an Airstream full-time. You can email me if you have more questions about that: asmalllifemelanie at gmail. com.

      I hope I’ve helped a bit!

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