The Perfect Retirement! Debt-free in a Tiny Home w/ NO LOFT

And I turned to him and I said, I'm so freaking excited. Our expenses are probably an eighth of what they were in Kansas City. This is the greatest decision that we've ever made. Other than marrying each other. Yes. And then back in here, this is the biggest part of our home that we love. This is our happy place. We love our tiny home. Hi, I'm Jeff and I'm Pam. This is our tiny home at the Oaks on 37. We started looking into tiny house living a couple of years ago. It kind of all worked out timing wise that, OK, we're both retired. We decided, you know, we don't need all of the room that we have in this house. Let's go into a tiny house, live comfortably and be debt free and spend time with each other. There's nothing better than that. We had purchased the home, ordered it while on a cruise, emailing back and forth with the salesmen with all of our options and choices and secured the lot here at the Oaks on 37. We were just about to the end of the process of the ordering and was still on the cruise. And I turned to him and I said, I'm so freaking excited. I just we couldn't hardly wait to get here. We had never set foot in a tiny home or nor had we ever set foot here. And had both done and finalized without ever seeing either one of them in person. People think we're crazy for the way we did it. But we like nothing more than spending time together. So being in three hundred ninety nine square feet was never going to be an issue. Selling our home in Kansas City, we are able to take those proceeds. We paid cash for the house. We paid off all of the outstanding debt that we had. So now basically we're debt free. We couldn't have done that living in our in our large house. We knew this was going to be the last house that we were going to purchase. We went through line by line deciding what upgrades we wanted. And we I think we upgraded just about everything. All said and done, I think we paid. It was pretty close to 150. The community that we were ultimately looking for needed to be in a small town. We didn't want to be near a big city. Still have amenities close and just enjoy nature and the surroundings and the peacefulness. Mount Vernon being just twenty five hundred people. That sounded perfect to us. I think the biggest selling point for us for the Oaks was the the the family community feel. And owned by a family that was that really was a big selling point. Hi, I'm Brittany. Welcome to the Oaks on 37. We are family owned and operated, and we just came to love this town. And we just knew that there needed to be some really nice upscale, affordable housing for people here. This is actually our first tiny home community. We were in construction for about a year. We are unique because we are an RV resort and a tiny home community, but it's a separate space. So at the front of the property, we have 90 RV spots. But then at the back in a secluded area, we have 30 tiny homes and all of those lots are secluded. You will never have an RV next to you. So it's kind of unique because it's the own little space. It's surrounded by oak trees. So you feel like you're all alone out there just amongst the other tiny homes. We are actually a tiny home dealer. So you can come here and we can custom order you your platinum cottage, your Athens home, your champion home to live here at the Oaks. It has to be a certified park model, which means it's under 399 square feet and it's all certified. Everyone that lives with us, they love it. And they're just really thankful that they made the choice to go tiny. The amenities here at the Oaks, we thought was better than any other locations that we looked at with the swimming pool, the gym, the laundry facility. And being able to have a fence for the dog, that was another big selling point. Some of the communities didn't allow fences. She had a large fenced in yard in Kansas City in our home. And so she had to have that again. The 699 a month lot rent here includes unlimited water, Wi-Fi, and they also mow our lawn. So all the lawn care, our expenses are probably an eighth of what they were in Kansas City, close to it. Yeah, a lot less. So again, to make the decision to go tiny was was an easy decision for us. This is our carport. We had this installed after we bought the house. And then on this side, we have an outdoor water faucet here. And then we have storage underneath the home. We also put the fence in after we got moved in here. We helped keep Penny in. So we had the fence installed all the way around. And then we also had the pad put in for the grill. We went with a hardy skirting on the bottom so that it matched the house. A lot of the tiny houses you'll see will have the metal. We went with the hardy skirting. It ties everything in better. We thought we installed all of our flags. You can see I was a United States Marine Corps. We got our house from Recreational Resort Cottages. We wanted a big porch, so we had the deck screened in. So this has been fantastic. And then back in here, this is the the biggest part of our home that we love, the the outdoor sitting area. We have our large screen TV up here. We have our wood burning fireplace, which a lot of the homes don't have. That was the key draw for us is to be out here in the fall and the winter watching football games and being able to have a fire. And as you can see, we're big Kansas City Chief fans. 80% of our evenings are spent out here. Yes, we love it and Penny loves it. I'll show you the inside of the home. We have our welcome to our tiny home. This is our happy place, which it absolutely is. We love our tiny home. So this is our kitchen. We opted to have the door mounted a little further left so that it's entering the kitchen as opposed to the living room. And all of our appliances are all full size appliances, with the exception of the dishwasher, with it just being the two of us. We really didn't need a full size dishwasher at our home in Kansas City. We never used a full load in it. So it being a smaller size is not an issue. We have plenty of storage space. And one of the other items about helped us make the decision in choosing this home as I loved being able to have the decor above the kitchen cabinets makes it feel very homey and very personable. And then we have the stainless steel sink. This is one of our absolute favorite items that we were able to order and just absolutely had to have. These are to die for if you've ever had one. And then we have a full size electric stove, stainless steel. And then this is a microwave, an air fryer, a convection oven. It also grills, does more than we know how to operate. It works really, really well. Then we have more storage space here. All the cabinets are soft close as well as the drawers. And then this is our island. The island is on wheels. It moves. So the shiplap on the wall extending all the way across. We both like rustic farmhouse type decor. So we were able to choose what color we wanted that. And then my husband, being a Marine, we had to include a photo of Marine Corps as well as the American flag. And then on this side where the 55 inch TV is, we were able to either have a fireplace. We could have this for storage or we could not have it at all. We opted not having the fireplace inside because we live in Texas. You really don't need a fireplace inside. But this allowed us to have more storage space, which was very convenient and much needed. And then on this side, we have a full size couch. It is an electric couch, so it is fully powered. And it also has outlets, USB outlets found in tables on Amazon that worked perfectly to allow us to have more storage and charging space. And then on this side, we also have the mini splits. If you've never had a mini split, these things are absolutely amazing. They will cause you to have icicles in your hair. They do an amazing job cooling. Then our washer and dryer for storage space being a minimum or at a premium rather in a tiny home. All of my laundry supplies I just store inside of the dryer while we're not using it. And then whenever I go to do laundry again, I can pull them out, set them on top of their do our laundry. And then when finished, everything goes back inside the dryer again, makes it very convenient and puts everything out of sight. Nice and tidy. And then this is our bathroom not having a loft, it gives us more floor space there next to the TV because we don't have the stairs going up to the loft as well as in the bedroom and the bathroom. The ceiling is the same height as it is in the living room. So in the bathroom, we have plenty of storage space. The floating shelf here, plus the storage underneath the sink and the drawers. We have more than enough room to store anything that we want. And then this is our walk in shower that we absolutely love. Have tons of space. We opted to have a rain shower head as well as the handheld. For one, it makes it easy to bathe the dog. For two, the handheld also makes it nice for cleaning, allows you to be able to spray the walls, and there's plenty of room in here. We absolutely love the walk in shower. And then this is our bedroom. We had to have a tiny home large enough to allow for our king size sleep number bed. This is a split king, fully adjustable. And as you can see, it fits in here perfectly fine. We have plenty of room to walk around on either side, as well as we also have a mini split in here as well. We love to sleep cold. So having the mini split and the ceiling fan is a great bonus. And then we have six drawers. These are deep drawers, so they're able to store a lot in those. They're also soft clothes. And then we opted to have the top of the closets open so that we could store up there things that we don't use as often in those. And I have a ladder in the closet here that we can get out, set it up and get up on the ladder to get into those. And there's still plenty of space up there to store more things. We just don't have anything up there. We don't have to store things underneath the house, even though we have the space to do that if we need to. It wasn't necessary because we have more than enough room inside and inside the closets, you can also store things as well. So then we will go back out this door and back out into the living room. We love these doors for sound because they are solid. They're not hollow. Whenever one of us is sleeping in and the others out here watching television, it really helps mute the sound from the TV and makes it quite nice. I can say to anybody that's looking to make the decision that this is the greatest decision that we've ever made. Yeah. Other than marrying each other. Yes. But yeah, if you're considering it, just take the leap. You will never regret being financially free and being able to enjoy life together. Because as you know, you never know when your last day is going to be. We get along fabulously and I know people say that, but no, we, we truly do. We're each other's best friend. We have the best time together. You don't feel like you're tiny. Not once have we ever felt cramped. I can't think of a better decision. If you'd like this week's episode, please make sure to like share and subscribe and check back soon because we have new unique home tours publishing all the time. And if you'd like to join our team and get access to members only content and unique perks, make sure you click on the join button below.