Mind you, we are: Husband, Wife, Toddler, and (at the time) a 12yo on a part time basis. At tax time this year, we realized we weren't quite ready to take the leap to a Travel Trailer just yet. I started considering our next move. In the last couple of months I've researched Mother-in-Law houses (impossible to find listings!), rooms for rent via Craigslist, economy apartments (which only seem to be available in bad neighborhoods), and rooming with my brother. He lived with us for a month in our condo.
 Our Living Room in our Condo |
My brother and I began loose negotiations to become roommates. With him approaching finals and working major overtime, it was kind of put on hold. Then we had those major life-changing events around here. And our part time 12yo daughter became full time. My brother and I finally sat down together for full-on face-to-face negotiations and we plan to move our family into his 3-bedroom condo (same neighborhood we were in before) this summer.
 Our current "Living Room" - on a messy day!You can see the Dining Room in the background. |
I've debated what sort of move this will actually be. My daughter has the single bedroom here, but that means that our vanity is in her bedroom, as is access to the single bathroom. Our living room doubles as our bedroom, containing our small couch as well as our queen bed (in which 3 of us sleep). Oh wait, it triples - add our large desk with 2 PCs. In our new home, we'll lose our "living room" entirely. We'll actually have our own room, though! (Our bed is literally just inside the front door right now.)
 Our current "Dining Room" |
In some ways I feel like we're continuing our downsizing. We will be sharing a kitchen. In other ways, I feel like we're committing to more space. The entire place is much larger than our current home, but common areas will be shared. We'll have more closet space. We'll only be saving a few bucks on monthly expenses, but I didn't feel we could go for an economy apartment now that we've added an (almost) teen and have another baby on the way.
I feel good about the move and plan to continue downsizing our belongings. My brother and I had already been discussing him storing a few things for us once we're on the road (such as photos), so that will be really easy to arrange! We also won't be signing a lease, so when we're ready to go, we can go!
