Are Tiny Homes Really Less Expensive?

It is no secret that I have a fascination with small or "tiny" homes. Many are engineering marvels, others show us just how little we need to live very comfortable, even luxurious lives.

That said, I am always a little annoyed with the proponents of tiny homes in particular, tout the economy in buying or building a tiny home. Tumbleweed Tiny Homes sells its tiny homes (more or less a well built travel trailer which looks like a shrunken New England home) from $40,000 to $55,000, with square footage ranging from 65 ft sq to just over 100 ft sq.

If that sounds more like the square footage of your backyard shed, well it is! However in defense of Jay's designs, there are lofts, and the designs are very well laid out, as long as you are under say 5'10" at best.

But the question I am considering today is: are these really money savers in a time when even after the real estate crash, homes are still selling for hundred's of thousands of dollars?

If we look at it the way these designers and manufacturer's do, then the answer is "yes" just as they assert. After all, $50,000 is less than $200,000.. But is this a fair comparison? I argue that it isn't. During the boomtime for housing, I helped a young couple who were buying their first home. That particular home they purchased for right around $200,000. What did they get? 5500 ft sq! Now, it was not to my liking, nor located where I would want to live, but comparing house to house, they acquired a great deal more house for the dollar than in these tiny homes.

Jay's homes can cost more than $550 per square foot! This is more than 5 times the national average!!

Don't think that I am picking on Jay. He is far from alone from offering such outrageous sq foot costs. I came across a blog today, here, which offered a similar size home but just the shell, for $29,000+

All of which makes me wonder why these folks don't consider more reasonable alternatives. My own home should end up costing about $5 a square foot, less than 1 percent the cost of Jay's.. I will have more room, lower heating and cooling costs, far lower maintenance, and full utilities (off grid).

I understand that my own home is closer to the low extreme than most, but surely there is a great deal of room to work with between $5 per foot and $550 per foot..

Home builders, designers, and architects of all sorts need to rethink what they consider reasonable. We can do much better, especially for the poorest amongst us in whose name these designers of tiny homes often appeal.

We can do better.

Outdoor Grocery Store

I have for many many months now enjoyed breaking my fast with fresh raspberries, muscadines, and only for the last few weeks, fresh persimmons as well. But the first two of these I must admit are cases of gleaning, not really foraging as they are intentionally planted plants (not by me, but by a neighbor) as opposed to true wild edibles. The persimmons on the other hand, if any were intentionally planted the original planter has long since passed, and no one but me, and very rarely Rancher Bob makes any use of them.

However these are far from the only wild edibles I have been either enjoying, or working to positively identify so that I may enjoy them in the future. A few other examples are henbit, which I described in the past and look forward to enjoying here again soon, as they are the first of the greens to come up. Since it is either ignored or hated by most gardeners, I have no problem harvesting more than I can possibly use in exchange only for strange looks and even rarely some gratitude for "weeding" a small area of the garden. The henbit is used much like cooked spinach. I am partial to using it in italian style dishes mixed with other ingredients, but it can easily stand on its own as a "pot herb." "Pot herb" being just another name for any cooked greens.

I gleefully took advantage of the fresh briar leaves, as some may recall. And I have enjoyed clovers, and clover look alikes such as wood sorrel and yellow sorrel, both of which are wonderful slightly sour additions to salads. I read recently that they also make fine lemonade like drinks.

Still, I very much consider myself a novice forager, one still learning as much as is possible while trying to identify as many plants as possible. Some such as pecan are ridiculously easy, others present more of a challenge, such as mushrooms, though I am making some progress on that front as well having positively identified two mushroom varieties on the land which are edible.

Last month, I finally managed to find and correctly identify a Jerusalem Artichoke, which is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke, but is related to the common sunflower. The tubers it produces are edible and can be substituted for potatoes for those on low starch diets. I had and still do plan on growing this as a vegetable, but finding on in the wild is an unexpected delight.

With the cold temperatures, around 20F currently, the search for wild edibles turns largely to meat. With any luck at all, I will be filling the freezer with beaver meat which I have come to learn can be used in any recipe calling for beef, but is leaner than beef. With the arrangement I have made with Captain Rob, I hope to have no need to buy meat again. Between the beaver harvest each year, and what I take of rabbit, perhaps even squirrel if I feel like it, I should have an abundant supply of meat for every occasion!

Add to that the chance at turkey and deer, and I should be able to set quite an extravagant table when I desire to do so. In some ways it is hard to believe that some folks claim that there is a food shortage. In truth there is a shortage on knowledge, and a shortage on willingness to try "new" (or very old) things..

Beavers? Dam!

Still no luck in trapping the nuisance beavers in the neighbor's pond. They dropped another tree last night, and have begun on yet another sweetgum. These are not small trees either, probably about as old as the dam itself. Each is over a foot in diameter, yet this or these pesky beavers are determined to drop all of them, and many good pines as well.

All the while they are building their home, and undermining the existing dam, which will of course cause their home to cease to be. I am certain of the undermining as I discovered myself looking at the world from three feet lower when walking across the damn this afternoon. I'd stepped above one of the tunnels, which was large enough to drop me quite a ways.

This means that we need to get these beaver out of this pond before there is no pond to save and it costs the landowner quite a bit in both time and money to have the dam rebuilt.. most likely meaning waiting until summer, meaning all of the fish will die, and the land will be changed by the winter rains etc. with the pond gone.. Fortunately the neighbor is a gentleman farmer who has no livestock relying upon the pond, though he is seriously considering getting a few next year to cut down on the fuel expense of bush-hogging the area a few times a year.

Little else to report.. I turned a left over hambone and a couple of dollars worth of beans into several meals, then turned the remainder into several more meals of chili by adding in ground turkey, more onion, and spices.. finally I turned the last bit left which did not get frozen into future meals, into three final meals of a modified chili which includes corn and whatever else is on hand.. For all of these meals I am guessing that I am averaging under 25 cents a meal.. Not too damn bad if I say so myself..