The following is a guest post by Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. Her blog covers living expenses, saving for your future, and the fun stuff along the way.
Nicole from Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured left a comment asking if I had seen this post at a new blog, Step Away from the Mall. It boiled down to a small rant about the fact that a couple looking for a $500,000 house in Texas could possibly complain about houses that were like mansions from the point of view of a guy that recently lived in a $1700 a month, 400 sq.ft. “apartment” in NYC.
Putting aside that the cost of living between NYC and Texas is amazingly different (and I assume the salaries are as well), his description of his 400 sq.ft. space brought back my memories of dorm living and right-out-of-college housing.
The smallest space I have personally lived in was a 10 ft by 12 ft dorm room that I shared with another girl in college. We shared the tiny bathroom with the two girls in the adjoining room. In short, I had a 5 ft by 12 ft space to myself—60 square feet.
You want to know the weirdest thing? I LOVED IT! I absolutely adored dorm room living. I loved the fact that a bunk bed and an efficient use of storage could make me feel like an adult in her own digs. I also loved the fact that I could poke my head out the door at any time—day or night—and find someone else to hang out with. It was awesome.
Fast forward 3 1/2 years, and the smallest space that I ever shared with Mr. BFS was our first apartment out of college. It was technically a one-bedroom 550 sq.ft. space that really felt more like an efficiency with an extra half wall. The kitchen was too narrow to fit 2 people into at once and the only place to put the computer was next to the bed. My favorite feature was a built-in book shelf next to the red brick fire place.
I loved the cozy feeling of that apartment too, but there were several times I came close to committing homicide while Mr. BFS played computer games 2 feet away from my head in the wee hours of the morning.
Fast forward another 2 1/2 years, and we own our own 1750 sq.ft. house. I have no idea if I could live in such small spaces again and be as happy as I was those few years ago. Hubby has his own gaming area and we have an adult bedroom with actual furniture and even a Tempurpedic (non-blow up) mattress. I am spoiled to say the least but still have very fond memories of the tiny places of my past.
What are the most cramped quarters you remember? Did you like them as much as I liked mine or do you think I’m nuts?
Oh, and Step Away from the Mall, you will hate this, but that 550 sq.ft. apartment we had in late 2004- mid 2006 was $399 a month. 😛 Feel free to join us low cost of living folks whenever you wish. 🙂
My favorite apartment was a furnished studio that I moved into shortly after graduating from college. It was one room with a separate bathroom; the kitchen occupied a corner and was decently sized. It fronted a main drag…lots of traffic noise, but weirdly, within a couple of days I had become so accustomed to it I didn’t hear the noise. Cost: $300/month.**
More or less I hated the dorm. The first dorm the UofA stuck me in was filthy dirty and so old it couldn’t be cleaned. It had no air conditioning…and believe, me, in August and September, it is HOT in southern Arizona. After I’d been there a year I managed to weasel my way into a much better dorm, one with built-in furniture that made it impossible for the university to stack six girls into a space built for two — which is exactly what they were doing in other dorms. But in those days the problem was the restrictions on your life. The 10:30 weekdays, 11:30 weekend curfew would’ve been OK, because I didn’t have much of a social life. But the hideous, time-wasting, mind-numbing late-night weekly dorm meetings were just horrid, as was having the dorm “mother” stick her nosy face into your room at random — no privacy, no freedom. Yuch. For a young adult, it was far worse than living at home.
** P.S. No, I’m wrong about that! $300/month was what I earned, back in the late Pleistocene. The apartment cost $100/month–that included the tax.
Right after we married, we lived in a 10×10 studio. It was $1200/month (we paid extra for utilities) I believe. We slept on a futon that had to be a couch during the day so we could sit at the desk. Luckily we loved each other a lot.
We got into campus housing soon after that and broke our lease to live in a 30×10 1br apartment which seemed huge… at 1400/mo including utilities (it increased to 1500/mo at the time we had to leave). Then we did a stint as resident assistants in a slightly smaller space for free rent– our bed was lofted and we kept storage underneath. Moving out of the dorm we got a comparatively giant 2br with broken heating and plumbing and peeling paint for a mere $1750/mo.
So when we got real jobs with real salaries not in a city, is it any wonder we bought a beautiful but much too large 3000 sq ft house with a 30 year mortgage monthly payment less than we had been paying in rent?
$399 a month! Wow. I too have fond memories of small space living and it was literially right next door to my office, so I got a lot of value by not having a commute. And when we got a little claustrophobic, we were only 8 blocks from Central Park and 6 from Times Square. So we made the best of it – but I don’t think I could go back.
It sounds like you certainly have a great standard of living down in TX and lived the right way to build up to your current living situation. I’ve never even been to TX, but maybe I’ll have to make it our next vacation spot. Who knows, maybe I’ll never leave!
Oh, and thanks for listening to my rant.
My RV is about 100 s.f. – does that count? 🙂 We fit a kid, me and a 100 pound dog in there and do ok. It also takes only 1/2 hour to clean the whole thing.
I grew up in an 1100 s.f. house with 8 kids in the family (1 bathroom). My current house is almost 3 times the size but I got a heck of a deal when I bought it. I will be glad to see the back of it though as it gets crazy to clean, especially rooms which are never used – which end up becoming dumping grounds for things that shouldn’t be there to begin with.
My preference would be for somewhere around 650 s.f. (2 people) and 800 s.f. (3 people). The only reason why I’d want more space is because I work out at home and for the rare occasions when guests come.
This reminds me of the first apart my wife and I had in California. It was a total of 500 sq ft. and it was awesome! However, do you ever notice a place looks a lot bigger until you put furniture in it. I still remember trying to maneuver around the puffy sofa and loveseat we purchased!
Reminds me of the tiny “bed-sits” in London. They’re cold, grubby, and cramped…and landlords get away with charging obscene rents. When living conditions in big cities are miserable even at top prices, then “sprawl” isn’t surprising. Who wouldn’t move outward to find more comfortable, safer housing at better prices?
@funny, $100 a month sounds really nice, but $300 a month salary does bring that into perspective. 🙂 I lived in the Honors College dorm that was clean and had nice, adjustable furniture and nobody poked their head in to check on us, so it sounds like a different situation. Thanks for having me over to guest post! It’s always nice here. 😉
@Nicole, 10×10!? That is true love! Yeah, I would have jumped at the house oppotunity too!
@Nick, thanks for your rant! I enjoyed the memories. If you do ever live in Texas, please don’t hold the heat and humidity against me, lol.
@Jacq, that RV space is impressive. Our 1750 sq.ft. house felt crowded with just the two of us, a dachshund mutt, and a 95 lb. Black Lab, lol. More power to you!
@Frugal Guy, you reminded me of the many times I hit my knee on furniture corners when I moved too fast back then… 🙂
@helio, those “bed-sits” sound awful! Yes, a house does sound better!