Money Saving Tuesday- why small houses are awesome!

I love my house, all 1000 square feet of it. Well, since we turned the garage into a playroom I guess it is more like 1100 square feet.
We have a smaller house. Jon and I bought it when I was working at a Catholic school (they don't pay much) and he was a teacher's aide. Clearly we did not have a lot of income, and being 23 and 24 at the time we did not have a lot of money saved either. We did have good credit which is probably the only reason we were able to buy a house at all! We bought a fixer upper. Luckily Jon is something of a handyman (love him!) and we...err I mean he...was able to do a lot of the work without hiring anyone to come in. We re did the kitchen and bathroom, built a deck, turned the garage into a playroom and have repainted pretty much every room of the house. It may not be big but it is ours!
Here are my top ten reasons why a smaller house is better (for us at least)

10. Less to clean ('nuff said)

9. we can afford the mortgage on Jon's teacher's salary

8. because of #8 I can be a stay at home mom!

7. less to heat=cheaper to heat

6. less storage= less clutter because we force ourselves to get rid of things

5. less place for the kids to hide when I am trying to find them

4. we need less furniture (which is good because we can't afford more!)

3. less to clean (sorry it deserved two places!) this makes me happy because cleaning is my least favorite part of being a stay at home mom

2. I can always hear or see my kids no matter where in the house I am (this does have its downside on occasion)

1. when you look into buying carpet to replace the old stuff it costs less becuase you need less!

About a year ago we were thinking about moving (before we were thinking about baby #3). We looked at a few foreclosure that were much bigger than our house. Jon loved them. I wondered who was going to clean them and how on earth I would find my kids in them. Jon laughed.

Obviously we did not move. Our house wasn't selling and then thoughts of baby #3 became a pregnancy and I didn't need to try moving on top of two kids and being pregnant. So we stayed.

I love our house. Some people ask me how I can have three kids in here. Actually I was once told I could not have three kids here. Well, it is three bedrooms and kids can share rooms. So that problem is solved. (now I am told that I cannot have four kids here. I don't know if that is a challenge though...)

We felt a little overcrowded when we gave up the playroom/office so we could have a third bedroom again. To remedy that Jon finished the garage and now it is our playroom/office. We would re-do the basement but we don't have one.

If we lived in a different town I would never move, I would add on. However our town does not have the greatest schools after about 5th grade. So at some point we will move. It is cheaper to buy a house in another town than it is to send my kids to Catholic schools (although we did look at that option).

In a few years I will need to give up my little home, but until then I love my house!