Downsizing

[sarahh96]

Has anyone downsized and regretted it?
We are seriously considering it and can see the benefits, financially, but I love my house and there are going to have to be a lot of compromises.
So, although the financial aspect makes perfect sense I'm not sure I'm ready, mentally.
Is this just a hurdle I need to get past or should we put the whole thing on hold?
Is anyone ever 'ready' for it?
What to do????

I think about this often but haven’t done it yet.

I would ask yourself what feelings does it stir up for you…if you are feeling overly anxious about downsizing I would say you are not ready for it. Is there another option for you?

I love my home, too, and I think I would need to be at least 80% sure I was doing the right thing…having that gut feeling that it was the right decision. Such a tough one coz so many of us love our homes - our hearts might be saying one thing and our heads another…

@CrispsnDips you're right. We spend most of our life trying to get the space we need through moving and then suddenly do a complete 360. We're not in a large house but we do have a good amount of space and I think moving to somewhere so much smaller could feel claustrophobic and quite depressing really. There's also the cost of moving itself. That money would go along way to making improvements or paying the bills. I think, having written this, I've pretty much answered my own question haven't I 🤣.

I did last year (March) and am happy as happy can be.
Moved from a 5/6 bedroom with an acre of grounds, hens, orchard, lake blah blah blah and now in a new build with a small astro turfed garden in the middle of a town.

It's wonderful having the extra money, no maintenance (well there is but that's a different story) no endless mowing or driving.

I'm a new woman.

I moved from a very large two bed house with tons of built in storage to a four bed small bungalow with no storage at all.

I much prefer it though it has taken me a long while to get to that point.

we are now decorations each room and my main focus is adding storage to each which has helped

I got rid of tons of stuff before we moved ( had two table and chairs etc ) but then have been throwing away stuff still. Funny how I don’t miss anything I has tossed. And it really has saved me money as I don’t buy stuff anymore

We moved from a six bed, 3500 sq ft house to a two bed 1600 sq ft house a few years back and hugely regretted it immediately. The 'new' house did have a sprawling ground floor with no less than five reception rooms but despite being detached same as the house we sold, the garden which wrapped around the property felt very small and overlooked.

We tried to adapt but within three and a half years we sold it and upsized again to a five bed, 2500 sq ft end of terrace.

More recently we downsized again to a large, detached two bed cottage of a similar size to the original downsize house. The only thing that's larger here is the garden which is 0.5+ acre.

Although this time we felt more ready to go smaller - we had an absolute ton of furniture (six sofas etc!) and stuff which we gradually offloaded ahead of the sale which felt liberating - once again my initial feeling was of regret.

For me, I think the worst thing was acclimatising to the smaller rooms - our previous master bedroom was approx 20' x 15' with door to a balcony plus a huge square bay fitted with a window seat. I also missed the character - even though at 400 years old the 'new' house is 250 years older than our previous one.

Over five years we've carried out a program of restoration and reconfiguring of the whole layout, swapping rooms (so the living room is now the kitchen etc) and knocking through to create better proportioned spaces. Only now does it finally feel like home....but if I could go back to 2017 I'd definitely stay in my lovely larger house.....

We moved from a 3 bed detached with a big drive to a small 3 bed semi towards the beginning of this year, I have to say it’s the best thing we’ve ever done! We’re only early 30’s no children, we were pumping so much money into the old house getting into silly debt etc for the sake of saying we had a big house. We now have extra income leftover to enjoy ourselves at the end of each month that we didn’t have before; I think the last 2 years has made us a lot less materialistic!

I moved from a 264 sq m heritage house to a 96 sq m 1930's bungalow and do miss the space, my fireplaces and fires, the storage - and my airing cupboard.

It's just adapting your mindset I think. The first few weeks here I felt like I was in a caravan. However I've got lower maintenance and utility bills, it's easy and quick to clean, the lawns and gardens are manageable, and I am just going to make it comfortable as a lock up and leave while I go travelling.

We are currently upsizing from a 150 sq m 4 bed to a 250 sq m 5 bed, but with full intention in 10 years time of downsizing again to a 3 bed. I am already looking forward to both moves.

I think the key thing for me is that we have already designed the (self build) house that we will eventually downsize to. So although we will downsize to a 3 bed, we will have big, well-proportioned rooms, just less of them. Knowing that we will eventually downsize will help me enjoy the bigger house even more in the interim.