I’ll say this as someone who grew up in Europe with the small homes mentioned. My friends have managed living in 1,500 homes as families of 4-8 people! One thing I’ve noticed is that they generally have had lot less STUFF which isn’t a bad thing. As OP said it helps the planet, and also like gatorsmom said you have to deal with the excess one way or other whether it’s immediate due to small space or later in life. That is my struggle with mom as we were the exception among my friends living in 2,000 sq feet home as just two of us. It just led to 40 plus years of stuff she hadn’t really gone through yet.
I’m a big believer in making your life EASY any way you can and however it works for your family. If you’re finding that you & kids are having to reorganize stuff all the time every week, it tells you that maybe you guys just have too much stuff? The art stuff kids bring home? Use keepy app and take photos of them and throw it out. That way it’s all kept digitally!!!! Same thing with photos. Don’t keep it in photos boxes. Only keep few Shutterfly books of best & memorable family photos. It’s what I did.
Having less physical books helped us a lot. I know you’re a family of vorvarious readers. Consider buying each kids their kindle books and download library books to their kindles. I would tell you to move into a house with better layout & little more sq footage but I also know it’s not as easy to do that in Southern CA though! You made a good point of saying by time you’ve saved for a house, it’ll be college time for most of your kids. So why bother? Hence the focus is really focus and think hard on the stuff you guys have and be more intentional of bringing stuff into the house.
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