No more rent to pay and a happier way of living
Maddison Milton
The family of three doesn’t pay rent anymore. Their living costs include food, fuel, and smaller expenses like a phone bill.
They have reduced their spending to about 500 Australian dollars a week.
Milton told Insider that there’s no doubt moving into such a tiny space has reduced their monthly spending. She also prepared herself for a new way of living that she anticipated would be harder to adapt to.
“But I was actually really pleasantly surprised. It’s really not as challenging as you would think, and I think it’s equally as hard being a parent regardless of where you are,” she said.
“You still have all the same parent challenges.”
One aspect of living in a restricted space meant that Reef would also be able to connect more when playing rather than jumping from one thing to another. “We obviously minimized a lot and really simplified our lives.”
“It’s actually been amazing for Reef,” Milton said. “We had a huge toy room set up at home and we’d often find that he would not sit down and spend time on one thing.”
The van meant that they had to get rid of a lot of those things, although they do have a toy drawer. “We’ll pick up some new things, then drop things off at a charity shop when we’re ready to let something go,” she said.
