Dear Charlie, I'm Scared About Downsizing My Home. What Do I Do?

Welcome to the small living club. You're going to love it

Welcome to “Dear Charlie” where I act as a sort of agony aunt, answering all your questions about all things simple living.

We had some super interesting questions this month, including these three, focused on how to marry expensive housing with living simply, managing busy work schedules and how to not dread downsizing your home.

Got a burning question you want some help with? Drop me a message here and I’ll add you to future Dear Charlie articles. This is a largely paid subscriber perk but if you ask a question and are a free subscriber, I’ll email you the answer.

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First, a question from Keith about my imminent move to an expensive city:

How are you finding housing costs in Porto? I visited several times to try and find a place to live (as I like the simple life too) but found the apartments to be overpriced, cold, and badly maintained. Not to mention the mould problem.

This is a very specific question that I’m going to expand out so it’s more relevant to more people and talk a little bit about how housing — particularly housing in cities — fits into living a simple life.

How do you marry expensive, city-based rent or mortgage repayments with living a simple life? Well, low housing costs are touted as one of the most important aspects of simple living. Which is kind of true. But it’s not everything.

I like to see housing as one (major) part of your whole finance ecosystem.

For instance, yes I am moving to Porto which means a higher rental cost than what I could get in say a small Portuguese village. But I know my other costs will be low. Living in a city means I won’t need to run a car. Quality food is cheap, plentiful and easily accessible. I’ll never have to take cabs because I’ll be living incredibly centrally.

People think that simple living can’t exist in expensive cities but that’s not entirely true because living in cities can actually be — housing aside — quite cheap.

Yes, you may pay more for your coffee but you’ll walk to the cafe rather than drive. You can pop to the local stores to pick up ingredients for dinner as and when you need them which could mean less food waste than if you do a big shop every few weeks. You can make use of the sharing economy like ride shares, or renting equipment.

Housing may be more expensive in cities but you could find yourself spending less money overall.

Keith is right. Porto apartments are expensive and Portugal has a reputation for terrible housing.

So I am spending more than I would ideally like for my 12-month rental contract, not least because I required something incredibly flexible just in case Portugal rejects my residency application. The fact that they make you sign a 12-month rental contract before they make a decision on whether to approve your application you is a rant I’ll save for another day.

But I know that overall, I won’t be any worse off than I would be if moved somewhere where I would require a car. I spend less in Porto than I do in my British home of North Wales for instance.

That’s what living in cities means and for my part, it’s one of the reasons I love them so much.

They can actually make simple living very simple indeed.

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Next, a question from Olivia about how to cope with downsizing:

My husband and I have decided that we want to downsize to a smaller, cheaper home. But secretly I'm worried that my family and I will struggle with less space. What advice do you have about how to deal with downsizing?

Welcome to my world, Olivia! Man, I LOVE living in smaller places. I also downsized from a three bedroomed home to living out of one bedroomed or even studio apartments around Europe. It was the best decision I made.