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We’ve always had a microwave.  From our first apartment that had three total rooms (plus a bathroom) to our huge house that we recently sold.  Now, in our new, smaller home, there is no microwave.  My last one was an over-the-stove built in deal so I couldn’t bring it with me.  I think I knew there wasn’t a microwave, but I figured we just buy one after we got moved in…except we didn’t.  To put one over the stove would require some work.  There are cabinets there and they would need to be moved and we would have to do some wiring and it just seems like a lot of work right now plus the actual cost of the microwave.  We talked about a counter top one, but counter space is very limited and I didn’t want another object taking up room on the counter (along with the Keurig and toaster).  Besides, I’ve gotten used to not having one!

• I can make hot water for drinks in the Keurig (don’t worry, I make coffee in it too!).
• I heat stuff up on the stove (bonus – if there’s still some leftover, it can be reheated on the stove again.  Can’t do that with a microwave!).
• It forces me to meal plan – no defrosting at the last minute.
• We use this Hamilton Beach Toaster Oven for heating things up too (and for cooking things).

That’s not to say we won’t get one in the future, but for now, it works for me.

What about you?

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We recently downsized.  Besides the obvious – a smaller house, there were some other unexpected downsizes.

• Our electric bill isn’t much higher in Florida where our a/c runs 24/7 than it was in PA where we almost never ran the a/c (I was too cheap to run it).  Smaller house equals less space to cool equals smaller bill. Plus there’s no gas bill (our heat was gas)!
• Having a smaller house means less space to clean (major plus!).  I can plug my cleaner in one central location and vacuum the whole house!
• Less space means only keeping stuff that’s really important.  When we moved we went through and got rid of a lot of stuff.  Then after we were moved in, we got rid of more stuff.  We’re still working on getting rid of stuff!

Obviously a smaller house won’t work for everyone, and I wouldn’t have believed it would work for us either!  We used to live in a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath, 1400 square foot home.  As we had our three kids, it felt like the house was getting smaller and smaller.  When we moved, we wanted bigger – bigger house, bigger (attached) garage, bigger yard.  We got bigger – 3 big bedrooms (plus plenty of room in the basement for a couple more), 2.5 bathrooms, an attached 2 car garage, almost an acre of ground with a nice portion fenced in.  The house was just over 3900 square feet – plenty of room for three kids and all their stuff.  It did work for a while, but then it was just big and we weren’t very content.  I didn’t get along with our neighbor.  We didn’t use all the space in our house.  We were tired of snow and being cold.  There was nothing holding us there – no family nearby and hubby was ready for a job change.  So, we prayed and listed our house.  Long story short – it took over a year to sell, but in the mean time we were able to pay cash for a smaller house in Florida (hello endless summer!).

Having less space to take care of means more time for:

• going to the beach
• reading
• sewing
• geocaching
• playing the piano and organ
• playing with the kids

For that extra time, I am grateful!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!