Downsizing Your Home? Here’s How I Went From A 2,000 Square Foot House To An RV

Downsizing your home can be a big process. And, less and less people seem to be doing it these days. The average home size in 1950 was less than 1,000 square feet. Fast forward to now, the average home size has increased to nearly 2,600 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. We were…

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

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Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Last Updated: April 28, 2025

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Downsizing your home can be a big process. And, less and less people seem to be doing it these days.

The average home size in 1950 was less than 1,000 square feet. Fast forward to now, the average home size has increased to nearly 2,600 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

We were fairly close to this size when we owned a house. The house we owned in the St. Louis, Missouri area was around 2,500 square feet if you included our finished basement, and it was just for myself, my husband, and our two dogs. Our home in Colorado was almost as big, at slightly over 2,000 square feet (with no basement).

More and more people seem to be purchasing large homes, but that’s not the case for us. We sold our home last year and moved into an RV.

We made this decision for many reasons, but the main reason was that traveling nearly full-time added to the stress of owning a home. So, we figured why not just take it a step further and actually travel full-time?

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So, we did it. We went through all of our possessions, stored certain belongings that we couldn’t part with (we have a VERY small storage unit, the size of a closet, filled mainly with hundreds of photo albums that my dad left me after he passed away, family paintings, childhood mementos, etc.), and moved into our RV.

It wasn’t the easiest task on earth, and really we dreaded all of the work that had to be done. However, we knew it was well worth it to live the life we wanted.

And, it was! We are so glad that we decided to downsize our home. We haven’t regretted the decision one bit, and now we are happier than ever.

There are many other reasons for downsizing your home:

  • To save money. A bigger home can cost more in some cases due to higher utility bills, more clutter being bought, higher insurance, more maintenance and repairs needed, higher purchasing price, etc.
  • To have less clutter. The bigger your home, the more likely you’ll have empty rooms that you feel the need to put stuff in. Now that we live in an RV, we are much more mindful of what we buy. We think about every purchase in terms of weight, size, where we can store it, and more.
  • To spend less time on maintenance and repairs. If all other factors between two homes are the same (age, location, etc.), a bigger home is more likely to take up more of your time due to more things breaking.
  • To spend less time cleaning. A larger home is going to take a lot more time to clean than a smaller one.

Whatever your reason may be for downsizing your home, here are my tips. Of course, certain downsizes may be easier than others, but overall the tips below can help you sort through your items.

Tips for downsizing your home:

Make a plan for downsizing your home.

Downsizing your home can seem like an easy task to some, but in reality it is not. There are many things that go into downsizing your home, such as:

  • The layout and amount of space in your new home.
  • The time you have to downsize your home can impact your sorting process, stress, etc.
  • How you will donate, sell, or throw away items to get rid of.
  • How and what you determine to keep, donate, or throw away.

What do you think you just cannot get rid of?

To start off, you should make a list of all the items you believe you just cannot part with. Your list may start out long, but it will help you decide what items you don’t need and should get rid of.

What can you easily get rid of?

If you have the time, then you may want to start getting rid of things that you know you don’t need as soon as you can. By doing this, you can clear a lot of clutter and it will also help you realize that you may not need other items you once thought you needed.

Usually getting rid of the first few items is the hardest. After that, it gets easier to downsize your home!

Think about why you want to keep certain items.

Many people have a hard time parting with things for reasons such as:

  • Memories
  • How much money they spent on it
  • The length of time that they’ve held onto it
  • The potential for future use

If you just don’t have the room in your new home, you should really dig deep and figure out why you believe you need to keep so many items. Talk about your reasoning with your family or out loud to fully grasp it. Doing so may help you realize how ridiculous your logic may be.

Sometimes, you may laugh at your reasoning, and this may help you get rid of an item more easily.

Find ways to store documents digitally.

For me, I just couldn’t bring myself to store my dad’s photo albums digitally, even though numerous people have told me to scan them and throw them away. The memory is in the actual photo albums as well as the photos, as my dad loved photography and we would often put the photo albums together as a fun project.

However, there are many other non sentimental things that you can store digitally. This includes tax information, receipts, paper documents, and so on.

The average person has thousands of papers that they store!

Paper is a big reason for clutter, and so many people keep items that they don’t need. Go through your documents and start either digitally storing them or recycling them.

We kept just one binder of papers and scanned the rest. It was very easy to do, and getting rid of all of that paper felt amazing.

Give yourself time.

Going through your whole house and downsizing your home in one day would be quite difficult and stressful. Instead, you should give yourself time to really think about what you do and don’t need.

This means that you may want to take a few days, weeks, or even months to go through your home.

Start off room by room and see what you can get rid of. Then, when you are done doing that, go through everything again and again until you are down to the amount of items you need to have. By doing this process, you will clearly see what you need and do not need, because you will be able to see how much you have, evaluate items more clearly, apply past reasoning to other items you think you can’t get rid of, and so on.

Create a donation list.

Donating items makes getting rid of things and downsizing your home a little easier. By knowing that your items will be better used by someone who actually needs them, you are giving your stuff new life! If you have a large amount to donate, many donation centers will even come to your home, which can make getting rid of items a breeze.

Plus, you’ll feel great about it.

Related: 58 Random Acts Of Kindness

Think about when the last time was that you used an item.

Many people keep items that they hardly use or have never used, yet keep and store them anyways.

If you want to start downsizing your home, you should think about the last time you used a specific item.

For me, this is a big reason for why it was so easy to get rid of so many things. I just sat down, created a list, and thought about the last time I used a certain item. For many things, it seemed like years had passed since I had actually used that item. For some things, I knew I didn’t actually need to use them when I thought I did.

So, you should do the same. Think about when you last used an item, if you will ever use it in the future, if you’re better off just renting or borrowing something you occasionally use, and so on.

Related: How To Live On One Income

Get rid of the “maybes.”

If you have no space for items in your new home, but you still have a huge pile of things that you want to take with you, you may want to think about just completely getting rid of your “maybe” pile.

After all, these are “maybes” and you probably don’t want them as badly as you think! This can make downsizing your home much easier in one swoop of a decision.

Carefully evaluate future purchases.

So that you are less likely to have as much clutter in the future, you should evaluate future items before you buy them.

You should think long and hard about whether you truly need something, whether you should buy, borrow, or rent it if you won’t need it in the future, and think about where the item will be stored in your home.

We do this now that we live in an RV. We think about every purchase in terms of weight, size, where we can store it, and more. This has helped prevent us from buying many items because we know it’s not realistic to bring everything into an RV.

How big is your home? Is downsizing your home something you are interested in?

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Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Author: Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Hey! I’m Michelle Schroeder-Gardner and I am the founder of Making Sense of Cents. I’m passionate about all things personal finance, side hustles, making extra money, and online businesses. I have been featured in major publications such as Forbes, CNBC, Time, and Business Insider. Learn more here.

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  1. Ellen

    WIth a growing family (two kids and a mother-in-law that just moved in with us) in a two-bedroom apartment in NYC, I can totally appreciate the need for de-cluttering! I try to do a major decluttering twice a year, much of what the kids have outgrown gets packed up and sent to my husband’s family in another country where I know they will be well-appreciated. I always make a list as I am making my give-away pile so that when I drop it off for donation I can simply staple the list to the donation receipt for taxes.

    Reply
  2. Brenda

    Love your post about downsizing! We recently went from 2200 sf to a 640 sf cottage – and don’t ever want to go back!

    Reply
  3. Nonya

    I am going from a 2400 sq. ft. home to an RV about 29 feet long. I am taking one room at a time and cleaning them out..
    Today I am stressed, and some days I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have gone into
    my past doing this major clean out. I can be a bit sentimental over the things my parents gave me.
    I am 65 and feel I need to do this. My husband is on board. He has not yet started cleaning out his tools, a collection of nearly 35 years. He will soon know the stress when he cleans out. He is working a 12 hour day including Saturdays so he is not here to help with decision making. I keep taking deep breaths and hope I can get through this. I am a strong person, but honestly I did not imagine how stressful this could get.

    Reply
    1. Amanda

      My husband and I did this in 2011. We lived in It RV for 4.5 years. We had a 2400 square foot home with lots of storage and moved into a 36 foot RV designed for full time living. Bought a truck to pull it. Both were used. Down sizing like this has its advantages but also has disadvantages. Certain things to consider when moving into an RV, everything is special, most parts have to be bought at an RV store or off Amazon. Black tanks have to be dumped every 4-7 days. The cost of replacing the roof when the time comes is are und 4K. Like to entertain? Not likely in an RV as most don’t have ovens but microwave/convection oven combos and their is little room to accomodate guests. And if you have insomnia or any difficulty sleeping forget sleeping through stormy nights as they are loud and shake like crazy.cThe advantage, in our case, it allowed time to see if we were going to fit in the area we moved and were going to like it. If not, we could have moved easily. AlsogVe us a place to live while we were trying to find real estate. Unless you are able to pay cash for your RV , I don’t see an advantage because you will have rent and possibly utilities plus a payment on the RV. Just a few thoughts from someone who lived in one for awhile.

      Reply
    2. JR

      You are in good company. There is a growing movement to downsize. If you are patient and do a little at a time, you can get through the downsizing process. You’ll find that you can live without more and more as time goes on.

      An easy tip to follow – if you haven’t used “it” in the past 30 days – you may not need it. Put it in the pile of things that you may get rid off. Do this for at least 90 days – you’ll have an enormous pile, with a few things put back in the “keep this” location.

      We all have too much stuff. I’ve done the RV life several times. And the associated downsizing.

      Now my daughter is doing the same as a minimalist. She and her husband downsized, downsized and downsized, eventually eliminating almost everything – except what they actually, consistently used and needed. It’s an amazingly small amount of “stuff”. But now, they can travel, save money and not worry about their extra stuff, or have to store any of it anywhere else. No storage units. Nothing else to drag around or replace.

      It took a year to downsize to this level by the way, so be patient and take whatever time you need. It will also enormously help your survivors when you pass. Having to get rid of your things is a massive and major issue (headache) for family members. You can avoid all the angst, arguments, grief and more by simply doing all this ahead of time while you are still alive.

      The majority of the “stuff” we collect, buy and drag around in life is discarded anyway, which should be a lesson unto itself (don’t buy it in the first place!). What we deem “valuable” and what our family members might can often be world’s apart.

      I’m downsizing (again) now – to save my kids any worry – and to go have some fun!

      Reply
  4. JR

    The “digital documents” advice is ill advised. Too many precious memories (or important papers) are instantly lost to digital “accidents” (hard drive crash, reformatted thumb drives, power outages, etc.).

    Browsing pictures on a cell phone, laptop or monitor just isn’t the same as leafing through a scrapbook or photo album. In fact, it actually sucks, still.

    Digital formats are also changing and backwards compatibility may not always be “there”. There is an entire generation of lives lived that risks being lost (forever) to history because of the move to digital and the possibility of accidents and unrecognized formats. There are also unforeseen events that could instantly wipe out digital files and images (like an EMP).

    If you really want the future “you” (or anyone) to remember or see what you have stored – forget digital. Or at least have real, tangible backups in the form of printed photos.

    Reply
  5. Nicky

    We, family of 8, live in an RV full time. Sold our 5500 sq foot home, and live full time now in 35′ bumper pull, 1 slide-out. A bit too small I think for our needs, but doable. Maybe a couple more slide-outs, or a little more storage for clothes–not that we have much either.

    Reply
  6. DNN

    I’m in the process now of searching for a new home and find myself gazing on a real estate website at homes outside my reach. I believe that owning a new property is among the best feeling in new home ownership besides achieving side hustle millionaire status. 🙂

    Reply
  7. Nelofar Shaik

    Decluttering is simply tough. The day you discard something, you will think of utilizing the same. I am wrexed of it. Many tips are surely effective I hope.
    Thank you.

    Reply
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