This Actually Worked | 11 Months After My Layoff in 399 Square Feet

Eleven months ago, if you had told us we’d be living in 399 square feet, filming YouTube videos, and not in full-blown financial crisis after a layoff…I don’t think we would’ve believed you.

Layoffs in your 50s don’t usually come with breezy, inspirational montages.
They come with late-night math, browser tabs full of job postings, and that heavy feeling in your chest when you look at the calendar and your bank account at the same time.

This week’s video is our first real look back at those 11 months.

The Story We Thought We Were In

When the layoff happened, my brain immediately pulled up the standard storyline:

• Income disappears
• Expenses don’t
• Savings drain faster than you think
• Panic becomes the default setting

It’s a story I’ve seen many times as a finance person, and it’s not dramatic to say that a big drop in income puts a lot of people in real danger.

On top of that, we weren’t 25 starting over with a mattress on the floor and two folding chairs. We had a lifetime of “normal” behind us—traditional house, cars, furniture, routines, expectations.

The surprise isn’t that we were scared.
The surprise is that we didn’t just try to rebuild the same life as fast as possible.

Changing the Math Instead of Chasing the Same Paycheck

The turning point for us wasn’t a motivational quote.
It was a spreadsheet.

Once we stepped back and looked at our numbers, we realized that if we simply dropped a new job into our old setup, we’d rebuild the same high-cost, high-commitment life we’d just stepped out of.

So instead of only asking, “How do we replace this income as fast as possible?”, we also started asking, “How can we restructure our expenses so that any future work we take on has more margin and flexibility built in?”

That’s where the tiny house came in.

Traditional jobs aren’t the enemy here. We just wanted to stop assuming that a full-time job was the only way to build a good life.

We sold the traditional house.
We moved into a tiny rental for a transition period.
And then we moved into this 399-square-foot home.

None of that was free or easy. We’ve still written plenty of checks this year—for the house, for a carport, a shed, pet fencing, and now things like turf, blinds, and gutters. But those decisions were made inside a very different framework:

“Does this help us build a life that’s lighter, smaller, and more flexible than before?”

The video goes into more detail about how the layoff was actually funded—what we want to say here is simpler:

We stopped treating the old version of our life as the default we had to scramble back to.

Letting Go of Things That Fit Our Old Life

One of the quiet realities of downsizing is that it’s not just about square footage. It’s about identity and expectations.

Right now we’re in the process of:

• Selling a car
• Letting go of our small camper

Those made perfect sense when we had a driveway, a garage, and a “vacation is 1–2 weeks a year” mindset.

In this new chapter, they mostly represent money and energy tied up in things that don’t match where we’re going.

We’re moving toward a used Class B campervan we can park right here at the tiny house—no separate storage lot, no “out of sight, out of mind” vehicle we rarely use. Just one rolling, practical way to go see more of the world with our dogs at a pace that isn’t crammed into one or two rushed weeks a year.

I’m realizing that “this actually worked” is less about a single tiny house decision and more about a series of small, repeated choices:

• This can go.
• This can stay.
• This belongs in the future, not the past.

A “Nothing Special” Week That Says a Lot

This past week wasn’t flashy, but it was very representative of where we are right now.

We:

• Cleaned out and reorganized the small loft
• Moved things into two simple storage chests and brought other items downstairs to find them real homes
• Had neighbors help us hang storage shelves from the shed rafters—high enough that we can still walk underneath
• Met with the turf company and got our plan approved by the community
• Started the process for remote control blinds, because the winter sun is currently blasting us in the face on the couch
• Talked to our health insurance broker, set up meetings with our CPA and financial planner, and chipped away at the “admin” side of life

None of that would make a HGTV highlight reel.

But this is what life looks like between the big decisions:
a long string of small, slightly boring, incredibly important adjustments that turn a wild idea into an actual way of living.

How Time Feels, 11 Months Later

Time has felt weird this year.

Some days have dragged—waiting for contractors, watching punch-list items multiply, wondering if we’d ever feel “settled.”

Other days I look up and realize it’s been almost a year since that layoff letter, and we’re:

• Living in a tiny house we love
• Walking our dogs in a community that feels connected
• Running a small bookkeeping business that fits into our life, instead of swallowing it
• Dreaming about road trips that last longer than two weeks

It’s not perfect. We still have a short closet rod project, a storage-unit-to-shed migration, and a few tiny house quirks to tame.

But the overall feeling, heading into Thanksgiving week, is:

“This didn’t ruin us. It redirected us.”

Gratitude, But Make It Honest

We're grateful we’re not destitute 11 months after a layoff.
We're grateful that our ongoing expenses feel manageable instead of suffocating.
We're grateful for clients, neighbors, dogs, this little yard, and even the unfinished projects.

And we're also grateful that we didn’t rush to reconstruct our old life as fast as possible.

We let the disruption be disruptive.
We changed the math instead of just chasing the same salary.
We traded some certainty for flexibility, and so far—this actually worked.

If You’re Somewhere in the Middle of Your Own Story

If you’re somewhere in the middle of your own “what now?” season—a layoff, a move, a downsizing you didn’t exactly plan for—you’re not behind and you’re not alone.

You don’t have to copy our path. Tiny houses and campervans aren’t the point. But it might be worth asking:

• Are there parts of my old life I’m trying to rebuild just because they feel familiar?
• What would happen if I changed the structure of my expenses, not just the number on my paycheck?

If you want to see more of the nuts-and-bolts side of how we made this year work, you can watch this week’s video:

And if you’re somewhere in your own in-between chapter, we’re cheering you on from our little 399 square feet and tiny yard. There isn’t one “right” way to do this—just the next honest step that makes sense for you.

Figuring it out together,
-Kathy & Bryan