I Built a Tiny Home by Myself for Under $50,000. It’s Helping Me Save Money.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Margo Fairchild, 34, who built a 240-square-foot tiny home in Virginia on her own in 2020. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up watching my dad work with his hands, mostly on cars, and I picked up a bit of resourcefulness and that get-it-done attitude from him.

So, when I decided I wanted to live in a tiny home, it never really crossed my mind to have someone else build it for me. Maybe that was partly because of the expense, but after spending a few years researching and studying building science, I felt like I could take it on myself.

I started construction in 2020 and took 15 months to build my 240-square-foot tiny home. It wasn’t like an HGTV show where you see the finished reveal 20 minutes later. I was in the weeds, working on it every single day.

The hardest part of the project was finding the grit to keep going while working 14- to 18-hour days, often after my regular job and on weekends. It was a huge mental burden.

I would ask myself, “Can I really do this?” and then just keep pushing forward.

Nearly all of my time and money were spent on construction

My mom has a small piece of land — less than an acre. We agreed that I could build my home on her property and move in with her while it was under construction. In exchange, I gave her a little money for rent.

I used my savings to pay for the project. Basically, any paycheck I had during that time went toward construction.

Almost immediately, my budget flew out the window.

One of my biggest expenses was purchasing the shell, which forms the home’s basic structure. It didn’t come with a ceiling, skylight, insulation, or any additional structural framing, so I had to add all of that myself.

I learned as I went, and there was a lot of trial and error. I often turned to “YouTube University.” I also started an Instagram page, and architects and builders from places as far away as Holland and Portland would reach out and offer advice whenever I had a question.

I was building during the pandemic and couldn’t have people come out to help, so it was nice to feel like I had a community of people to bounce ideas off of.

The only work I hired out during the project was the plumbing. I hired someone who wasn’t very reputable, which was definitely a big mistake. They connected my system to my mom’s house, which uses a septic tank, and the entire setup failed. Wastewater from both homes flooded my mom’s crawlspace.

I had to pay another company to fix it, and in the end, I had to put about $7,000 to $8,000 on a credit card. But at that point, I didn’t care. I had good credit and knew I could use my credit card if needed.

Altogether, I ended up spending $43,779 to build the home — nearly double what I had expected.

My home is small, but it meets all my needs

I moved into my home in 2022, and I was so excited. I was 29 and single at the time, and living with my mom was just not it.

My tiny home is basically a studio. It has one bedroom and one bathroom with a bathtub. My queen-size bed is lofted above the dining booth. It’s really tiny. I recently got a dog, and she’s under my feet all the time.

Still, it’s incredibly freeing to turn up my music, open the door, and let my dog run around in the fenced-in yard. It’s nice to wake up, look around and say, “Hey, I did that.”

I don’t feel like I had to give up too much when I downsized from a normal-sized home to a tiny home. It was actually pretty therapeutic to start with a clean slate.

I left some of my things with my former partner and rent a storage unit where I store the rest. I also keep my winter clothes in a closet at my mom’s house.

Of course, there are drawbacks to living in a tiny home, like how quickly a small space gets cluttered. You definitely have to keep it tidy so you don’t trip over something and break your neck.

I would say the biggest drawback, though, is giving up the extra space for an office or just somewhere to tinker inside my home. But other than those things, I think my tiny home meets my needs.

My tiny home is helping me save for retirement

I pay my mom $500 a month to live on her property. Compared with the $2,000 to $3,000 I might pay elsewhere, the savings have allowed me to put more money toward retirement.

The home has also created other sources of income. I documented the construction process on social media and monetized the content. Within two years, that income covered the cost of building the home.

As my following grew, it also led to more opportunities in the design world, including becoming a co-host of HGTV’s “Worst Yard on the Block.”

I’ve seen tiny homes becoming more popular, especially with young people.

I think it’s because, for many of us, our salaries just aren’t comparable to what our parents — or even Gen Xers and boomers — were making relative to the cost of a house.

I also think a lot of younger people value experiences. Instead of spending all their money on rent or a mortgage, they want to travel, and the expense and responsibility of maintaining a home can limit that freedom a bit.

My advice to anyone who wants to build a tiny home is to find a support system.

It doesn’t have to be family or friends. Look for online forums or communities where you can turn on the difficult days —the ones when you’re asking yourself, “What am I doing? Who do I think I am to believe I can do this?”

Hearing from someone who has been in that position and can say, “I’ve done this. You can get through it,” makes a huge difference.

Despite the challenges, I would build my tiny home all over again. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was also one of the most rewarding.