When people see my little Vermont cottage now, they usually notice the feminine decor, gardens, the green metal roof, the cottage charm, and the way it all feels peaceful and personal. What they don’t always see is how I afford my Vermont cottage as a single woman —or the amount of work it takes to keep a home like this going when you’re doing it alone.
So when someone asks me how I afford my Vermont cottage as a single woman, the most honest answer is this: sometimes I can, and sometimes it feels incredibly hard.
I don’t say that for drama, and I don’t say it because I regret buying this home. I don’t. Not for a second. I love living alone. I love having full autonomy over my home, my time, my routines, and the way each room is used. I love that every project, every plant, every thrifted dish, and every decision in this house reflects me.
But owning a home on one income in rural Vermont also means carrying every bill, every repair, every heating decision, every surprise, every snowstorm, and every “what now?” moment by yourself. It means balancing gratitude with stress, pride with exhaustion, and the deep comfort of home with the reality that homes cost money to run.
My cottage is only about 520 square feet, and that absolutely helps keep the base costs more manageable. Still, small doesn’t mean free. It just means the scale is smaller. I still have a mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, car expenses for Vermont life, blog expenses, repairs, and a list of projects that need to happen if I want this little house to carry me into the next chapter of my life.
The truth is, affording this cottage has been a combination of steady work, careful choices, slower renovation, creative problem-solving, and a willingness to build a life that fits within my means while still dreaming bigger. But it’s also tied to a much longer story of homeownership than this little cottage alone.
My Long Road to Owning My Vermont Home Alone
This Vermont cottage is not my first home. It’s actually my fourth, and every one of them taught me something different about money, relationships, and what “home” really means.
I bought my first house when I was 26 in my hometown. I bought it on my own, and I loved that house. It was mine. Not perfect, not fancy, but mine. About six months later I became deeply entangled in a relationship, then engaged, then married a year after that. Before we renovated that first house, my then-husband made a comment that it was “a dump.” That should have been a red flag, because I never saw it that way. I saw possibility. I saw charm. I saw a home I had chosen for myself and loved.
He was a structural engineer with architectural experience, so when he started dreaming big about renovation plans, it all sounded impressive and exciting. We made extensive plans. He thought we could afford it. We absolutely could not. The contractor quickly knocked down the fantasy of what the project would be, and in hindsight I learned a lot about the difference between what sounds good on paper and what real life can support financially. The house still turned out beautifully and remains a very solid home to this day, but that season taught me something important: just because someone has confidence doesn’t mean they have clarity.
After my divorce, I moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire and bought my second home, a condo in the heart of the city. I could walk to Market Square in ten minutes, and my daughter finished high school about a mile away. In so many ways, it was a positive landing place for us. It gave us a fresh start. It gave us a vibrant place to live. It gave my daughter a beautiful final chapter of high school. But financially, I was in way over my head. It was expensive to own, expensive to maintain, and expensive simply to live in that area.
I tried to sell that condo after about eight years, when my daughter went off to college, but it didn’t sell. A couple of years later I tried again because I wanted to buy a duplex in Kittery. The condo still didn’t sell in time, and that plan fell apart. Eventually, when life turned me toward Vermont, I was finally able to sell it.
The chapter before this cottage was the messiest one. I initially moved to Vermont to be with a man I had connected with. The relationship did not work out, but by then I had refinanced his house with him and was on the mortgage. The relationship dissolved during COVID, and for a while I was essentially homeless. I moved into an inn with my dogs while working as a PTA in Rutland and trying to figure out what came next. Luckily, he was eventually able to refinance and get me off the mortgage, and I got back some of the money I had invested in the property and our life there.
That chapter was painful, but it clarified something for me in a way I don’t think anything else could have: I never want to purchase a home with someone else again.
That’s not bitterness talking. It’s clarity. I had spent enough years trying to build a home with other people’s priorities, other people’s plans, other people’s confidence, and other people’s chaos mixed into the equation. This time I wanted a home that was fully mine—financially, emotionally, and creatively.
The Job That Made This Cottage Possible
My lifelong career as a Physical Therapist Assistant is the foundation that made this cottage possible. I’m deeply grateful for that. It’s allowed me to earn a stable living, buy this home, and keep it going.
At the same time, I want to be honest about the other side of that. Some days I come home physically and emotionally drained, and the house still needs me.
My job is caregiving in every sense of the word. It’s physical. It’s emotional. It’s meaningful work, and I know I’m good at it. But after years of taking care of other people, I’m tired in a way that feels hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. I’m grateful for the stability it gives me, but I also know I don’t want to depend on that one path forever.
Part of why I’m building this blog, and exploring other income streams, is because I want more margin and more choice. I want to keep my home. I want to keep improving it. I want to grow older here without feeling like every single dollar has to come from work that is increasingly hard on my body and my heart.
What It Actually Costs to Live Alone in a Vermont Cottage
When people picture a small cottage, I think sometimes they assume the costs must be tiny too. And yes, a smaller house can absolutely help. My mortgage in 2020 was far more affordable than what many people are facing now, and I know that timing matters. I also still believe that for me, owning has been a better long-term path than renting.
But even a small home comes with a long list of ongoing expenses, especially in a rural Vermont climate.
There’s the obvious list:
• mortgage, taxes, and insurance
• electric, propane, internet, and cell phone
• groceries and household basics
• cat expenses
• blog expenses and website costs
• savings for emergencies and repairs
Then there’s the rural Vermont list:
• a reliable car
• gas
• snow tires and regular tires
• brakes, maintenance, and the extra wear that comes with mountain roads
• heating costs in winter
• storm cleanup, driveway realities, and weather-related surprises
And then there’s the homeownership list that never fully goes away:
• replacing older systems
• fixing what breaks
• deciding what can wait and what really can’t
• paying professionals when something is beyond your skill set or beyond what your body can safely do
My cottage is small enough that the base costs are manageable, but I am sometimes stretched as I replace older systems and try to make thoughtful long-term improvements. I worry about retirement because I won’t have a huge cushion. I get nervous sometimes about life alone. Then other times I feel incredibly powerful. I think both things can be true.
How I Keep the Cost of Homeownership Down
1. I live small on purpose.
There’s a reason I bought a 520-square-foot cottage instead of chasing more house. A smaller home means less to heat, less to furnish, less to clean, and generally less to maintain. It doesn’t eliminate homeownership costs, but it does keep them within a range I can actually work with.
2. I renovate slowly instead of doing everything at once.
I do not have the budget to gut my entire house in one swoop, and honestly, I don’t want to take on that kind of debt anyway. There are still several important projects ahead of me: replacing the heating system, building the deck, redoing the porch stairs, renovating the bathroom, reinsulating the office, replacing windows to meet egress code, and continuing to improve the landscaping and functionality of the property.
I know those things matter. They’re not frivolous. They’re part of my stewardship of this home and part of making it a place I can grow older in. But I also know I can’t do it all at once.
So I make choices. I prioritize. I save. I pause. I do what I can when I can. That slower pace can be frustrating, but it’s also what allows me to keep moving without blowing up my finances.
3. I thrift, source secondhand, and make things work.
Some of my favorite things in this cottage have not come from expensive stores. I love secondhand finds, transfer station treasures, Facebook Marketplace, and making a home with things that have a little history and a lot of character.
4. I decide carefully what I can DIY and what needs a professional.
I’m willing to do a lot myself, but I’m also learning that being “good with money” doesn’t always mean doing everything the hard way. Sometimes the smartest financial decision is hiring help for the right job—especially when safety, code, efficiency, or long-term durability are involved. Here is a short companion video to show some of what I had the confidence to DIY: from my Portsmouth condo guest bedroom to projects here at the Vermont cottage.
5. I keep my lifestyle simpler than it might look from the outside.
I don’t have a travel bug anymore. I’m not spending a lot on big trips or elaborate social plans. I enjoy time with family and friends, but we’re more likely to do potluck gatherings and simple time together than expensive nights out.
What Homeownership Alone Has Taught Me About Resilience
Owning a home by yourself can feel empowering one day and overwhelming the next.
When I bought the cottage in 2020, we had a snowstorm that dropped 44 inches in one day. At the time I was still working in Rutland, about a 40-minute drive away, and my boss was texting me asking when I thought I’d get in. I sent videos of my car stuck at the bottom of the driveway. Then I sat down in the snow and cried before I got up and started shoveling.
There was also the dry summer when I pushed aside the cover of my shallow-dug spring head and saw how low the water had gotten. I bought clean five-gallon buckets with lids, drove to a friend’s house to fill them, loaded them into the back of my car, and used a hand truck to move them to the well so I could dump them in. It barely made a dent. I rationed water, crossed my fingers, and stood outside in the next rainstorm with my face turned up to the sky like a woman bargaining with Vermont itself.
Those are not glamorous stories. But they’re part of the truth of how I afford and keep this home. Sometimes the answer is money. Sometimes the answer is resourcefulness. Sometimes the answer is asking for help. Sometimes the answer is crying in the snow and then getting up anyway.
The Best Part of Doing It Alone
For all the hard parts, I would still choose this life.
I love the quiet. I love the autonomy. I love that if I want to rearrange furniture, paint a wall, plant a hydrangea, thrift a set of mismatched dishes, or spend six months thinking about a bathroom renovation, I don’t have to run any of it by anyone.
I also feel incredibly proud of what I’ve accomplished. My home may not be polished or luxurious, but it is mine. It reflects my effort, my taste, my problem-solving, my restraint, and my willingness to keep going even when things feel uncertain. Most of all, I’m proud that after all the twists and turns of my homeownership story, I landed in a life that feels like mine again.
Living Within My Means Doesn’t Mean Giving Up on Beauty
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that living within my means does not mean giving up on a beautiful life. It means building that life more thoughtfully.
It means I don’t take on unnecessary debt just to make the house look finished faster. It means I focus on the projects that improve safety, comfort, efficiency, and long-term livability. It means I let the cottage evolve as I can afford it. It means I stay open to multiple streams of income, even if those streams take time to build.
I still have goals for this cottage. I still want to replace the heating system, build the deck, finish the porch stairs, renovate the bathroom, improve the office, and continue shaping the land. I’d also love to create more income through this blog and maybe even rent the cottage occasionally in the future if that helps support it.
The Honest Answer
So how do I afford my Vermont cottage as a single woman?
I afford it by living in a small house on purpose.
I afford it by working hard at a career that has carried me for years.
I afford it by renovating slowly.
I afford it by thrifting, planning, pausing, and choosing carefully.
I afford it by being willing to do some things myself and willing to ask for help with others.
I afford it by cutting costs where I can and trying to build more income where I can’t.
And I afford it by remembering that this life—this little cottage, this autonomy, this quiet, this chance to make a home that feels like me—is worth protecting.
Single woman homeownership is not always easy. But for me, it has been one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done.
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