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California man buys a small island in Finland for $31k instead of down payment on a house

Russell and his girlfriend recently finished building their own log cabin on the island.

Photo credit: Canva

Couple buys small island because it was cheaper than a house

The cost of living is getting quite ridiculous. Pretty soon people will feel like they need to take a loan out just to buy basic groceries. But there's one area that has people struggling beyond compare and that's the extreme cost of not only rent but purchasing a home. Many people are being completely priced out of the market causing people to rent longer than they'd like while some are having to move back in with their parents.

Due to the rising price of housing in American specifically, more people are choosing to relocate outside of the country in hopes to maintain a better quality of life on less money. There are entire Reddit channels dedicated to expat living and Americans looking to become expats.

Oliver Russell, 24 was slightly ahead of the curve with his exit from the United States. Though he is American, he's also half Finnish giving him dual citizenship with ties to the country through friends and family that he visited often.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Russell grew up in Laguna Beach, California but after moving Colorado, he was denied in-state tuition which made affording business school nearly impossible. That's when he decided to take advantage of the free college education Finland offers for it's citizens, he had always dreamed of moving to Helsinki anyway.

It just so happened after getting settled into his second homeland, he met a girl. Helena Tomaszewska, 20 is Dutch and once the two got serious about dating the started looking at getting a summer home, which is standard in Finland. But during their search for the perfect home, the two discovered houses were expensive. The down payment alone seemed like entirely too much money for the young couple.

"In Finland, the summer cottage life is a huge part of the culture and I would come out here every summer. I loved the summer cottage life and wanted one of my own," Russell tells SWNS.

ocean, life, islands, life hack, life hacks, abandoned island, finland, california A man relaxes in a chair in front of the oceanImage via Canva

They continued their search, checking out different real estate websites for something in their price range. Just when it seemed like the pair was having a run of bad luck locating an affordable property for to serve as their summer home, Russell came across an island. Yes, an island. By the time the new Finnish resident came across the island, it had been on the market for 10 years and lucky for them it was within their budget.

The couple only paid $31k for the 2.5 acre island.

Unlucky for them, the island was completely overgrown with trees, bushes and moss. No one had lived there for more than 10 years so if they were going to build their summer home there, they had a lot of work cut out for them. That big detail didn't deter them one bit. The two young adults got to work.

"Our plan is to build a log cabin completely by ourselves with no experience and transform it into a fully functioning summer cottage," the man shares in a video that shows him chopping down trees and shaving bark off of logs.

finland, island, life hacks, life hack, california A couple walks along the beach on an islandImage via Canva

Russell and Tomaszewska purchased the island in March 2024 and have made several trips to ready the land for a permanent structure.

Russell tells Lad Bible, "We made a frame out of logs that we felled from trees and I got some decking from a hardware store. We then built an outhouse and I am now trying to build a shower structure so we can wash while we're on the island. We wanted to get the base camp set up so we have a comfortable place to stay while the big building happens next year."

There's a requirement for the island, and it's that a certain portion of it needs to be a sauna. It's unclear if this is a requirement by the Finnish government or a deal between Russell and his girlfriend.

As of late summer 2025, Russell reports that the cabin is done and they are moving on to their other plans for the rest of the island.

The build is pretty impressive for a couple of students without much experience and only an electric chainsaw!

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Living on an island with no neighbors really cuts down on the chances of unexpected visitors. But a trip to town get a gallon of milk or toilet paper would require a boat ride so hopefully they're also including a large storage area.

How about you, would you live on a deserted island?

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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How do you fold a fitted sheet? It's actually not as hard as you think.

The key is "keep the ugly on the inside."

Linen House/YouTube

Fitted sheets are a pain in the you-know-what to fold, but there are ways.

With younger generations ditching top sheets, it may seem like the basic household task of putting sheets away in the linen closet or drawer should be getting easier. But the top sheet was never the problem when it comes to folding and storing. It's that cursed fitted sheet with this wonky elastic corners and bulbous, amorphous shape that gets people's goat, every time.

If only it were a simple as this:

However, if you know what you're doing, it's not actually as hard to neatly fold a fitted sheet as people think. There are just a couple of principles to keep in mind.

First, it's much, much easier to fold a fitted sheet with a flat surface. You can try to do it in the air, but you're just going to frustrate yourself.

Second, the goal of folding the fitted sheet is to keep the ugly on the inside. You're never going to get the perfectly flat, neat square you get with a folded flat sheet, but you can get pretty close by remembering that the bumpy elastic parts won't matter if they're folded up inside the straight parts of the sheet.

Now let's get to it.

Step 1: Lay the sheet out as best you can on the bed. Tuck your hands into the corners of one short end of the sheet, then tuck those corners inside the corners of the other end. This is the part that gives people the most trouble, but once you see what it looks like, it's pretty clear.

It takes this woman about 5 seconds to do that part (but it takes a bit of practice to get that quick). Watch:

Step 2: You now have a fitted sheet that's essentially folded in half, but ugly. Now you want to make a somewhat uniform shape out of it, by pulling those elastic corners in so that the top is evenly rounded. (Basically, make it look like an old-timey wagon carriage.)

Step 3: Pull the bottom of the sheet taut so you have a straight fold, then fold it the width you want the folded sheet to be (about a foot, generally). Do that fold twice.

Step 4: Here's the "ugly on the inside" part. Now fold the round top down twice, putting the second fold over the first two folds you made. (This part does not need to look super neat because, again, the ugly is going to be hidden on the inside.) Flatten it out with your hands. Now you have a nice, long, somewhat flat burrito with ugly ends.

Step 5: Fold in from both ends (ugly on the inside, always). If you want to tuck one end into the other like she does in the video, great, but that's not even necessary. You can just double fold from each end and call it good.

Voila! Neatly folded fitted sheet. It may look hard and may not end up this neat on your first try, but keep going. Once you get the hang of it, it gets faster and easier.

If that method just doesn't work for you, here's another to try from Linen House. It looks a lot more complicated at the beginning, but once you see what she's doing, it's clearer. She's essentially folding it in half and then half again, keeping the corners tucked into one another going the same direction. (You could also do that part on a bed, which might be easier than trying to do it in the air. Everyone has their preference.)

One caveat: Some sheet material is harder to fold than others. Basic cotton or poly blend? Super doable. Silk sheets are slippery, but often fold down very flat. Flannel sheets stick to themselves a bit, but are still amenable to the folding. Jersey sheets, though? Far more challenging. They have no clear shape and get more misshapen with every wash. You might be justified in giving up and wadding those ones however they will go.

What's even the point of folding fitted sheets in the first place? Well, they fit far better in a cupboard or drawer when folded than they do when wadded, for one, so if space is important to you, that's one reason. It's also just far more aesthetically pleasing. Once you get the hang of it, it takes like 30 seconds, which is totally worth it.

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