I have been interested in minimalism for some time now, as day after day I look around my home and think about the sheer amount of stuff I have.
Currently, I am reading the book “Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism” by Fumio Sasaki, which has really opened up a lot of new thoughts about minimalism, both mentally and physically.
Minimalism is, however, a bit more challenging when you have a family compared to, say, being single.
Minimalism doesn’t mean that you have to live in, like, an empty white room with absolutely nothing in it, or that you aren’t allowed to collect certain items. It means owning only the things/items that are truly important to you.
I’m not a maximalist either, but rather something in between.
Are you a minimalist, a maximalist, or somewhere in between? If you have, for example, transitioned to minimalism, has it shown in your wallet in the sense that you have more money left over? Is this also about buying fewer but higher-quality items for you, or do you specifically settle for the “minimum” option?
As a single guy in his forties living in a compact two-room apartment with only my modest collection of more or less useful household belongings, I have gravitated towards something like minimalism over the years. I haven’t gone to extremes, though; a home should still look lived-in and feel like a place where someone actually resides.
Ultimately, I don’t really have much useless stuff cluttering up my corners even now, so further culling wouldn’t be a burden. My goal, however, is to do some “death cleaning” slowly but surely, decades in advance—there’s no rush at this midpoint of life yet.
For some reason, letting go of certain objects or things is the hardest part; the storage locker is the worst. It would just be easier to watch from the sidelines while someone else decides that “these are going now,” and I would just take photos of those pointless childhood treasures and teenage projects with my smartphone as a memento. I’ve tentatively agreed with my mother that one fine day she’ll start dumping my storage locker into trash bags while I stand by clapping and fake-laughing, snapping pictures with my smartphone camera.
Inside the four walls of my apartment, on the other hand, I am perfectly capable of culling a lot of unnecessary items myself, and I’ve done so twice in connection with moving. On the positive side, I never need anything new; nothing new would even fit anywhere, so nothing new or useless gets bought for the home. This is also one functional way to further maximize accidental FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), as practically no money flows into “filling the apartment.”
Be that as it may, it’s clear that if you haven’t had any need for a thing or object for over 10 years, you’re never going to do anything with it for the rest of your life either.
I am moving towards a sort of minimalism myself, trying to reduce unnecessary clutter and, above all, avoid buying new things unless there is a really big need. I have mentally divided my existing (and future) belongings into two parts:
Personal items that cannot be replaced if discarded (photos, letters, etc.). Fortunately, photos are digital these days, so as long as the backups are in order, they don’t take up any physical space.
Everything else that can be bought again if needed. Essentially, all the items in the apartment.
I keep the first category of items because they cannot be replaced if lost. The items in the second category can be discarded or sold without hesitation if it starts to look like they aren’t being used. I also don’t “fall in love” with objects; for example, I don’t keep impractical dishes received as an inheritance just for the sake of memories.
Fortunately, I have moved a fair number of times in my life, so in connection with those moves, I have always ruthlessly purged unnecessary stuff.
But right now, I see the keyword as the radical reduction of new purchases; it doesn’t help to reduce your belongings if you are simultaneously bringing new ones home from the store.
I myself have been too attached to almost everything I own and have been too much of a “what if I need it someday” person when it comes to everything.
But I do intend to take a leap forward in terms of reducing my belongings, not for the money, but for my mental health.
It feels like one of my children in particular and my wife are a major brake on this, as they are especially attached to every single old candy wrapper
But I do want my home to look like a home, and for it to have some decor and so on, up to a point.
I don’t want my living room to look like a prison cell, after all.
I had a bit of a spurt in acquiring things when I moved to a home with a garden – previously I didn’t need a mower, trimmer, pressure washer, etc. … but thankfully I haven’t really bought anything major in a few years since then. I haven’t really gotten rid of anything either, though. Luckily, there’s a garden shed. I don’t replace functional items just for the sake of changing them; for example, my computer monitors are 12–15 years old, and I’ll use them until they kick the bucket. The computer itself is probably 6 years old too.
I have a pretty strong “might need this someday” attitude, and it’s also tied to stubbornness—no, wait, a need for independence. In other words, I have a chainsaw primarily so I don’t have to beg anyone to borrow one the one or two times a year I need it. Well, everyone has some character flaw, and this is mine (or at least one of them).
For a long time, I was a strong supporter of the “I might need this someday” camp, and every place I lived was overflowing with stuff. Nowadays, I am a hardline minimalist. A couple of years ago, through the Early Retirement Extreme blog, I realized that hoarding unused items creates direct additional costs because you need a larger home to store your belongings. I then started going through my assets and realized that, at worst, I had been hauling completely unused junk through multiple moves in the same banana boxes without ever unpacking them. I came to the conclusion that if “I might need this someday” doesn’t happen within a couple of years, it is easier to just borrow the item rather than own it myself.
I have now been constantly weighing the amount of stuff I own, and all the time something has been ending up in the trash, for sale, or for recycling. I have already gotten rid of most of it. The only thing I regretted getting rid of was an old router that I would have needed later after moving. I just bought another one to replace it. I have also pruned assets with sentimental value, and to my surprise, I haven’t felt any guilt about letting them go. Mostly, I feel relief; it feels freer somehow when you own less junk. Empty cupboards and storage spaces please my eye more than those stuffed to the brim. I’m not aiming for extreme minimalism where you own fewer than 100 items, but I admire those who can live that way.
Place of residence and life situation also affect the need for stuff. A detached house and a family with children naturally require more things than a single person living in a studio apartment.
I used to collect retro video games, newer video games, consoles, and actually everything related to them myself. I’ve sold a lot of them, but they are a difficult category to cull. Even though they just sit in a box in storage, there’s still some sentimental value and maybe a bit of that “their value is sure to go up” kind of thinking, although… well… does it?
At first, prices go up when someone who played on a game console as a child wants to relive their memories at age 30 and show their own kids “what Daddy played with when he was a kid.” Then, prices stabilize or start to decline…
Back in the day, I bought, sold, and hoarded 80s home computers and game consoles. Now, everyone over 50 is trying to get rid of them, and prices have dropped from what they were 10 years ago. Plus, electronics age, and the machines break down in the closet all on their own.
I can’t say I’m any kind of minimalist, and I used to think, “what if I need this someday?” But then I read a piece of advice somewhere that “if you haven’t needed an item/piece of clothing/etc. in three years, you’re never going to need it later either.” I’ve now started to follow this ideology for the most part.
Okay, for example, there are tools in my toolbox that I haven’t needed, but by and large, I’ve gone through my cupboards and storage units according to this piece of wisdom. And it has definitely been worth it.
As a side note, I’ll chime in that a 10-year-old monitor can be hard on the eyes compared to a newer one. If you use your computer a lot, it’s worth considering getting a new monitor. Your eyes and mind will thank you. Technology has, after all, moved forward quite a bit with steady steps.
I’ve heard the same thing myself, but I still often find myself thinking with my junk that I’ll surely need it someday…
That book has definitely been an eye-opener, and my goal is to reduce my belongings. I’m not planning on making it a one-week project, but rather doing it little by little. Starting with the easiest things, like pure trash and broken junk, and then taking it one step at a time from there.
I have “inherited” from my childhood home a habit of collecting interesting, beautiful, and/or useful things, as well as becoming attached to various objects, and in the past, it was often quite difficult for me to get rid of even excess items.
At some point, however, the amount of stuff felt like it was becoming too much, so I gradually learned to be better than before at letting go of the excess. The amount of stuff has decreased significantly since those days. However, I still regularly get the feeling that there is more to prune, and then I take action and go through my belongings critically, gathering a batch of things to recycle or dispose of – I feel so much lighter after a trip to the recycling center! I am quite satisfied with this style. I don’t crave minimalism when it comes to belongings, as long as there isn’t too much stuff and as long as it is sufficiently organized.
We also have a bit of a family habit of going through things like “children’s toys” every now and then, passing on extras, etc., which helps reduce the amount of stuff we have, and we do the same with other belongings too.
The most difficult area when it comes to decluttering is probably the toys and clothes of young, growing children, since they constantly need larger clothes and their interests in toys and such change, so stuff keeps piling up, and it’s hard to get rid of a lot of it unless you’re prepared to just throw it straight in the trash.
As someone living alone in a studio apartment, I certainly don’t have a huge amount of space for extra stuff, but luckily I’m inclined towards minimalism by nature, so living in a small apartment has never really bothered me due to a lack of space. There’s almost nothing extra in my home, and even the storage locker is nearly empty.
This is getting off-topic… well, to some extent yes, but these 24" full HD monitors I have don’t cause any major squinting, even though they are old. Sure, they need to be replaced at some point, but I don’t have a need for the smallest possible pixels – two reasonably sized monitors side-by-side with a moderate resolution and a wide viewing angle work better for my own use than, for example, a single 4K one.
As such, I do agree that you shouldn’t skimp or minimize too much when it comes to ergonomics; for instance, you should have an office chair in your home office rather than trying to get by with a kitchen stool.
By the way, generally speaking, when you’re getting rid of things, please don’t throw them in the trash if they aren’t actually trash!
Through a recycling center or a second-hand shop, even many intact or repairable old items for which you can’t imagine a need can find a new home. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” as the saying goes.
Yeah, I definitely prefer recycling. Anything that is purely trash/items already in a condition that they can be classified as garbage goes in the bin. But I certainly know how to distinguish between trash and items that can still be maintained or repaired.
Even when selling kids’ toys, we’ve decided that whatever hasn’t been sold by day X will be taken to the daycare; they are always happy to receive children’s toys and games.
