Buy well, buy once
fellow.ventures
fellow.ventures
a pair of Crocs is 50 bucks and that's one of the highest quality pairs of shoes you'll buy for the price. you could buy 10 pairs of Crocs for a $500 pair of Alden's so even if the crocs only lasted a year, it would take a decade to recoup the investment on the Alden's.
but the crocs don't have the same status that Alan Edmonds or Alden or Fiorentini does.
Same thing with the G-Shock watch versus a Rolex.
If you really want quality look at what middle class people are doing. Crocs, Kirkland, G-Shock, Corolla etc.
All this stuff is top quality but rich people wouldn't be caught dead in them.
Another thing rich people like to do is repurposing something completely trivial. This dude probably paid as much or close to shipping the shoes than a new wallet would have cost.
This guy gets a feeling of satisfaction that they're making the world a better place by repurposing their shoes. Then they go to their job where they earn a lot of money defending companies who gave a small town cancer or a massive oil spill or wholesale invasion of privacy.
I think even more accurate is that quality/longevity and price are almost completely decoupled.
Spending more doesn’t guarantee higher quality it mostly gets you exceptional graphic design and deftly nested packaging that makes you feel good when you open it.
But it’s not like all the cheap stuff is better. A Rolex is an incredible engineering marvel and is in fact very high quality and durable. So are Festool tools, and so on.
But like so is G-shock and a random and difficult to pin down subset of Harbor Freight.
The broader point is that none of this really makes a fucking difference most of the discussion is just people preening about their choices instead of admitting it’s mostly a roll of the dice.
And the old stuff wasn’t “better” it was just different. When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s garages were full of shoddy junk from the 50’s and 60’s. That stuff is just all gone right now.
Price seems to be based a lot more on marketing and brand saturation than quality. And quality brands get bought up all the time and the new company will coast on the brand while outsourcing manufacturing to the lowest bidder.
And you can't trust reviews with affiliate marketing around.
So pretty much the only thing to do to identify quality is to experiment or share info with people you trust.
I've wasted a ton of money on shitty products on the way to identifying quality products.
I'm not even railing against status. I bought a pair of Alan Edmonds specifically for job interviews to signal status but I wear LL Bean shoes and Crocs the rest of the time.
Also, there's other factors besides just durability and status. There's aesthetics, variable utility, ease of replacement, warranty availability, price, etc.
I hate shopping so I think alot about this haha
> Yeah completely agree that price is decoupled from quality nowadays
In the world of physic tools, price and quality are highly coupled.
To your other points, I honestly think fashion is very rewarding and healthy so long as you are focused on making yourself look good to you. And I agree, some fashion conformity is unavoidable. Especially depending upon your career field.
Ive never felt like I was in a more skeezy situation than mattress shopping.
It’s taken my wife and I years to slowly get pieces that will last the rest of our life.
But it's fundamentally worse at being a timepiece than a digital watch synchronized to an NTP time server.
If you're thinking about EMPs or something: well, I'd consider extremely accurate timekeeping to be the least of your concerns if no electronics work anymore...
However, that ignores the cost of maintaining a nice pair of shoes (both money and time) as one needs to clean, polish, and resole every so often.
You might want shoes in two or three colors/styles, which would make the Crocs last 2-3x longer, same for the other shoes, but are you really going to want the same expensive shoes in 30 years?
I think the higher end stuff that retains value and requires less maintenance might be a better example, like if someone is good at buying watches they could get a Rolex that appreciates in value and ends up costing them nothing vs a series of cheaper watches. Or compare to a $500 Apple Watch you replace every couple years. I don’t wear watches, though, and I’m not good at buying or selling them.
Really, I think there are some expensive, durable goods that last longer and are cheaper you might think, but still more expensive once you take into account the maintenance and time value of money. But nice stuff is nice to have, and it’s helpful that you don’t have to replace it so often.
Their overhead on purchases is low AND their returns are high.
This is the core of the “secret” to wearing high quality shoes at a low cost. Buy good used shoes and get them resoled as necessary. E.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/1jhp8o/a...
But I think your point is generally true, though I'm not convinced it is very responsive to this specific article. I didn't get much preachiness from this article, but maybe it was there, or maybe you are familiar with this person's other writing, I dunno.
My take is that "minimalism" is indeed often a status game as you say, but that it also has good insights for the rest of us who aren't interested in those games, but do feel this sense of having too much junk cluttering up our lives.
I'm far from a "true" minimalist, but reading stuff like this over the years has totally impacted my thinking. When thinking about buying things now, I do think about whether I could spend a little more for something I'll be able to use a lot more. Or even ignoring price differences either way, I just evaluate things from this perspective of durability. And I think that's good.
A better comparison is to look at, for instance, Johnston and Murphy vs. Alden. Then you get a more fair comparison. For instance, one has welted soles and so they can be replaced without changing out the upper. Those soles are leather and provide excellent comfort. One uses full grain leather uppers, one does not. Everyone doesn’t need those, but if you’re someone who is wearing dress shoes to the office every day, it may be worth the benefit. You also don’t have to worry about replacing the shoe every year (though you do have to maintain it).
So we need to stop acting like we have great wisdom for "Paying more for quality" when in reality status and fashion had as much to do with the purchase as well.
Maybe compare backpack, or suits, or something along those lines.
Its pretty much the perfect example imo
Like the rest of my life I could wear either Alden or crocs....and I do.
You pick one extreme edge case.
I’ve never found shoes that meet all those criteria. I’ve actually never found any shoes, ever, that were even durable or had usable arch support. So cheap + not embarrassing is pretty much the bar to cross
But I learned recently that crocks have amazing arch support!
They also make my cheap slip on shoes last much longer.
I've had the same wallet for 10 years. It cost me $16 and was made from recycled leather scraps (thanks, Phil's wallets!). I plan to use it at least another 10 years. Will the $115 wallet pushed in this article really last 7x longer than my scrap wallet? I doubt it.
If I'd like my clothes made and sourced ethically, or if I want to support a local business that makes leather goods rather than buying mass-produced ones from somewhere else -- I wouldn't say those scenarios are motivated by prestige, but by valuing people and the work they do. It's a bit unfortunate that some things like that are considered a luxury these days.
Those always were a luxury. Before mass production most people just couldn't afford to have things as we do nowadays.
However, I don't think this conversation is about them.
The smart middle class family buys the best they can afford given their budget, but the less-smart family buys the cheapest 'Buy well, buy once' encourages the first approach.
100% agree about the Corolla though.
These repairs, while likely less wasteful than full-on recycling, have costs attributed to them. It costs to produce the goods required to repair. These goods often aren't super sustainable products either. With these factors in mind, is the comparison equal? Can we absolutely stand by the idea that paying for $500 leather boots will be better for the environment and you for 10 years?
Which is why when making these comparisons we should really get into the nitty gritty details, otherwise we're just handwaving a bunch of things and making assumptions to justify our position. By doing so, we'll be able to make better choices with proper information rather than shifting the burden of environmental impact elsewhere (to a repair shop or shoe makers, etc).
Note, this is not a defense of crocs vs leather boots. The product categories are just throwaway examples.
Fun way to think about it (borrowed from James May): A Toyota Corolla is higher quality than a Rolls Royce. Because Toyota makes 10,000,000 vehicles per year. Rolls makes only 6,000. Meaning Toyota is better at making cars just by virtue of having 4 orders of magnitude more practice.
They’re just better cars, made to more exacting standards with higher quality materials and better engineering and features.
And Toyota consistently ranks higher.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/most-reliable-and-least-reliab...
Unless you think the word quality is just fully synonymous with reliability (in which case a paper airplane beats an F-18) then my point stands.
Quality is famously subjective, that's why you'll never see it ranked in a way that everyone can agree on the way you can with reliability which is actually measurable.
But reliability is one of the markers that most people would use to judge quality. And we generally expect aircraft to go where we want them to without catastrophic failure, so I would think that an F18 is more reliable than a paper plane.
Assuming my paper airplane never goes into the shop it’s going to outrank the F-18.
Ain’t a better plane though.
Say I wanted a low-cost, lightweight, hand-propelled aircraft capable of flying short distances indoors that I could fold up and put in my pocket afterwards? Which would be the "better" plane then?
In practice, it just meant Chevy often cheaped out on the water pump and you got water pump failures after the warranty expired.
Corolla designers are highly constrained by cost.
In fact you could save more money by wrapping your feet in used burlap sacks. Just need to be creative.
I settled on some classic Vans after a deep internet dive signaled that they’re the most popular among homeless people for being durable and comfortable without being too expensive. They look fine, and I have a lot of freedom regarding when to replace them. I’m very happy with the decision actually. As an added benefit, they’re a welcome donation to the homeless if I don’t completely wear them out (which is basically impossible).
$500 sounds about right to me for the leather equivalent of the Vans. By the time you’ve accounted for durability and comfort without sacrificing appearances (and done it such that they can be attractively resoled) you’ll spend around that much.
I don’t have a wardrobe to match leather shoes, but the logic holds here if I did. You don’t have to be rich to daily drive a single pair of nice shoes, and the author’s tone didn’t strike me as snobbish or smug.
It’s just a different attitude. Lots of more expensive clothing gets you added features, better style, and better comfort than Kirkland. Expensive athleisure brands like Lululemon and Alo, for example, have pockets in better places and are more attractive than their Kirkland equivalents. The directly equivalent spending on the two makes for a smaller wardrobe that gets worn more often. If you have a ChatGPT Plus subscription, have a quick discussion with it about fashion. Its training is not among content from the rich but rather the internet at large, and even it will tell you that fewer nicer fashion choices make a better wardrobe than more less expensive pieces.
https://www.vans.com/en-us/shoes-c00081/sk8-hi-canvas-shoe-p...
Small shoe makers get a good reputation for quality then can’t keep up with demand and sell or partner with huge fashion companies which cut costs and offshore manufacturing while keeping the price high.
Enshitification for shoes I guess.
But your comparisons don't factor in total cost of ownership and usage, and in fact many quality brands you do pay up for quality and better cost of ownership.
I can wear crocs at home. I would look disrespectful wearing them to a funeral. I can wear Alden anywhere though I might be overdressed for many occassions.
Aldens can be resoled and repaired and can last decades, the cost-per-wear can be very low. And many models of Aldens can be sold for a pretty penny (as an example these https://www.ebay.com/itm/394665864763 still go for nearly $300 even after years of wear). So if you bought Aldens new for $500 and wore for a decade and sold for $300 your cost per wear would be lower than that of the crocs. You would also be doing better for the environment by reusing the clothing and requiring less total material for your feet over a lifetime.
This also applies to a very few select watchmakers (and in fact increase in value). A Rolex or Patek Philippe has essentially beat inflation and would be considered a smart investment that made you money even while you wear it. A G-Shock would not offer similar returns.
Actually a lot of quality clothing can be like this. I thrifted a Tom Ford shirt for $40, wore it for a decade to weddings and funerals, and then sold it for $150. Certain makers are heavily discounted on second hand but retain their value. Borrelli shirts are some of the best on the planet. Would I pay retail? No. But you can buy them, wear them, and sell them second hand and pay virtually 0 to wear them over time.
Furniture is one where I've yet to find cheaper furniture paying off. A lot of particleboard furniture is awful. And it's all over Wayfair. The stuff I've had passed down or that I've bought that's lasted decades are all from North Carolina furniture makers. Not all of that stuff is expensive or high status but it is well made.
Expensive things are not always bad. Oftentimes the price is not justified. But it's not exclusive.
My grandfather still has his Hickey Freeman suits and sports coats tailored and repaired by a local menswear shop. Their Dualit toaster still works while I have personally gone through many Cuisinart toasters. Their technics AV components still work with their high quality speakers. Their Sony Trinitron TVs still work. Their pots and pans from their wedding are still in active use. Their Pyrex continues to store leftovers decades on. I am currently using the Minolta film camera and lens that my grandfather bought in the 80s for traveling around the world with.
When I go to their home, I am always in awe of the high quality objects that still function perfectly fine and can all be passed down. When I look at many of the things my parents own and most of the things I own, I see less and less of that. Our clothes are cheaper. Our pans less resilient. Our technology is less repairable.
Buying well certainly leads to a longer lifespan for objects. However, I find that’s becoming tougher and tougher to find these days.
You see the resilient things at your grandparents' house because those are the only things that have survived. All the poor quality things they purchased over the years are gone by now. Also, you and your parents probably favor lower-cost items (as do most people these days) over longevity. This may simply not have been possible in your grandparents' time, pre-globalization. It's still very possible to get high-quality and long-lasting goods (the buyitforlife subreddit is a good starting point), but you're going to pay a lot more for them than most people are willing to in comparison to the "replace it when it breaks" mass-produced-in-China goods.
Today, we have been in a period of rapid change as technology advances. My grandparents bought the best of the analog world. Their CRT TVs were the peak of consumer sets. The world switched to LCDs when I was looking to buy a TV, which took a long time to catch up to the height of CRTs (not until OLED in my opinion). Their film cameras took exceptional pictures. Only recently have most consumer DSLRs begun to achieve the same level of quality. Their cars had battle-tested V6 engines while the cars I looked at had newer, unproven inline 4 engines that came with carbon build up issues.
So a mix of survivorship bias and cost preference but also the current state of the market. Fortunately for me, I have been able to purchase a nice PVM to play my old video game consoles on, have made use of my grandfather’s film camera and can develop the film at a local studio, and am able to buy a used car with a proven V6 engine since they are still available in the market. When buying products that will hopefully last, I first look to what my grandparents own as a starting point. Often, purchasing older goods let me take advantage of those points you mentioned.
For a current product on the market that is pretty great, I have been pleased with a Moccamaster coffee maker.
The problem is that it has become increasingly difficult to discern if something will last.
An expensive product, from what was a trusted brand, can be just as short lived as a cheap one these days. Cost does not always reflect quality.
And brands that build long-lived products struggle as they don't have the repeat customers of products that are good, but contain forced obsolescence features.
It's a hidden cost to consumers that is often hard to figure out without extensive research.
I know of a company that was a national leader in a certain kind of industrial equipment. Now that the industry isn't expanding in this country, the market is saturated and they can't sell anything because what they sold decades ago was designed for excellence and just won't die. Nearly all business now is occasional servicing of their old equipment.
I wonder if the original saying has been translated multiple times before getting to English.
There's a useful function in limited lifespan - things are much easier to update and upgrade. My tastes have changed a lot over the past 20 years. If my clothes lasted longer I'd have a wardrobe full of things I don't like now and wouldn't wear. If my TV lasted 20 years I'd still have an old, inefficient SD CRT box in the corner, or I'd have passed it on to someone else and maybe they'd have scrapped a functioning item now.
It's less true for basic things like toasters and pots and pans, but I suspect the lower quality is partly due to being cheaper to make and therefore more accessible. If everything is made well and costs more then wealthy people have things that last and poor people don't have things. Cheaper things balances that inequality a little.
Societal context is important here.
Did your taste really changed on itself or did the constant marketing pressure changed your taste for clothes and your expectations for what is an acceptable TV ?
I mean : of course, I’m a tech enthusiast : I love big modern OLED screens, I love 4K movies and beautiful video games. I’m truly amazed by what we can do.
But, does all of this makes me truly happier than when I played with my Nintendo 64 on a cheap CRT screen ? I don’t think so. The pleasure I feel playing video games alone and with my friends never changed with technology evolution.
And it’s just an example that can apply to mostly everything. We just change things because we are encouraged to by marketers. Sometimes things are more robust or more efficient and that’s really worth changing, but that’s pretty uncommon.
That’s IMO what’s driving a lot of technological advancement. It’s not necessarily about needing progress as it is separating yourself from the profit maximization processes which makes most things worse over time. Tiny companies don’t have inherent advantages when it comes to say food, but they don’t have the expertise to perfectly maximize shelf life while keeping the food reasonably palatable.
That same maximization causes Windows and smart TV’s to include so much advertising because it’s maximizing their profits at the expense of the product. But you don’t see that in new categories like AR headsets.
There’s a local TV/internet provider who rolled out a new system of TV boxes. They compete with the big giant who had “4K” at the time. This provider sent out a signal that was 720P natively but it looked way better due to the rock-solid bitrate that was planned from the beginning. It was so noticeable that sports on the big giant’s boxes were a smeary blurry mess by comparison. And yet, the majority of bigger-spending customers still got pulled in by the “4k” marketing.
It's not that much more difficult to periodically clean out your wardrobe and donate it compared to throwing it in the trash.
Do you think people are getting new suits because they are "worn out", or perhaps because they're no longer in style?
>Their technics AV components still work with their high quality speakers.
I'll bet modern engineered speakers will beat those high quality speakers, at a fraction of the price. That's modernity.
You'd be surprised how shitty most "modern" speakers are.
Size is still king. Doesn't matter how fast your fancy microcontrollers are. The big-ass cabinets from the 80s and 90s still sound incredible when you put them next to the typical experience you'd find on the shelves of Target or Best Buy.
Often the woofer on the speaker is larger than a modern 5.1 subwoofer.
However, it is frustrating that I can't get modern speakers anything like my parents' three-ways with a 12 or 15 inch woofer without finding some esoteric offering.
You can get "modern" builds of the very same loudspeakers right now with major brands like Klipsch - https://www.klipsch.com/heritage-premium-audio The AK6 is still considered by many to be the best loudspeaker you can ever own.
Mainly because the market did large speakers is so much smaller now. Feels like the price/quality trade off is about the same as it was 40 years ago.
The speakers that are “a fraction of the price” now are there, but they’re really terrible Chinese-made junk for the most part.
Then he mentions that he has only 192 "worldly possessions". I'd like to see the actual list, because if it is accurate he mustn't have many forks or boxes of food in his cupboards. So he probably lives in a big city, eats out very often, takes public transportation, and basically relies on external services for things he does not have. Which is a kind of lifestyle that has a lot of externalities and does not really have a minimalist impact on society as a whole, so it feels less appealing to me.
I'm rather in the opposite camp, if I have some fixing to do in my house, rather than call a plumber for example I'll buy the tools, learn by watching youtube videos of experts, and do it myself. Not because of a philosophical view of the world but because I like to learn skills and be self-reliant. My possessions also last a long time because I'm often able to repair them.
Not sure how living in a big city and taking public transit has more negative externalities than the alternatives, care to expand?
I also feel it was implied that this impact was negative - or else it wouldn't be an argument against the post - but that's besides the point.
Author didn't even seem to read the LA Times link he linked. I've personally got close to 5000 staples in a drawer. And I'm sure the author has some similar huge amount of an object. He's undoubtedly not counting his shoelaces as separate objects, where it seems likely the authors of the research on items in a household are.
From the LA Times piece:
> The average U.S. household has 300,000 things, from paper clips
emphasis, mine. A box of paper clips is considered multiple items.
I see you aren't counting the individual granules.
I miss the clarity of minimalism, but I can also have a different view on wallets - they're just leather and some stitching and such, and I can change them to be what I need.
Of course it's a very particular type of programmer disease to fixate on having equipment that can compile any possible wallet to solve the problem of having a wallet.
I get a kick out of dumb stuff like fixing the dishwasher latch by bending a new spring rather than getting the $70 replacement part (... probably spending $100 of my labour, good thing my free time is worthless!).
I spend a lot on storage systems and need a lot of discipline around stuff like deciding a place for things before acquiring them. It's a tradeoff I'm OK with.
I have occasionally bought broccoli that I didn't need just so I could get another rubber band, after my previous one broke. They typically last 2 months or so.
I found popsockets and ring holders a better option in that regard https://image.gsmpunt.nl/blog/image/image_3.png
Oh so this is what those weird phone attachments are called. Thanks!
I love bring the extra screw up from the basement I saved 4 years ago knowing this moment would one day come where I need it. Now is it on the bottom of the red or the blue folgers coffee can.
That said - tools and home improvement objects are allowed in the maximum as long as they fit in the basement workshop, that’s my only rule.
Appliance repair usually starts at a $100 house-call fee and goes up from there. It is cheaper to buy a new dishwasher than get it repaired.
They replaced the entire dishwasher. They said they couldn't get a replacement rack.
What are the margins on replacement racks?
Someone would have to pay for warehousing, stock tracking, employees for packing/shipping, then add shipping costs. Why would anyone offer them?
As someone that owns a number of small-engine powered devices, I'm always amazed at how easy/cheap it is to find parts. Most small engines are either one of a couple Briggs and Stratton models, or a knockoff of same. Even across models, B&S usually did a pretty good job of reusing common parts. When you need a part, you can cross reference various part numbers to find either the OEM part or dozens of cheap Chinese copies.
Especially as a landlord, spend $200-400 to replace the racks or buy a new for $500 and pretty much guarantee no calls on that item for five years.
“This is too <whatever> to get rid of!”
Wrong. Throw it away and don’t replace it.
either it finds its way to somebody who will value it, or somebody will throw it out for you. either way is a win.
A fellow hacker at VCF once mentioned to me that this obsession that many geeks have should graduate into letting go of items because down the road you can always buy another one if it scratches your itch again. He made a good point.
Plus selling stuff is a full-time job really and it's annoying AF if it's not your day job. So I guess the question is - are you going to ever sell it? If not, then it doesn't really matter if it's expensive, it's just taking up space.
Your income/purchasing power definitely plays a role here too. Hoarding is more worth it if you don't have an efficient way to covert time into money.
I wanted to save money, avoid maintenance and reduce my mental load. I found people who keep spreadsheets of their stuff and debate whether it's okay to own tools or multiple coffee cups.
It seems like if this is where someone's application of minimalism lands them, they have missed the point.
On that note I went from owning one pair of shoes last year to three. It was a great non-minimalist decision. My shoes now take three times longer to wear out, and now I'm always wearing shoes that are more useful or more fashionable for the situation (or both) than what I used to wear.
So two pairs of shoes for the office so they always have a full day to dry out etc. Now with WFH that sort of goes out the window as I don't wear shoes for as long any more.
This is really interesting, particularly since you use the word “obsess”. I meet all of the criteria for OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder — NOT the same thing as OCD), except for “unwilling to throw out broken or worthless objects, even if they have no sentimental value”. In fact, I’m quite the opposite because I try to be as minimalist as I can and am constantly throwing away or donating objects that I don’t need or that don’t meet my quality standards.
I always thought it was strange that I don’t match this one specific symptom of OCPD, but then I started thinking some more, and I realized that I do obsess over objects in a way but not by hoarding them. If I want to order nail clippers for example, I have to spend hours online researching the best pair of nail clippers. I am currently wiring my house for networking, and everything has to be of the highest quality using data center components. Even rented a Fluke network tester. Closet needs repairs? Now I’m learning about drywall and level 5 skim coats. It’s a nightmare because I can’t do anything in a way that I consider half-assing it — I feel compelled to either do nothing at all or go into an extreme level of detail with it.
This constantly causes relationship and work problems, but to a lesser degree than I suppose hoarding stuff would.
Edit: @asddubs: thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, though you never know what reality faces the person on the other end of a link, which is why I still try. Sometimes you might be surprised. And thank you for helping get my karma back to an even number, all is well again. Your friendly friend, MD.
Nail Clipper: Green Bell G-1008
The frustration of needing to build expertise in things you want to not do shabbily is particularly familiar. Especially with home repair tasks that contractors end up doing but not doing well ... I've learned far more about roofing, flashing techniques, the guidelines for handling, installing, and storing prefinished siding that were nowhere near followed by contractors ... than I would have expected or even truly wanted. It really emphasizes the "ignorance is bliss" mindset which is a hard pill for me to swallow.
I like that Konmari can also apply to obligations and how you allocate your time. Thats the premise of a book: the life-changing magic of not giving a f**.
That's has become my goal for new purchases. For some items that means getting higher quality that will last longer, for others it's get the cheapest that will work and replace it if it breaks. It does lead to weird purchases like higher quality charger cables, but cheaper a cheap TV.
I spent the better part of 15 years living out of a small backpack, travelling ~9 months a year then flying home to work short software contracts and save up for the next trip. As a consequence, I got used to not having very many things. One pair of pants, one pair of shorts, that sort of thing. I think my policy was something like "If I haven't used this thing in the last 3 days, I don't really need it along".
At one point, I revisited my storage locker, filled to the roof with everything I had owned in my 20s, and couldn't really find anything that I wanted to take out of it. "This isn't the shirt I wear", and "I already have enough socks" (meaning four socks: 2 on my feet and another pair for when I wash these.) I ended up just letting the storage company auction it all off.
It was really weird buying a house and starting to fill it with things. I bought a couch and a TV. I got my old guitar back from the friend I'd lent it to 20 years earlier, then eventually bought a second one and a bass to go with it. It's actually kinda nice to have a few possessions.
The attitude is still there though. At one point I had to buy five iPhones in a single day as test machines for a job, and it was all I could do to physically force myself to click the buy button. It was like fighting every natural impulse in my body to overcome my aversion to consumerism.
I guess it has left me in a healthy spot in regard to "stuff ownership."
And on top of that, now we have a kid ;)
All true, but having kids was never a choice for you given your financial situation so let’s not pretend you had a say in the matter.
People have kids at all income levels. For every one who claims they can't afford kids - someone is raising a family on that same income.
In general, if you get N children, then you either favor one child, or each child gets 1/N of the inheritance. Same goes for money available for sending your kid to college. Meaning, as a rule of thumb, the more children you get, the poorer those children will be from that point of view. Like a single can live well from €2k euro per month in most of Germany, but for a family with 3 children the same sum is very little.
And of course there is the entire dateability aspect, too. People with higher income are seen as more attractive than those with lower income.
I suspect income has a negative correlation with the number of children in general, if anything.
It might not be a choice to have kids, and a new car while also going to the cafe every day. But having kids is always an option.
Same probably goes for "vanlife". It is millennials just realizing they cant afford a home ever and so they improvise with what they can resource.
Of course, there are zen style minimalists. But many seem to be in it for aesthetic.
Today I hesitate to buy anything that I can't pack in a suitcase or wouldn't feel comfortable throwing away or donating to Goodwill in ~2 years.
At least it’s not true for me. For all my life I’ve been drowned in objects. My parents are still telling that I had so many toys.
Minimalism is a way for becoming aware of the objects around me. Not so much about the pure number of objects.
Since, I started thinking about what should be part of my life and also letting go of things I don’t really need, my savings rate has skyrocketed. Also, many things I own have much higher quality than my parents or grandparents.
I guess minimalism is a counter-movement to super-cheap consumerism.
The trick they pulled is telling us all that inconvenience is bad and needs to be eliminated, but what I've come to see is that life happens in inconveniences, and consumerism tells us we should trade our life for their junk.
It is completely free to convince people they are saving the planet by living less than others.
China closets, album collections, file cabinents, many book cases packed, shelves of games/cartriges/cdroms, many different kinds of sports equipment not used for a decade, dead appliances, 3 toolboxes filled with crappy tools, drawers filled with disposable pens, large closets packed with clothes not worn in a decade etc. Every trash day with overflowing garbage cans from all the disposable stuff.
Buying decent shoes, tools, a decent pen, a decent razor, and decent wallet can last decades. Even more disposable things like cars, computers, stereos/electronics can last a decade or more, but often have a somewhat higher cost up front/but cheaper to own per year. In general if it's made in plastic my first conclusion is that it's not worth it. Don't eat out of plastic, drink out of it, don't use a plastic keychain, even cans these days are plastic lined. Don't even touch it if you can avoid it.
Yes this kind of attitude is possible even with wife, kids, and a dog. If it's not been used in the last year considering upcycling, donating, giving it away, or pitching it.
I can't believe this at all.
My utility room, which basically just has stuff like cleaning products and rags/cloths etc, has more than 200 items in it. It's all useful, we're talking things like bleach, deodorant, shampoo, handwash, etc.
My house probably has 50 or more pieces of art on the walls and then another 50 pieces of furniture. My computery odds and ends bin easily has more than 200 items in it.
Either you guys are all just-moved-out kids, single and living in a single room, or we're defining "thing" differently. Which is it?
It's just a different lifestyle, there are obvious exceptions to it - but I was there once with a house and countless things - most of them I forgot I had and such.
The idea is to do inventory and then catalog and see what you need and don't need. But no, I can say with assurance my life right now is basically two suitcases, by choice - and airbnbs/hotels. 20 lb of clothes/about 80 pieces total.
Misc electronic stuff takes a ton of space, spare usb - chargers, usb cables, etc - having spares for spares.
But yeah, I agree with the general point.
On the other hand if I count something it is more likely to be consumable item, so I have track of what is missing. Why bother with other stuff? That sounds like opposite of minimalism.
My house is a fairly normal sized house, there are millions of it in the UK.
Of course, much more items are accumulating while staying stationary. Easily approaches 1000, and I'm not a hoarder type. If some item has not been used for 1 year, out to the garbage it goes.
> I can't believe this at all.
> Either you guys are all just-moved-out kids, single and living in a single room, or we're defining "thing" differently.
I feel like the assumption in this is that people who are single and living in a single room are not "people", and shouldn't be posting about how much they own? My utility room contains a washer, a dryer, one bottle of Tide, and a paper bag for dryer lint. I'm not posting "people say they have 2000 square feet in their home, I can't believe this. Either you guys live in houses, or we're defining 'feet' differently".
antibacterial spray
bleach
cleaning cloths
washing up liquid
floor cleaner
dusters
etc?
They might not be yours, but someone uses these? Maybe the cleaner brings them?
I don't think that people who are flatsharing or whatever are not people. I just think that it's a super narrow slice of life. You might do it from 25-35 maybe and then get a partner and like, not do that any more.
I have bleach sometimes during flu season and I have hand soap. Probably my cleaning habits are in the bottom 15% too.
The latter groups surface goals I like but I find a lot of times they’re just interested in paying more for what are effectively pseudo luxury brands or strange ideas that because it is made of metal it will last longer…. but little in the way of anyone actually using the items much.
It’s frustrating as I like the gist of the ideas but the folks practicing that I find on the internet seem off / miss the target IMO.
Amazing sound, I love how it feels.
Where it loses most is connectivity. Amps use DB25 cables both between each other and for input, so the audio cable I've got hooked up to the HTPC's Xonar Deluxe with RCAs out is a very special one indeed - I'm amazed I found it at all, all those years ago (DB25-RCA). All audio has to go through the HTPC, for that reason, so the Samsung 65" QLED from 6-7 years ago is just a dumb display (not a bad thing!).
For longevity I rarely if ever power the equipment down; it's gotten a bit finicky to start the preamp after a power outage, but for now it's still coming back.
I'll attempt to have it repaired prior to getting a replacement if it ever fails.
Oh and the Win10 HTPC is a decade old at the core too, but I've updated it with a modern case, cooling and storage - works fantastic with a wireless Logitech keyboard.
Speakerbits in Melbourne who did my surrounds (they had all disintegrated) has ceased to exist now, but they did a stellar job - guy said the speakers had appreciated since my purchase, as decent mid range speakers just didn't exist anymore, it was either low end (rubbish) or the extreme high end.
Stick with what you have if it sounds good to you, but I do feel the need to point out two things: There have been significant improvements in room correction DSP algorithms particularly in the last decade. You don't need to ditch your amp to add these, there are DSP boxes you can put in the preamp stage. These will improve sound quality considerably. Audyssey, Dirac, and Anthem ARC are common names; there are others.
And there are a huge abundance of speakers in the mid range $200-$600 that are absolutely fantastic; it's a pretty wide market segment. There's plenty of old options too, but... it's not hard to find a new set of speakers capable of great sound at a decent price these days. I don't know what exactly Speakerbits was implying, but it's not true now.
I haven't really been following hi-fi products over the last couple of decades, due to wanting to "settle", but it wouldn't surprise me if things have improved since January 2010 (checked the date they were repaired) - or maybe the technician just had a particular affinity for the Kappa 6.2is (4x same plus their centre speaker).
The process I went through was basically thinking about my core habits, mapping said habits to some objects, and then thinking about extra objects to support those habits. After that, I slowly started purchasing what I needed. Timing was great, because I sync'd that with moving countries. I spent some effort thinking about quality of individual purchases, and I ended up with a very minimal home, which is also great for maintenance.
For a different lifestyle, this list would be much longer and that is fine.
There is nothing special about having just 100 items.
Depending on where you are located geographically there may very well be something special.
I live in the PNW and I bet if I counted all my forks, spoons, coffee cups, pots and pans, etc., I'd have more than 100 items right there, to say nothing about my tool chest. Between my home office and my wife's purse I probably have 100 pens and pencils around the house.
To own a grand total of 100 items would be extremely spartan for just about anyone around here.
But if you are renting a condo downtown, as it was my case, you may want to trim down your possessions as much as possible.
Nonetheless, I think people tend to own too much stuff and this prevents focusing on what actually matters, it's a bit like with bloated software.
On this I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's very easy to accumulate cruft that one "might need later". I have a whole toolbox full of that shit. I might actually need a bunch of random capacitors, who knows?
There is no way that an adult has 100 things inside an entire flat they eat, work, leisure, and sleep in. I assume that they mean 100 valuable things that they wouldn't want to just lose.
Of course, the shower isn't yours so it doesn't count. Using this, we can get rid of the sleeping bag and just roll up the carpet in the rented flat and sleep in that.
What else can we cut?
Once a year walk through every room in your house with a video camera, openning all drawers and closets and record it all. Drop your 20-plus gigs of high-dev video somewhere (I use AWS glacier for pennies a month) and then IF you ever need to, you can painfully go through it and catalog everything.
Here's my daily wardrobe:
- an oversized plain black T shirt, - a pair of jeans, - a belt, - black socks, - and a pair of boxer briefs.
I wear these almost every day. Every single one of these items is cheap enough to buy in bulk whenever I want them. So: If I ever walk into my closet and find myself missing any one of these items due to them all being in the laundry, I immediately
1. Take out my phone and 2. Order another pack of them on Amazon.
The beauty of this feedback loop is that I very quickly converge on the point where my buffer matches my flow, where my natural cadence of laundry-doing never leaves me without one of these five essentials. It works regardless of whether I do laundry once a week or once a month, so long as I make sure to do all of it. Worst case scenario, I have a few shirts/pants/boxers/socks/belts that mostly lie around unused, until of course I eventually have to throw out old shirts/pants/boxers/socks/belts because they were used heavily enough to wear down.
I apply something like this to most of my purchases. If I am buying a new phone or some computer hardware, I want to be able to fit another replacement for what I'm about to buy into whatever my budget is. The same goes for clothes, tools for the garden like a tiller or a chainsaw or whatever.
And you know what? It's a decent approach: I have a used Ryzen 5 1600 in my computer now (upgraded from Ryzen 3 1200), as well as an RX 570 (and a spare RX 580 for similar price, bought recently as new old stock), because under that reasoning that's all I can afford, yet it's all that I realistically need. Some spare HDDs (those die more than most other hardware) and a mobo and everything in the shelf next to it. If any one of those parts die like they have in the past, I don't have to cry about how expensive replacing everything will be, nor wait for shipping, just spend 30 minutes swapping out parts.
As for longevity of various items: I don't quite buy it. Sure, there are also people with Stihl chainsaws that have lasted them decades, but why would I spend 5-10x more money, when I can get a new Chinese chainsaw for about 100 EUR that will be enough for all of my casual usage needs around the farm? And once it inevitably stops being useful, I can get a completely new one without a worn engine, while still having some spare parts for repairs. I can think of very few items where I'd want the latest or greatest, even my daily driver phone isn't top of the line and only stands out because of IP 68 and being shock proof (up to a degree, dropped it out of my pocket and on concrete while doing pull ups, didn't even crack the screen).
Perhaps the only exception to this is something like services: dental care and other healthcare procedures, no reason to go cheap on either of those, but then again, I live in Europe so that's not a very contested subject for me due to the overall affordability. Still pondering these thoughts in regards to food, but store brand food is generally both affordable and reasonably healthy over here.
The healthcare costs are indeed unfortunate, but personally I can't think of many things that would be so dangerous about chainsaws.
Kickback will happen with every saw, the chain brake should be tested before every run anyways. A 50cc single cylinder engine doesn't feel like it'd be too dangerous to be around, especially with the rest of the chainsaw body around it. Maybe the chain wouldn't be too good and people would tension it too much, or perhaps it could come apart or something. Even then, PPE that you're wearing would generally make you safer. Realistically, at most it won't last you a decade and signs of wear will become apparent a bit earlier.
Regardless, I get your point and thank you for making it!
I tend to go with a bit of a sliding scale based on factors like "how often do I expect to use it?" and "how afraid am I of it injuring me?"
> I don't count hoodies, t-shirts, socks or usb cables but I really don't own many. I count a pair of shoes in a box as 1 item.
Huh? Either you're counting things or you're not. Saying you own 192 items except for the 800 (?) you're not counting doesn't make a lot of sense. Why are shoes an item but socks aren't?
192 makes no sense to me. I've probably got 192 items in my kitchen alone, just from wanting to be able to cook and serve a meal for 4 people because it's nice to eat with friends. A fork is a worldly possession, after all.
(Counting owned items can get entirely silly).
You're assuming people are the same as you - I follow the same but I live out of suitcases and can travel at a moments notice for the best flights and pick up an airbnb somewhere.
But this is the life I want - literally 95% of my things fit in 2 suit cases, a third is my bike and a bike is a bike thought if you want to get really technical you can count the wheels, the brakes, the brake rotors, the frame, chain, groupset, etc as different but together it's a bike (and a bike bag!) but I do count the clothes/water bottles, etc.
It's also so cool because you can use pivot tables to group items into necessary or not - so if you want to wing just a one backpack 25-40l trip, you know what to grab and also the rolling cost of items associated too - and for more fun, deprecation, purchase cost, etc.
I enjoy it, but thats the spirit, a pair of socks = 1 or do you have 12 socks?
The bigger takeaway is learning what keeps you grounded or anchored. Nothing is wrong with that - can be family, can be cars, can be real estate/houses, can be business, etc.
The idea is you inventory your life and see what is the most minimal you need (haha, MVP basically.) and go from there.
You can do it for spending, you can do it for consumption via money, diet - eating/consumption/purchasing,etc.
It's fun, I enjoy keeping an inventory list, knowing what I have where and for larger valued items, e.g. $500+ I can put in last time usage so if I don't need it, I sell it - lower value items giveaway/free.
For me, I've live in the PNW too - and it's quite fun to just have a suitcase/duffel bag, and just camp out in my car or drive somewhere new and do that - or like I said above, hop on a flight and have everything I need for the duration of my stay.
I get it can sound boring or non-exciting to many people, but once you get into it - it really is fascinating. What things do you need for everyday life?
Up in the air had a great segment about it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsRP9EUrXjo I haven't read the book, but I should - I've been seeing it quite a bit.
So my bath mat is "mine" because I own the house and had to buy it myself, but yours isn't because it's rented?
Because if we can cut that out then yeah, now I own far fewer things. It seems like a weird distinction to make.
If you're renting on a standard long term lease - not short term rental, and it isn't furnished with them, yes they're yours because you bought them.
It's up to you what you want to "count", but toiletries are like petty cash. Pots/Pans can have realistic value, and the rabbit hole for them goes deep from cheap iron, stainless steel, ikea standard purchase, etc.
The idea is to take a break, catalog what you have and go from there. You can catalog 1000+ items and just get rid of ten but then you know "oh just ten items were fluff" vs not knowing or getting rid of 200.
The idea is the exercise.
You don't have to look for some technical workaround to some exact definition here, and pedantically arguing about descriptive terms can get tiring real quick.
Maybe you're not trying to be pedantic and are coming from a place of curiosity, and I do apologize for my tone if that's the case. It is coming off as sounding a little "debate-bro" though.
I wouldn’t count all my dinner plates and cutlery as “possessions” as such, but I’d count my good knives.
Same with the cars.
Don’t be silly, having three friends is hardly minimalist. Have you ever considered how friends weigh you down? One is more than enough, and frankly even that might be too many.
But at the same time, I've realized that buying the best of everything every time is not the best way to go. Sometimes your taste changes but the object still is in a great condition with no other takers. So you're stuck with something you don't like anymore.
A good compromise seems to be buying the cheap version of everything the first time around. That way if you don't use it as much, you haven't spent a lot of money on it. And if you do it use it, the cheap stuff will wear out sooner and you can replace it with better made stuff.
I have the same obsession as you and this is how I reconcile with it. If I'm not ready to meet someone across town I probably don't need it.
I prefer to just buy new, where I can have stuff delivered, and then use it until it’s completely worn out or obsolete.
You can often find near-new Apple products and great tools at a steep discount too.
Oh you can't? Right because tech is actively trying to make you ditch your old phone. My last phone was great but can't fix the screen and the new model is worse, because they now want you to buy their earphones, and their watch, and soon their goggles.
I think it's a good idea, but not always feasible.
Also, the absolute top-of-the-line may not be reasonable, when a "near-the-top" product would be just as useful.
I own a lot of stuff that doesn't really catch anyone's attention, but cost a fair bit. Examples are Junghans and Oceanus watches (I prefer the Oceanus, which cost half as much as the Junghans, but I now wear neither, as I have an Apple Watch, which costs less than either of them).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory#:~:text=The%20Sam....
Mehngaa roye ek baar, sastaa roye sattar baar
Meaning, literally:
Expensive, cry once; cheap, cry seventy times.
But I've seen actual minimalists and they're nothing like an urbanite living in an all-white studio apartment.
They're tightly-knit circles of friends livig in small towns who go way back and therefore can trust each other with their property and, of course, save money in the process because none of them does it just for minimalism's sake.
Bottom line is if you want both minimalism and individualism, you're gonna spend a lot of money on services rendered by strangers.
Do you wear shoes inside?
An e-reader is amazing for travel, but doesn't give you any of the above.
I don’t think I’m making it to less than 500 items total. Maybe not even less than 1K.
I also don’t see anything wrong with that.
It would be interesting to count everything in our home. The author says they don’t count clothing, but I wonder if the article includes clothing. I probably have 10,000 screws/bolts/nuts/washers/nails/etc. in the bins in my garage. Do I count all those separately? We have thousands of books. The kitchen has lots of dishes, silverware, pots, pans, trays, etc. Do we count all the food items separately? I have a 5 gallon bucket of all purpose flour, a 5 gallon bucket of wheat flour, bags of bread flour, a separate canister of flour on the countertop… do I count all of those separately? I start to think of all the things in the shed, in the garage, in closets, and bedrooms. 300,000 probably isn’t far off.
Many people keep items or leftover stuff (one time use tools or extra glue, etc) because it saves money and time from having to drive to the store or order it online again incase they need it again. Those just incase items build up but they can end up being handy.
As someone that’s moved every year for like 6 yrs in a row, I sell about 95% stuff I don’t use but I still have a lot of things just in case that take up little space in junk drawer, etc. I think focusing on what you like and enjoy is better. Putting a hard round number on items is too much of a mental waste of time
All extra luxuries that enable them to live minimalist type lifestyles, but it’s not quite the whole story.
Generally speaking, the cheaper you go, the less a thing will last. In the end, everything is built/manufactured to meet a price target with the exception of things that are overpriced because brands, and it's important to learn to identify this.
It's so difficult to toe the line without leaning more one way than the other.
For me I had the biggest abundance and greatest variety of elecronic components to perform repairs and hobbyist work when I had stockpiled kilos of discared circuit boards back when they were almost all still through-hole design.
One man gathers what another man spills.
As an example, I needed to take some basketball shoes down a size. If you look up insoles on Amazon, they’re about $20 (which is insane). On the other hand where I live there was a cobbler that did the work for less.
I love repairing stuffs and feel little bit nervous if using something that I know is not repairable or dont understand, how it works.
Of course quality over quantity is more sustainable. Corporations needs to understand this. Trying to be more green or diverse wont help with overproduction of cheap, non quality stuffs. If market offers new stuff cheaper that fixing existing one, something is realy wrong. And I guess we can feel it right now.
Nearly spent 200+ on one 2nd hand via ebay auction. After a while sanity prevailed and I got an amazon brand one for a 1/4. Does the job too and I use it so seldomly (soldering DIY sht) that I'm glad I didn't spend more.
Sometimes it almost hurts me to buy cheap junk. But then I also realize that this is perfectly adequate for my use cases and even $10 more for another product would not be worth it. (And who says that the other product would really be better?).
Not sure how well the durability arguments with new products will hold up over decades like a 60s Braun product may have
To "buy well", one has to understand every merchandise he is to make a purchase, but who has the capacity to do the research? And how do you do the research?
For example, how do you know that two fridges, one $800 and one $2000, which one will last longer? Modern capitalism distorts price-quality equation so you cannot simply pick the more expensive ones.
It really makes sense to just pick a brand you heard of, take a middle priced model, or what ever fits your need and go with it. And never places too much hope on it. Expect that home appliance will break in 5-7 years.
Our fathers and grandfathers had the luxury of living in a different world. We don't. I guess the only saying that makes sense is: don't buy screwdrivers from dollar shops.
Vitamix 5300 - going strong after 13 years of near daily usage, 4 family blenders from department stores failed/poor quality blending before this
Zojirushi Rice Cooker - also close to 13 years, usage of a few times a week
Breville Burr Grinder - decade or a bit older, frequently used
Sonicare Toothbrush - $150ish or so model, probably 8 years of near twice daily usage. Presume I’ll have to change the battery sooner or later, but fine aside from that.
Being from poverty, I don’t think anybody in my family prior to me had ever spent nearly this much money on singular appliances. Having made the money spent on them on my own in my early teens, I consider it money very well spent - they’ve been with me in the Midwest, to the East Coast, and the West Coast (and through more than a few TSA baggage scans with people maybe wondering why is a young male flying with this kitchen equipment)
I contacted Philips again and explained that nobody is able to repair it, they again offered me 10% off a new one (which I'd have to buy through the official web store, which is already more expensive than a retail store) which I declined, they sent me details of a repair shop in a completely different state. I rang that repair shop and explained in detail the entire story, they were empathetic but also said they have no idea how they'd repair a toothbrush or even why Philips would suggest I send it there.
I'd say you got lucky with your Sonicare, and based on the runaround they gave me, poor customer service and poor serviceability, I would not recommend anyone buy an expensive Sonicare unless they're made of money and don't care about the possibility of having to replace it within a few years.
So basically only low wattage stuff is 120 and 220 volts.
This is my objection to minimalism (not that you're advocating, but ObOnTopic): Tools and materials are capability, which seems senseless to minimize!