My current approach to buying and stuff: Never "buy", only "invest". That is, always consider return (happiness, time, money, etc.). Invest in experiences in the exploratory manner of an Angel investor. Invest in things in the more conservative manner of a Series A investor [1].
Second time I moved countries, I realised I had too many useless items. And I was pretty minimal already. I decided I'd try to buy very few things. Stuff that is good and that I really need.
At the end of the day, Pareto principle plays in my favour. We usually spend most of the time doing a tiny fraction of things. I buy items for those, optimising them ruthlessly. I get rid of everything else.
I've ended up with a closed list of less than 60 belongings. Stuff is really good, and the total cost is only a fraction of what a regular apartment contains.
I've been trying to do this for a number of years because I move roughly every year and have been keeping notes of items I use and don't use similar to a cache hierarchy. Upon inspection of my outer layers, I've come to realize that many experiences and crafts are very "stuff-oriented" like working with power tools or supporting a beloved pet or child. Furthermore, evicting cache so often only to need the data again is extremely expensive. The cost must be compared, just like in a computer, of time to possibly regenerate it or if your collective life experience dataset can live without it.
I say this as someone that just lost a pet of 10+ years struggling to find a specific photo that I didn't realize would be of so much emotional value until later. Like stuff, data we painstakingly generate that isn't manageable is data that is lost, and when it comes to management, consistency is more important than purity or even validity. But really, it's surprising how some of the smallest, seemingly insignificant of things we have can become something grossly important. This is fundamentally part of how hoarding happens I know, but with modern tools it's amazing how much we can collect and manage without occupying physical space in our daily lives and achieve a balance of remberance and daily function.
I travel lots and have been paring down with each trip to try to achieve the minimal set of things for my life. It'd be great to see a post to learn more about your experience.
While the community will point out regularly that not all things can be bought for life, many can if you're willing to spend more upfront for higher quality. For example, spending $20 on a pair of socks with a lifetime warranty vs. $2 for a pair that'll last a year.
I also see Jansport backpacks and Craftsman tools mentioned similarly.
A.k.a “The Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice”:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
I like that approach, but getting the very expensive stuff keeps me too worried about it. The $20 socks may last a lifetime on my feet, but they burn just as well as the $2 socks. Likewise, I'm not confident enough to try to fix a broken device worth $2k, but if it's worth $400 I'll give it a go, and often end up saving money on the repair.
I really can't stand the whole 'Marie Kondo' bs. Ask your grandparents about quality and you can skip the nonsense. Buy what you need, save before you spend, buy quality and repair your stuff rather than throwing it away. It's just common sense.
This stuff only works on people that are easily pushed by marketing and advertising to fulfill needs they didn't have in the first place and end up with houses full of things they can easily get rid of. Fortunately for Miss Kondo the same people are also easily sold a book that they didn't really need. Who thought an 'organizing consultant' was something we would one day take serious.
Common sense is not universal, common, or necessarily sensical.
I did not grow up with parents who raised me this way and had little to no contact with grandparents. My parents were also often cash strapped.
You and I know that saving up for quality products is a better approach. I learned it by watching my parents buying a cheap stand mixer every two years (max) growing up. Then I worked at a kitchen store and learned that there were some KitchenAids still working after 75 years. I saved up my paycheck and may have been one of the only 17 year olds to ever buy a KitchenAid. I'm still using it over 15 years later.
Thing is... I didn't have three kids, a mortgage, and other more pressing uses for my money. Once you get into a debt spiral you rarely have the cash needed to purchase the stuff of the quality you need to make it last. Instead you buy crappy stuff at the dollar store to make until the next paycheck.
Of course, they do still purchase more things than I do as they haven't learned the other part of this lesson -- if you can't afford the quality version you should probably make do without it.
Also note, the equipment, space, and know-how for repairing things is not available to many (probably most).
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
A huge advantage of disposable things is it's no big deal if they are damaged. Stuff breaks outside of normal ware use. Cars for example often fail due to an accident which limits there maximum useful lifetime.
Time value of money also hits in. A cheap mattress that last for 7 years is arguably better than spending 2x as much for something that last 14 years.
Finally, some things simply don't get used much. Often buying say a cheap snowboard to start with is much better simply because it might not maintain your interest. High end home exercise equipment can be a great investment, but it's likely to just end up as an expensive coat rack.
Purchasing stuff several times leads to an enormous amount of waste and energy spent on construction, transport and recycling.
Following on your mattress example, some swedes take pride on owning the same Hästens mattress for more than 70 years. They are expensive, but not outrageous if you ignore their recent flashy models. Regular ones are maybe 3 or 4x of what a decent mattress costs.
Same can be said about lots of items, like chairs, tables, pens, kitchen tools or even clothes. Good stuff can last for long. There's even a reddit community that discusses these: http://reddit.com/r/bifl
You have any idea how much dead skin would be in those things after 70 years ick. Anyway for some real numbers a friend uses a 50$ foam pad that last ~5-10 years. It's not great, but it's better than a lot of older mattress people get used to.
Considering the light weight and minimal materials it's probably better for the environment than you might think. It's not like dumping the things in a landfill cases much harm and for the price not much resources / energy can go into making it.
I don't know about your Grandparents but when mine passed away they had so much junk saved for a rainy day. Literally 30 pairs of shoes. What is that for?
You pay for that square footage in rent, you pay for it by having to manage in your house, you pay for it in the uncertainty every time you look at it.
You're never going to read that collected works of Shakespeare. Well, maybe you are. But if you have to ask yourself the question, you won't.
Sure, it's fine to have some "art" around in the form of books, or nice plates. But being dishonest with yourself contributes to so much frustration. This is extra true if you're living with someone.
This is all hard and fast (people have different circumstances), but the whole "fitting your life into a suitcase thing" is valuable advice. So is throwing everything out that you haven't used in a year (one of Kondo's thing).
It might be worth experimenting with the ideas "organizing consultants" give. It's liberating to actually be able to use my entire desk.
Yes, my parents taught me how to clean up. But they also taught me to treasure books, but running a library takes time beyond just "having a shelf".
It's heavily related to culture and your influences growing up.
For example: I'm from East Germany. I grew up in a free country (after the reunion). I have a well-paying job and never had trouble getting access to all the household items etc. that I need. So over time, I have emphasized the role of property as a liability (although I'm not as radical in downsizing my inventory just yet). When I can always buy stuff that I need (or borrow it from someone), why own it now?
My parents were socialized in the GDR, where every single item in your household inventory was acquired through hard work, saving, and good connections to the people who can acquire certain luxury items live TV sets or silverware for them. It's very plausible that they take pride in an extensive inventory.
My grandmother grew up during World War II. Having had to flee from the destroyed remains of Berlin, and having lived in a time of cruel scarcity, it's no wonder that she, too, attaches a higher value to ownership than I do, and always keeps a fridge full of deep-frozen food whereas I always buy Just In Time.
> But they also taught me to treasure books, but running a library takes time beyond just "having a shelf".
I agree with the general idea of your comment, just wanted to add that there are people like myself for whom physically owning books is almost a fetishistic thing. What I mean is that there are moments after a day's work when I sit on my couch and just looking at the books from my library makes me think "at least I do all this for a reason, I have all these books, the ideas of some of the greatest minds of the human species are present in my 2-room apartment, it's all good".
> This stuff only works on people that are easily pushed by marketing and advertising to fulfill needs they didn't have in the first place and end up with houses full of things they can easily get rid of.
I get what they are saying, I think, but do not trust them to be the messengers. Perhaps if their website didn't have new collections of items each season, and had a more stable catalog, I might believe them more that they are creating more timeless items (that you should only buy a few if) than just items that are fashionable at the moment.
A related startup is Cladwell. They kept the vision of building a set of basics, but instead of making clothes built a recommendation engine to understand your preferences for clothes that you can already buy. They actually just got into 500's Batch 17.
"Fewer, Better Things" is kind of antithetical to startup culture in general. Stop expecting me and others to constantly buy new products or services, for every little money-making whim some kid cooks up.
I have spent a lot of my life pondering these questions, and have figured out a way to spend a lot less money than the majority of my peers.
So much so I quit my job and drove Alaska->Argentina for 2 years, then after working for a few more I've quit again and am spending 2 years driving around Africa.
Everything in the article is a nonsense storyline. If they can build a sales ramp they will succeed. If they can't, they won't. The only measure is traction. Later they can explain it with this nonsense, and people will even believe it. But lacking traction, this is solely nonsense.
[1] See "7. Fundraising gets harder" in http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/06/how-not-to-fail/