I think a lot of times this philosophy is just rich people justifying paying a lot for high status items.<p>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.<p>but the crocs don't have the same status that Alan Edmonds or Alden or Fiorentini does.<p>Same thing with the G-Shock watch versus a Rolex.<p>If you really want quality look at what middle class people are doing. Crocs, Kirkland, G-Shock, Corolla etc.<p>All this stuff is top quality but rich people wouldn't be caught dead in them.<p>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.<p>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.
An observation I have made of my grandparents, who certainly had a bit of money, is everything they own is high quality and has lasted them years.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Buying well certainly leads to a longer lifespan for objects. However, I find that’s becoming tougher and tougher to find these days.
Strange article. It is about an unrepairable pair of shoes that need to be recycled but its title is "Buy well, buy once". Not really the case, then ?<p>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.<p>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.
Maxi checking in. I have racks of labelled drawers full of bearings, screws, glues, specialty tapes, oodles of hand tools, power tools, ad infinitum. I'm honestly not super competent or anything (I barely know what I'm doing, in any domain) but I do learn new things all the time and it brings me joy.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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!).<p>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'm a bit of a recovering minimalist, though it was never really a choice to become one.<p>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".<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>I guess it has left me in a healthy spot in regard to "stuff ownership."
In a way I admire committed minimalists. But I often wonder what their long term lifestyle is like. Surely many of them are single (or they only count the items which are solely theirs). They surely rent at a higher rate than own property. They surely own vehicles at a lower rate. And so on. I just get this picture of a person in an urban area, living alone in a studio apartment, dependent upon everyone else for basically everything.
This article, and people posting in this thread are saying that they own 100 or 200 things.<p>I can't believe this at all.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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?
I have trouble keeping up with the minimalist type lifestyles. I don’t necessarily buy into many of their numbers (in this article we count things… except when we don’t), and I have trouble with the “buy it for life” type groups too.<p>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.<p>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.
Amen. Not exactly a minimalist thing this, but more about sourcing quality to "buy once": Rotel multi channel sound system (amp and pre amp) from 1997 here, still going strong with one repair five-ten years in, along with Infinity Kappa speakers from the same time - their surrounds replaced once, a decade ago.<p>Amazing sound, I love how it feels.<p>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!).<p>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.<p>I'll attempt to have it repaired prior to getting a replacement if it ever fails.<p>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.<p>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.
I like the idea of cataloging all my possessions. It seems like a nice way to put that particular necessity of life (owning things) in a box that can be neatly put away when you don't want to think about it and quantify/measure it in a way that lets you manage it (I don't want to own 200 things, etc). It also seems like it would be helpful for legal situations like a manifest for a house fire or a will.
I'm not a fan of buying it once. I prefer buying on feedback.<p>Here's my daily wardrobe:<p>- an oversized plain black T shirt,
- a pair of jeans,
- a belt,
- black socks,
- and a pair of boxer briefs.<p>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<p>1. Take out my phone and
2. Order another pack of them on Amazon.<p>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 <i>all</i> 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 vacillate on this a lot. On one hand, yes, it's nice to have well-designed items that last decades or a lifetime. And obviously we're awash in disposable goods at great environmental cost. On the other, who hasn't been burned by buying a garment "for life" that no longer fits, no longer appeals to us, or otherwise gets rendered unusable? Or buying a beautiful, premium tool that only sees one or two uses? Or having an item that by all rights should have been disposable last for years of regular use?
They had me with the title but the content reads like an elder-millennial whose conversational voice got inescapably stuck in memes and referral links.
> <i>I even keep a record of all my worldly possessions in a visual catalogue spreadsheet on Airtable. 192 items at my last count.</i><p>> <i>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.</i><p>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?<p>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.
My relationship to stuff is at a weird point. I've watched a bit too many documentaries about impact of overproduction on our world to a level where I tend to over analyze and over scrutinize every purchase, probably to unhealthy levels. I tend to use objects i have to the point they become unusable, trying to get their full worth.<p>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.<p>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.
Nice, now please do the same thing about your phone.<p>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.
This is the Sam Vimes Boots Theory[0].<p>I think it's a good idea, but not always feasible.<p>Also, the absolute top-of-the-line may not be reasonable, when a "near-the-top" product would be just as useful.<p>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).<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory#:~:text=The%20Sam%20Vimes%20%22Boots%22%20theory,run%20than%20more%20expensive%20items" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory#:~:text=The%20Sam...</a>.
There's a Hindi proverb I heard as a kid from adult friends and relatives:<p>Mehngaa roye ek baar, sastaa roye sattar baar<p>Meaning, literally:<p>Expensive, cry once; cheap, cry seventy times.
I'm afraid I'm not the target audience, so I can't say anything about this piece.<p>But I've seen actual minimalists and they're nothing like an urbanite living in an all-white studio apartment.<p>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.<p>Bottom line is if you want both minimalism and individualism, you're gonna spend a lot of money on services rendered by strangers.
Try having kids. The amount of crap you will end up with, like it or not, will make you rethink your position in the world, and your house’s storage capabilities.
Reminds me of <a href="https://buymeonce.com/" rel="nofollow">https://buymeonce.com/</a> . If this kind of thing interests you, check it out.
From reading the comments it seems that a lot of people are more interested in organizing their stuff than in enjoying their stuff whether they are minimalist or not.
I’m in the midst of a life transition and I’ve found that it’s a good opportunity to do some culling. I’m fine with some extravagances (I have probably about 1500 books, of which I’ve cataloged 1,166 on LibraryThing (my transition has paused cataloging activity as my library is mostly living in boxes now and part of the cataloging is shelving everything by Library of Congress call number). On the flip side, I have a very well-defined wardrobe now, with 9 long sleeve shirt, 9 short sleeve shirts, 4 pairs of trousers, 10 pairs of socks and 10 pairs of underwear (I make a point of doing laundry once a week, the more than 7 of everything allows me to occasionally let laundry day slip a little). I have a complete list of all the furniture in the house, which is going to end up being reduced somewhat. I don’t know that I’ll be down to 200 items (excluding books), but I think that once I’ve finished my transition, I will be definitely much more deliberate about what I allow into my home.
I might have over 100 physical paper books. I know I have well over 100 computer parts and accessories (including cables, adapters, extra hard drives, USB drives, game controllers, webcams, old CPU fans, PCIe cards, etc)<p>I don’t think I’m making it to less than 500 items total. Maybe not even less than 1K.<p>I also don’t see anything wrong with that.
> I struggle to understand how or why there are 300,000 items in the average American home<p>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.
I’ve noticed some minimalists go to the extremes of limiting items based on numbers. In a way it’s a bit of a luxury.<p>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.<p>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
I have bought a number of pairs of pliers over the years. Some are quite serviceable but the worst were the adjustable multigrips (also sometimes called water pump pliers). They pinch as they slipped out of the grooves - just horrible. And then I was watching a youtuber describing 10 tools to throw out. One was cheap multigrips, but he showed a wonderful replacement - Knipex Cobras. I bought two of them in different sizes.They are just wonderfully engineered - German of course - they literally can't slip , properly adjustable to maintain parallel jaws, they even demonstrate you standing on the handles under load. I ended up buying their electrical pliers and side cutters as well. All heirloom quality.
I try and live according to a similar principle, albeit less "pretentious", as other people have labeled it.
"Buy once, cry once" only works every so often, but I do stand by one thing: don't cheapen out on things that MATTER (for example safety or comfort).<p>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.
In many ways you can't really be a consumer and a producer at the same time, you're mostly more of one than the other.<p>It's so difficult to toe the line without leaning more one way than the other.<p>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.<p>One man gathers what another man spills.
Part of this too is the cultural infrastructure available to you. I have moved from the USA to Europe, and one thing I found surprising that’s normal here was access to artisans at reasonable prices, sometimes even lower than the mass-consumer price in the USA.<p>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.
This is the way.<p>I love repairing stuffs and feel little bit nervous if using something that I know is not repairable or dont understand, how it works.<p>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.
Sometimes I buy something cheap and then if I use it enough to break it I end up investing in a decent one. Another perspective on incremental delivery.
You’d think if you pay more you get quality. I paid 280€ for the Microsoft Surface Headset 2 when they came out. After a year and a half, the plastic head band cracked in half. The part of the device that is stressed whenever I put the headset on or take it off was cheap plastic and just broke with regular use. 280€ down the drain because some MBA or stupid designer said hey let’s use cheap plastic.
There is a balance there too though. e.g. I was looking at multimeters. Much googling later I determined that the Fluke brand ones are the best and "last for life" type buy.<p>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 buying well means buying cheap. I buy cheap DIY tools.
They're good enough for me as a hobbyist. But if I were a professional they be a bad buy. For one, with constant use, they'd wear out too quickly. Secondly while I can do accurate cuts on my £100 tablesaw, for example, each cut requires more setting up time, than on a quality saw with an accurate fence.
As someone who rents the main thing I’ve gained from this philosophy is that it’s way better to buy high quality used and resell for close to the same price than to pay cheaper and struggle to get rid of for free.<p>Not sure how well the durability arguments with new products will hold up over decades like a 60s Braun product may have
I find that wallets are easy to buy once. The last wallet I bought was from 2016, made from leather, able to holding quite a few bit of cash and cards while maintaining slimness. I can't foresee needing another wallet until it broke, but it still hasn't broken from daily use since 2016.
There's a UK company called "Buy Me Once" <a href="https://uk.buymeonce.com/" rel="nofollow">https://uk.buymeonce.com/</a> specialises in this. I've bought some stuff from them and it was always good.
My tiny workshop contains a greater number of hand tools than the number of items this guy owns. I suspect that the person who made the fancy shoes worked in a larger workshop. Not everyone types for a living.
I don't think "buy well" is the proper response to "the things you own own you". The warning is about fetishization, not directly about "amount".
Yeah i still drive my 86 plymouth horizon. Gets me to work on 60 bucks for the month.Bloody thing will outlast me if i have anything to say about it.Plus it has a good radio 8)
Although the idea sounds intriguing, it doesn't really make a lot of sense in modern world.<p>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?<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Quite similar to this post which appears on HN often:<p><a href="https://dcurt.is/the-best" rel="nofollow">https://dcurt.is/the-best</a>
Wow. Cohelo quotes on a page about hand made wallets and how to be a savvy capitalist. So many generations' movements colliding here I can't even.
Things I have bought well and once:<p>Vitamix 5300 - going strong after 13 years of near daily usage, 4 family blenders from department stores failed/poor quality blending before this<p>Zojirushi Rice Cooker - also close to 13 years, usage of a few times a week<p>Breville Burr Grinder - decade or a bit older, frequently used<p>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.<p>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)
Unfortunately, plastic cards are out these days, replaced by NFC, except in some technologically backward countries like US of America. These wallets also can't carry cash and are too thick and heavy. I use tyvec wallets for cash, they last ~two years but are really thin and weightless.