Fewer, Better Things

Personally, I have a full-to-overflowing underwear drawer because I have invested in long periods between doing laundry.

Why the medicine cabinet?

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.

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.

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.”

http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economi...

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.

> Buy It For Life (BIFL)

Exactly. This is why I've always coveted a Porsche 911 and a Rolex Submariner. Once you buy those two you never need another sports car or watch.

“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.”

― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

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.

Here's a good (and fun) column on how Ms. Kondo helps many people overcome cognitive biases.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/an-econo...

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of a cheap price is forgotten.

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".