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I'm not arguing that poor people have more things because its economical for them. I'm arguing that it's not elitist, opressive or pretentious for people who are well off to live this lifestyle just because some other people (definitely not poor refugees) who are on instagram and feel slighted that they cant afford to make their look minimalist enough for instagram.

It's like being jealous of a girl at school just because her family can afford nicer clothing than you.

The author is addressing the resulting fashion trend, and not the lifestyle, and assuming a bunch of rich people with mansions gave it all up just to try a new hairstyle persay, at the expense of the dignity of the masses, which is far from how I would see it.

>If you're poor, you hang on to stuff, because it may come in handy. If you have enough money and some left over, you can get rid of stuff, because if it turns out you really needed one of the things you got rid of, you can buy a new one. But if you can't afford the new one, you keep stuff "just in case".

Yep!

This is my exact argument for why minimalism works well for more well-off people.

If you can afford to buy a $3 screwdriver again, why keep it around if you only use it once a year. It is just clutter.

There is another argument of using Craigslist as storage (sell what you don't need, buy it back when you need it). It also relies on having free money to be able to do such a thing though.

Or, or, OR, I can just keep a toolbox in the garage instead of spending an hour+ searching craigslist and meeting some dude in a 7/11 parking lot every time I need to tighten a fucking screw!

I don't have any dog in this fight, but I suppose if your only possessions are a phone and a futon mattress lying on the floor in a rented apartment, then you don't have any screws to be screwed.

Sure. But I know people [EDIT: OK, one person] who routinely pick up random pieces of metal that the find lying on the side of the road. At least once, they happened to have the perfect piece of metal to weld across the bottom of a bucket when the original bottom finally gave out.

My solution: I just buy a new bucket at that point, throw the old one away, and don't have to put up with a place that has to store all those random pieces of metal. On the other hand, yes, I keep a toolbox, with several screwdrivers.

> If you're poor, you hang on to stuff, because it may come in handy.

Do you?

I found when I was poor, I had to get rid of stuff because when I had to move towns to get work and couldn't afford to transport it all around.