Why not? A minimalist lifestyle can save a ton of money. I have a year-long runway to work on whatever I want full-time because I kept a pretty minimalist lifestyle for the last 3 years.
I'm just as content sleeping at a Best Western as I am at a 5 star hotel. My Scion gets me to the grocery store just as well as a BMW would, etc. I'm not sacrificing anything, I simply don't feel a need for excessive luxury.
And I agree with the OP of this thread. Thanks to my minimalist lifestyle I too have plenty of leeway to do whatever I want for quite some time. It's a great feeling.
Personally I'd say that the minimalist wristwatch option is none at all. I don't think I'd be happier with no wristwatches, though. While my wristwatches bring me only a minimal amount of pleasure, congratulating myself on my lack of wristwatches wouldn't bring me much pleasure either.
I prefer "vaguely appropriate scale"-ism to minimalism. No wristwatches is too few, ten is too many. Pick something in between and stop fretting.
If you're hosting client meetings, the Best Western isn't going have as nice a set of facilities as a 5-star hotel. If you're on a race track, your Scion sucks compared to a BMW, etc. You are sacrificing. The important point is you're cognizant of the sacrifices (a BMW time around a racetrack is irrelevant to your Scion getting you to the grocery store). A macbook pro is a luxury, but absolutely justifiable if you do development on it all day long.
This is not a good example of minimalism and in contradiction with your earlier statement that "Frugal implies you are sacrificing quality or desire in the name of money" (I infer you were contrasting with minimalism here)
A BMW is a lot higher quality than cheap cars, not necessarily 'excessive luxury'. It can be simple, depending on the configuration. One can find minimalist joy in a very expensive BMW. 'Just getting to the grocery store' is not about minimalism, it's about frugality. It's not because something is expensive that it's 'excessive'. Actually simple, high-quality products are often more expensive then cheap trinkets. To have a lot of leeway, one leads a frugal lifestyle to save money. A minimalist lifestyle isn't necessarily a cheap lifestyle.
I've made no real sacrifice with the Scion. It's made by Toyota and is a very high quality, dependable car. It will serve me well for many years. That's all a car needs to be in my eyes.
For things that are important to me, sure, I buy the best I can afford. But only a very small number of things are truly important to me. I suppose my definition of minimalism is just truly getting what you need, nothing more or less. I feel no need to "keep up with the Jonses", and overall just don't feel compelled to "be a good consumer".
I agree a minimalist lifestyle is not necessarily a cheaper lifestyle. I totally agree with that. But I do feel a minimalist lifestyle can be cheaper if your desires and needs just happen to work out that way, which in my case I generally feel they do.
I try to live my life in a 'minimalist' way, because I feel less clutter makes for a more serene life. Still, making money is quite important to me, if only for the security it represents. On the other hand I also sometimes wonder if I'm spending enough to optimize life joy; I drive a small Citroen Saxo but I'm regularly annoyed by the small amount of space in it, and the inconvenience that it has only 3 doors. I guess my point is that it's surprisingly hard to walk the line between stinginess (a generally negative trait) and minimalism (a generally positive trait).
BMW drivers are often happier (driving) than other drivers, and more relaxed (and by extension, a bit safer) in their cars than drivers of other brands. The effect of satisfaction, quality, and usability is not well understood but we do know it's significant.
I'm an amateur photographer, and I do know that I take better pictures on some cameras than others. On the el-cheapo digital SLRs, I find that the small size, the poorer button placement, the lack of a satisfying weight to the contraption, etc, all lends itself to annoyance. A quality camera feels right in the hand, has just the right weight to it, and feels good to use, and that does impact the things you do with it.
A lot of what people in this thread would qualify as "excessive luxury" IMHO is not as irrelevant and excessive as one would think at first glance.
On the point about the cameras. If the photographer has a decent level of talent, then the gear definitely matters. Less so if they don't.
I know a lot of gadgety people who like to show off their expensive cameras. Their photos, however, aren't worth showing off at all - it wouldn't have mattered if they used a 5DMK2 or a lowly Rebel XSi. Boring is still boring no matter how sharp the picture is.
Whereas if I drove every day, and would spend a lot of time in the driver seat, I'd be much more inclined to buy something nicer (as opposed to merely functional).
In this case, photography is important to me, and I spend a lot of time doing it - so it's important that I have a tool that not only works well, but feels satisfying to use. After all, it's not a very good hobby if I'm constantly being frustrated by my equipments' usability.
Likewise, it's important for me to have a really nice coffee mug - given that it's part of my daily routine and I spend a lot of time interacting with it.
What I see is that many people over-optimize and fail to account for this effect - and they skimp on things that they do use heavily, resulting in a quality of life loss that they're probably not even aware of. (e.g., daily commuters, people who spend tens of hours in a car weekly, but driving a "good enough" beater, when they can easily afford better... or hackers who buy cheap/poorly made keyboards/mice even though they spend hours with it every single day).
In other words, the concept of minimalism is multi-faceted, complex, full of myriad options, and above all...not a minimal concept.
I think that is certainly true in the abstract, but I suspect in the average specific case minimalism correlates with saving money. For the average person, their biggest expense is their home. If you have less stuff and can comfortably live in a smaller place, there is a lot of saving there.
Also, there is the lifetime cost issue. One good screwdriver may be expensive, but probably compares well with 10 crappy screwdrives that wear down or break that you buy over many years.
I think the interesting part of the OP was the point that digitisation does enable a new kind of minimalism - one that does not require as much compromise as it did before. I can give up 10 bookscases worth of books without having to give up reading whatever I like, whenever I like. This was certainly not the case 30 years ago.
Replacing your car with a bike and a set of walking shoes will save you a tonne of money. But it might incur more effort and planning. There'll be times when the weather is rough or the distance is too great or time is too short, when having a car would have been (more money but) much less hassle. Replacing all your books with a Kindle will probably cost you because you have to buy your books all over again (you'll probably wind up in the red even if you sell all your physical books second-hand). Does going to restaurants instead of keeping food at home count as "minimalism"?
Simple is keeping your books you want to read again and getting rid of books you've read and aren't going to read to reduce your bookshelf space. Then get a library card and check out books to read from there. Less $ and simpler, though not necessarily the most minimalist you can be.
I think minimalism is one aspect of simplicity, but not the only one. Simplicity also involves practicality, economics, sustainability, etc.
This is running the risk of turning into semantic wanking over the meaning of "minimalism", so I'm going to shut up now.
The point isn't that minimalism can't help you achieve a particular set of goals, but rather that it isn't superior to anything else.
The implied alternative to minimalism is not egregious prodigality but rather measured enjoyment of life that doesn't strip you bare but doesn't attempt to max out your financial high score.
I'm a minimalist, but I try very very hard not to come off as the aforementioned "sanctimonious anti-consumerist" type. I'm a minimalist because I really really care about my work, and I don't want much.
Well that's just dandy for me, but my values are not other peoples' values, and I can see how other people would prefer to make use of their time in a manner that makes them more immediately happy.
Don't mistake the apparent fiscal conservatism and "safety" of minimalism as somehow being superior or safer than enjoying and consuming things as they are now.
I would in fact argue, that as a minimalism I am taking a very great risk with my life compared to someone who gets out more and has more fun.
I am taking a risk with my time and my life, because if I get hit by a bus tomorrow before I've had the time to amass the money->time necessary to work on the projects I'd like to pursue, I'm going to die screaming in anger at my self.
Someone who's taken a less concentrated approach to being happy with their lives probably isn't going to be nearly as upset as they lay bleeding under that bus that ran them over.
You and I are risk takers of a different kind.
Our values are not their values, and those values are not inferior nor superior to anyones'. It's all case specific.
If you value money more than most other things in life, then of course minimalism will be a "superior" means to the end you seek, but it's not somehow morally superior.
The man that puts aside his career/continued financial growth to spend time with his children, is in my eyes, the greater person than the one who manages to become a CTO by 40 at the expense of said family.
But those are my values and perspective, and they're still not the choices I would make at this point in my life.
I'm sad that a hackerne.ws user would be so myopically acquisitive without understanding the greater implications in terms of risk and how you spend your time.
I'll probably make a proper blog post on this at some point.