10 Unexpected Costs of Owning Things | Hacker News Reader

10 Unexpected Costs of Owning Things

almostfearless.com

40 pointssoundsop20 comments

When we moved to the valley from Austin last year, we downsized dramatically. We went from a 1430 sqft house with a two car garage and a huge lawn to a 1000 sqft (seems a bit smaller, actually) house with a single car garage spot (already filled with the landlords crap, except for the spot where the car would live--so not much room to pile crap up in there). I sold my 350Z, since I wouldn't be commuting anymore and would be living walkable distances to almost everything I could need, while my girlfriend kept her car.

In the months leading up to the move, I sold about $4000 worth of guitars, analog synthesizers and other music gear, keeping only my three favorite guitars and a minimal set of recording gear. We had a huge garage sale, bringing in nearly $1000, selling all sorts of stuff that we never used: camping gear, books, stereo equipment, computer junk, furniture, etc. After the garage sale, we still had 12 bankers boxes worth of books to get rid of, so we sold them to Half Price Books (who gave us about $2.50 per box for them...).

Now we're going through another purge and organization period...because we realize we still kept too much stuff and it's taking up too much of our space and our lives. Our rent is going up next month, and I'm considering smaller digs because of it, since this time I know that I can easily get rid of even more stuff, if I take the time to do it (the fact that most rental properties are hostile to dogs is the only major factor keeping me here). With a good library in walking distance, I no longer buy books. I've bought maybe five books since living here, all work-related, and all books that I found myself checking out and renewing from the library several times, so I knew I'd use them a lot. I've bought no new movies, since NetFlix, Hulu, iTunes, Unbox, and the library provide all the entertainment we need (Wii games and accoutrement excluded).

In short, less stuff is a win. I recommend it heartily.

> We went from a 1430 sqft house with a two car garage and a huge lawn to a 1000 sqft (seems a bit smaller, actually)

I've heard of sellers lying about the square footage of an apartment, in Chile at least. Landlords might too...

PG version: http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html

I've heard a few versions of this. The PG is good.

  "Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. We overvalue stuff."

In other words, Hoarding is a vestige.

I think this one has a lot of truth:

  "1. The things you own have a cost of ownership."

Moving backwards in house size is nearly impossible. And it's largely because of stuff.

Ever rented a cabin or tourist flat. They're small & relatively empty, but most people find it really nice. I wonder if any of that is taking a break from your stuff.

"Moving backwards in house size is nearly impossible. And it's largely because of stuff."

That was George Carlin's take on it as well: "That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it."

I have a fairly large house, and it's a lot like computer memory, the amount of stuff expands to the capacity available.

Moving backwards in house size is nearly impossible.

Retired people do it all the time.

That's a good reason to have children: someone to offload all your stuff onto.

At great difficulty. A lot of people can't manage it.

My girlfriend's father & his wife had two house. They liked the smaller one but it couldn't contain their stuff. The sold it. (and built a couple of new sheds to contain it's stuff)

Since I read that essay, every week when my wife and I do our weekly chores I try to make a point of getting rid of some of our stuff. Even though neither of us are pack rats we've accumulated for too much stuff we'll never use. Honestly, I've found it really helpful in keeping the house clean and given me a little bit of peace of mind.

The mistake is the stupidity of doing things like "buying furniture to fill the rooms." We live in a 3300 sq. ft house and could care less that it looks so bare. It's not hard to not let stuff own you. The bed my wife and I sleep in was built by me 10 years ago for about $50 in materials from Home Depot. Some of our furniture is old (just old, not antique!) stuff that was thrown out by others and refinished by us -- free. The chicken coop I just built (we live on a farm) was made almost 100% from materials that were lying around.

There's nothing wrong with owning things, the problem is that too many of us are owned by our things.

What is the point of having a huge house that is mostly empty? Space is very expensive, even when it isn't filled up.

The main point of the purchase was the land, not the house. We needed at least 10 acres and this was the place that best met our requirements. Actually compared to a lot of our neighbors, our house is pretty small.

This is why I own nothing; there's nothing to lose and no one has any leverage over me with anything.

  Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

And nothin aint worth nothin but its free

That's not very rational. will you have kids? Do you have loved ones? Do you have dreams/hopes? Do you have knowledge? Everyone has something to lose. Just because it's not tangible doesn't mean it's of no value.

It was more of an exaggeration than anything. Right now I own books, a desk, a couple computers and clothes. Everything else (couch, futon, etc) was either bought for the temporary, inherited or purchased on the cheap. Up and moving for YC wasn't hard at all (I didn't even need a moving truck).

I'm sure I'll eventually have more stuff when I have kids, but "owning nothing" now has just made things a lot easier.

Two and a half years ago, I (effectively) owned nothing except the contents of the two suitcases that I brought to the US with me. That wasn't liberating, it was just inconvenient and annoying, and I had to start reacquiring stuff immediately so I had places to sleep and things to eat.

Then, a few months ago, I was forced out of my home by a fire, taking only the bare essentials. Most of my stuff was undamaged, but due to the reconstruction work I couldn't get at it for a couple of months. That,as it happens, also sucked.

There's definitely something to be said for having stuff.

I guess it depends more on the person then. I was in a similar situation when I moved to Boston and we've gotten more work done in two months than our competitors have in two years. And, most importantly, we're happy.

When I was a financial analyst I had tons of "stuff" and really it just caused me stress and worry. I liked the idea of having stuff instead of the "stuff itself". I think that's a PG quote. To each his own though.

I agree with the general point of this article.

I stopped buying things that were just things a while ago - if I can't (or won't) use it for something, I don't buy it.

My current personal possessions amount to little more than an adequate amount of clothes for the different seasons, a few musical instruments, a laptop, some books, and some furniture that was mostly found.

It works for me. I end up playing around with things that educate me in some fashion instead of spending money left-and-right, and the things that I do own don't sit around gathering dust.

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