June 10, 2022 • 55 mins
We’ve all heard about the minimalist lifestyle- maybe you’re picturing a bearded hipster drinking coffee in his perfectly white dining room or an Instagram worthy, perfectly styled modern kitchen. It turns out that’s not what minimalism is all about- it’s about priorities. We felt that that summer is a great time to hit reset on a number of things in life, including the vast amount of clutter that many of us surround ourselves with. Here to talk with us today about minimalist living is Joshua Becker. While beginning the process of removing possessions from his life, Joshua started the site Becoming Minimalist and has written several fantastic books over the years including The More of Less, The Minimalist Home, as well as the recently published Things That Matter. Not only can a minimalist approach to life allow us to spend less and save or invest more, but it can have a positive impact in lots of areas of our life.
During this episode we enjoyed an I Feel It All by Monday Night Brewing! And as we ramp up the podcast with an additional Friday episode every week, we could really use your help to spread the word- let friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to spread the word to get more people doing smart things with their money in these difficult times!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joel. How's it going, body, I'm excellent. By the time
this episode comes out, You're gonna be excellent, excellent, Tonte.
You're gonna have spent some time on the beach. You
and I were spending some time with our families on vacation.
That is why we are recording this Bestie episode. I'm
future Joel right now as we're recording this, and I'm
hoping that past Joel remember to put on the sunscreen.
(00:24):
Have you gotten your sunscreen? You can be such an
idiot sometimes, you know, Yes, of course I got like sunscreen.
We actually in the process of packing up the house,
like we shared with everybody this past Wednesday. You and
I were moving, we're moving our families, but we came
across the many, many, half empty bottles of sunscreen. We're
taking them all to the beach. By the way, I
don't think expired sunscreen is necessary. If it's like relatively
(00:46):
recently expired, not a big deal, still works. I think
I shared at one point I got a bunch of
sunscreen at the thrift store. It was like a dollar
per tube, and it was ever so barely expired that
the worst burn of your life. No, I worked just fine,
I would safe nice. Well, we wanted to to bring
this episode back for everybody, this bestie episode. This was
going minimalist to save more with Joshua Becker, and I
(01:06):
thought it was a good idea to bring this one back,
first of all, because it's summertime, and I think the
summer can be a great time to hit reset on
your life and reevaluate not only how does you're spending
your time, but the possessions that you're surrounding yourself with.
You know, one of the things I like about Joshua
is there there are a lot of minimalism people folks
in the space who focus mostly on the possession angle,
(01:28):
and Joshua takes like a broader approach to what minimalism
is and why he does it. His heart behind why
he wants to be a minimalist, and why he paired
down possessions so brutally um and and how it's impacted
his family in so many positive ways, how he's able
to being able to help other people start nonprofits and
really just make more of an impact with his life.
(01:48):
He gives so much credit to becoming a minimalist um
as as the reason for his ability to to make
more of a difference totally. Yeah, he takes a more
holistic approach towards minimalism, not just the aesthetic minimalism right
with them black t shirts, white walls, like that whole thing.
There's like this entire lifestyle that you could subscribe to,
and that's not necessarily what josh was going for. Um.
(02:09):
I also wanted to mention he's got He recently came
out with a new book too, Things that Matter, Uh,
and it's just about refocusing on the things that matter
in life. And actually, how that one queued up. I'm
planning to listen to that one on audio book during
some of these summer travels. If anybody out there has
listened to it and hit us up, let us know
if you enjoyed that one. But for now, enjoy this
conversation with Joshua Becker. Welcome to How the Money. I'm
(02:31):
Joel and I and that and today we're discussing going
minimalists to save more with Joshua Becker. We've all heard
(02:56):
about the minimalist lifestyle. Maybe you're picturing a bearded hipster
drinking coffee in his empty, perfectly white dining room, right,
It turns out that is not what minimalism is all about.
We've all been spending more time in our homes than
we'd probably like, and all that clutter might be getting
to you. And so here to talk with us today
about minimalist living is Joshua Becker. While beginning the process
(03:18):
of removing possessions from his life, Joshua started the site
Becoming Minimalist, and he's written several fantastic books over the years,
including The More of Less and The Minimalist Home. Not
only can a minimalist approach to life allow us to
spend less and save more of our money, but it
can have a positive impact in lots of areas of
our life. So Joshua, thanks so much for coming on
(03:39):
the podcast. Well, it is my pleasure. I'm delighted to
be here. Thank you from the invitation anytime, man, anytime, seriously,
if you want to come back next week too. And
and by the way, if there's a bearded hipster in
his dining room drinking coffee listening, I think that's fantastic.
So they might not need as many of your principles.
They might have applied them already. We'll see. But Joshua,
(04:02):
every week on the podcast, Matt and I drink a
craft beer. It's kind of our way of splurging on
something that we love now while also being intentional and
saving well for the future. So today on the show,
we're drinking a beer called I Feel at All by
Monday Night Brewing. And what's your splurge, what's your craft
beer equivalent? What is my well by the way Monday
Night Brewing. I think I've been there. I think you have.
(04:23):
You were here last time in Atlanta last summer, right, Yeah, indeed, indeed,
and uh and last fall we had had I've had
two events there in the past year. Your friends with
a buddy of ours, Jeff Schinnerbarger, Yeah, I think you've
done some events with him, and he's apply with people.
Is his organization? They do some amazing stuff for sure. Yeah, wonderful. Anyway, Yeah, splurge,
good question. I've I've kind of moved away from buying possessions,
(04:46):
buying things that I don't need, and I would say
that while I've replaced it with a number of different things,
one thing that we do like splurging on is trips, vacations, experiences.
My kids are seventeen and thirteen, and so my son's
(05:07):
a junior and my daughters in eighth grade. And I
think all the research that's ever been done that experiences
lead to more happiness than than possessions, I've found that
to be true. So while my kids are still at home,
I have always wanted to create good memories and fun stories.
And a lot of times those happens when we when
(05:27):
we go away together as a family. Well, with your
kids being older like that, Like, have you felt the
urge to kind of kind of squeeze in a few
more of these experiences before, you know, before your kids
kind of go off to school or whatever it is
they decided to move on to. I have, indeed, And
I don't know if it's an artificial urgency or not,
but I certainly feel it. You only get eighteen summers
(05:51):
with your kids, or at least ideally, right, and then
they're kind of moving on. And so Salem now is
a spring break for his junior year. And so yeah,
one maybe one or two more summers, one or two
more spring breaks when you can create some of those
create some of those memories. And from everything I can
tell talking to family, like it doesn't end there, right,
(06:14):
even when they're in college. They come back and you
do things. But you, I think you certainly feel that
feel that urgency. Yeah, for sure. Hey, Joshua, let's talk
about minimalism. And from everything I've read about minimalism, I
feel like you can be easily misunderstood. Everyone seems to
kind of have a different definition of what it means.
So kind of to set the stage for this conversation,
(06:35):
what's your definition of minimalism? Yeah, I think everybody, well,
I don't know if everybody has a different definition of minimalism,
but the way it plays out in a person's life
is always going to look different from one person to another.
Certainly there are different definitions of it. The one that
I have always used as this minimalism is the intentional
(06:58):
promotion of the things I'm most value in life by
removing anything that distracts me from it. In this way,
it's it's not about the goal of minimalism, isn't how
do I own the fewest amount of things as possible.
The greatest promise of minimalism isn't just owning less stuff.
(07:22):
The greatest goal of minimalism is that I get to
pursue with more passion whatever My greatest priorities and greatest
values are. And one way I do that, certainly in
terms of physical possessions, is I stop wasting money on
things that I don't need. I stop wasting time and
(07:44):
energy not just pursuing, but accumulating and maintaining and managing
all the things that I own, and and begin directing
my most finite resources towards the things in life that
matter most. And of course that's going to look differ
from one person to another. Yeah, and so to you
at least, what are some of the maybe misconceptions or
(08:06):
like false ideas of what minimalism is that you've heard
people share with you. Yeah, so I was probably the
first blog entirely dedicated to minimalism. I started writing about
it twelve years ago, and so there were certainly a
lot more misconceptions twelve years ago, but but a lot
(08:28):
more people are talking about it now than than back then.
But I think some of the some of the major
ones still pop into people's minds, you know, like the
intro that's just for young young college kids. Um, that
it means no beauty in life whatsoever. But but it's
(08:48):
just bearn that that the goal is quite Yeah, that
the the goal is just to own the fewest amount
of things that you possibly can, or that there's a
certain number you can't own more in a hundred things.
I think that there are there are those misconceptions, but
probably the biggest misconception that I think continues to pervade
(09:11):
is this idea that minimalism is a sacrifice in some way,
that that minimalism will lead to a boring life, that
I have to get rid of all my things and
my life is going to be boring and stale because
of it, when the exact opposite is true. It's it's
(09:34):
about getting rid of the things you don't need so
that you can spend more of your life in passionate
pursuit of the things that are are most important to you.
So I think that's probably the biggest one. And then
you know, just as I mentioned before, it's it's always
gonna look different from one person to another. If you're single,
(09:55):
if you're have three kids, if you're an empty nest,
if you live in the city or you live in
the suburb or are in a out in a rural area,
if you're a farmer or a writer or a dentist, like,
all these things are going to change what you what
you own in order to be who you want to be,
or even where you live, and what you need in
(10:17):
order to live and get around. When you were talking
about that, Josh, what it kind of made me? It
gave this picture popped in my head, like a monk
in a cell. And I think maybe sometimes that's the
idea that I've had of minimalism, is is kind of
literally being devoid of possessions, and and yeah, I think
I'm interested to dive in a little more and here
kind of what how we think about what we keep
(10:39):
in our lives. And We've got some questions for you
about that, But I want to know first, like for
most people to even begin to explore the concept of
minimalism or implementing any minimalist principles into their lives, you
mentioned in your book that they need a tipping point.
So I want to know what was your tipping point,
what led you to kind of go down this path. Yeah,
So for me, it was a Saturday morning yet twelve
(11:02):
years ago now, I was I was living up in Vermont.
My children were five and two at the time, and
we're gonna do our spring cleaning that weekend, and I
offered to clean out the garage because I thought my
five year old son would want to help me clean
out the garage. Obviously, what five year old son wouldn't
want to spend a day the garage, right, So he
(11:25):
lasted about thirty seconds, and he was in the backyard playing,
and I'm in the garage and one thing leads to another.
Hours later, I'm still working on the same garage. My
son's asking me to come play catch with him, and
I just keep pushing him off and almost done. I'm
almost done. Well, I strike up a conversation with my neighbor,
(11:45):
who was outside doing all of her yard work at
the time, and I think she noticed what was happening
on my side of the hedge, and she makes a comment, well,
the joys of home ownership, hunt Joshua, And of course
she'd been working all morning too, And I said, well,
you know what they say, the more stuff you own,
the more your stuff owns you. And she responded by saying, yeah,
(12:09):
you know, that's why my daughter is a minimalist. She
keeps telling me I don't need to own all this stuff.
And I remember looking at my driveway and there's this
pile of dirty dusty things. I pulled out of the
garage and spent all day cleaning, and out of the
corner of my eye, I see my five year old
son swinging alone on the swing set in the backyard,
(12:31):
and suddenly I realized my possessions weren't making me happy,
which I think all of us would say, right, we're
not looking for happiness and our possessions. But the further
realization was, not only were my possessions not making me happy,
my possessions were actually taking me away from the very
(12:52):
thing that did bring me happiness in life, and not
just happiness, but meaning and joy in significance and purpose,
And for me, that was the tipping point. I think
that that is the realization that a person has to make.
That everyone who pursues a minimalist life at some point
(13:14):
has that realization that not only our excess possessions not
making us happy, but our excess possessions are actually taking
us away from the very things that do bring us
happiness in life. Because you don't, you don't sit across
the table from somebody and ask them what do you
most want to accomplish in life? Nobody says, I just
(13:36):
want to own as much junk as I possibly can.
But somewhere along the way, society comes along and hijacks
our passions and we begin accumulating all these things that
we don't need. And suddenly there there comes a point
where we realize, what am I? I'm wasting my life
(13:57):
with those things when I could be doing far more
important things with my life. Right, yeah, what what a juxtaposition? Right?
Like you paint such a good image I mean now,
but in your book as well, when you kind of
contrast this heap of dusty, crummy junk sitting there in
the driveway and then you have like this youthful person
you know, your son, who you love and he's back there.
(14:19):
That really struck me pretty deep, having young kids about
that age as well. And I mean, this is what
you mean in your book too, Like when you say
that the payoff of minimalism, it's not a clean house.
There are these bigger benefits and and that that we realize.
Can you talk about some of these I guess, like
some of these universal benefits that pretty much everybody realizes
(14:40):
as they kind of go down the path of minimalism.
Oh yeah, As a matter of fact, every time I speak,
I uh whenever time allows, I always have the person
turned to the person next to them and say, start
making a list of all the ways your life would
improve if you own less stuff, and no one ever
struggle to answer the question. Like when when you ask
(15:03):
how would life improve if you owned less stuff? That
the list just grow, So they're right, there's we would
have more time, we would have more money, We would
do less cleaning, we would have less stress in life.
We would have fewer decisions that need to be made.
It would be a better life for the environment. We
(15:25):
would be a better example for our kids. It would
be easier to find things in our house. We wouldn't
need to constantly upgrade the size of our house. The
average American home has tripled in size in the last
fifty years and still ten percent of American's rent off
site storage. It would pave the way for for more contentment,
(15:46):
and more generosity and more gratitude. There's less comparison that
we have with other people. Were able to own higher
quality things. Um right, If I'm gonna own fewer anything,
I can own a higher quality pairs of pants, watches,
whatever I mean, whatever it is, Um fewer means I
(16:06):
can own higher quality less work for someone else. I mean,
everything we own has to be dealt with at some
point by somebody. Might as well do the work now. Sure. Yeah,
and uh, Joshua, you've also given minimalism credit for your
ability to start a nonprofit, which is called the hope effect.
You did that with your wife, Kim, So can you
tell us about the hope effect? And how is minimalism
(16:30):
responsible for your ability to do more good in the
world around you? Too? Yeah? How long do I have? Um?
As as time as you want? Man? Yeah. The I
guess the medium length story is I started blogging becoming
Minimalist dot com. It was just going to be a journal,
(16:50):
a diary of what I was getting rid of and
what I was keeping, and it's uh, it quickly grew.
We have over two million readers every single month, and
the social media reach as in the tens of millions
that that cr CR posts each and every week. And
so at some point publishers come calling and they say, hey,
can you can you write a book? And I actually
(17:11):
had nine offers from publishers at the same time, and
so I asked my agents, I said, what do we do?
And he said, well, now they've been against each other
to to see who who's going to pay the most
for your book. It became pretty clear pretty early on
that I was going to get offered a lot of
(17:31):
money to write a book about how buying stuff won't
make you happy and the irony and that for sure. Yeah, yeah,
and so uh, we had cut our lifestyle down quite
a bit. We had moved into a smaller home, so
our our mortgage was less, we weren't buying a lot
of things, and we just didn't need a lot of
money to live our life. And in conversations with Kim,
(17:55):
we're like, what are we? Like, what are we gonna do?
We're not going to buy bigger screen television, are we?
And so we decided to to solve a problem in
the world. And man, there is decades worth of research
that traditional orphanages are actually pretty harmful for kids. When
you picture the four walls, a bunch of kids and
(18:16):
workers coming in and out like little or like most
people when they picture an orphanage, which is still used
in most developing nations, that seventy to children that grow
up in orphanages end up in homelessness, in prostitution, or
incarcerated because brains just don't develop correctly outside of the
(18:38):
family unit. And so our our mission with the Hope
Effect is to to change how the world cares for orphans,
um by by helping orphans children get placed into families
where they can receive the attention and affection that they
should as opposed to being in an orphanage and just
(18:59):
to set like an orphan is just better than nothing,
better than growing up on the streets. It's just not
the the best way for for children to be raised.
And so we so we work in Honduras and we
work in Mexico. We just signed um sign an agreement
with the with the Mexican government to to be one
of the leading nonprofits to to help recruit and train
(19:20):
families to care for orphan children. So that's what the
whole Effect does. And because I buy less, because I
don't need to spend money on on stuff, I'm able
to uh to do something like this with it, and um,
it's really exciting. I can't think of a more fulfilling
way to spend my money than help help orphan children
(19:44):
have a chance at life. Yeah. Yeah, seriously, man, thanks
so much for sharing the mission You've got there. Um,
it's amazing that through minimalism you've been able to do
something big, right, like big and lofty, And I mean
that's essentially the goal that that you've set for within
your books, is that like, hey, like through this lifestyle,
like through taking a different approach, you can implement these
(20:06):
practices that you know, some of these tips, and you
can completely change what it looks like to live in
our world today from one of consumption and doing unwise
things with our money to not only being financially responsible,
but then to be able to go beyond that and
do something amazing, like what what you're doing. Um, yeah, well,
we'll ask you for some links here at the end
of the end of the episode where folks can go
(20:28):
there if they're looking to to donate and er up. Yeah,
and support you for sure. But um but at the
very least, we do want our listeners. You know, hopefully
there'll be lots of nonprofits started after this conversation, maybe
you know, years on the road. Yeah, and you know,
I mean they don't even need to be started, like, like,
there are a lot of nonprofits are doing a lot
of good work. And and that was you know, the
(20:50):
first question that we had to ask ourselves was do
we do we start something new or do we partner
with someone who's already doing good work? And it was
it was out an easy question to answer, and we
got asked a numerous times, and I'd like to think
we fell on the right side of it. And you
don't have to sign a big book deal to start
helping out either, you know, so exactly, yeah, well, like so,
(21:14):
at the very least two we want our listeners to
be able to have changed their life through minimalism hopefully
uh to be able to contribute, to be able to
get themselves in a better position financially. And so we're
gonna talk more about ways to better ourselves when it
comes to personal finance. We'll get to that after the break.
(21:40):
All right, we're back from the break and we're talking
with Joshua Becker, who writes about minimalism on his website
Becoming Minimalist, and he's also written some great books. To Joshua,
you mentioned in your book that Americans spend one point
two trillion dollars annually on non essential goods, and you
talk you mentioned too that we spend three thousand, six
d and eighty hours of our lives looking for things
(22:01):
we've misplaced. I swear I spent half of those hours
just helping my wife find her cell phone. Um, so
what kind of effects do you think frugality and minimalism
have on each other? Like? How closely related are they? Oh,
that's a good question. Um. When I typically explain minimalism
to people, I usually make a point to say that
(22:24):
minimalism and frugality are not the same thing. Uh. There
are a lot of people who pursue minimalism because they're frugal,
but that's not always the case. And someone can pursue
a minimalist life and spend just as much money even
(22:46):
on physical possessions as they did before. If they're just
buying a lot higher quality things with their money, then
they can still spend just as much money. So in
some ways, I believe very strongly that most people who
pursue minimalism end up saving money in the long run.
(23:10):
But it's not automatic that everyone who does that will
start saving money. There still has to be the Okay,
how if I want to save money, how can I
pursue minimalism in a way that that allows me to
do that? And if you if you start with that assumption,
then certainly that you just you can see it all
(23:30):
over right, I'm just I'm just buying less stuff. I'm
I'm taking care of less stuff. We moved into a
smaller home because we realized we didn't need as much
square footage as we had, and so we saved a
thousand dollars a month on our mortgage. Like there are
there are very significant ways that that you can do that.
I think probably the most helpful connection that people can
(23:52):
see is that most people already have enough stuff already,
Like there are enough clothes in your closet already, there's
enough cookware in your kitchen, there's enough tools in your garage,
you have enough hobby gear already. And as you start
(24:14):
donating clothes from your closet, the mind shift becomes, wait,
I don't need to go buy more clothes. I had
more than I needed. I don't need to go buy
more cookwear. I'm getting rid of cookware. I don't need
more towels. I'm getting rid of towels. And so the
(24:34):
the consumption mindset that I that I need to go
buy more things starts to change as we realize, wait,
I I have more than I need, not I have
to go buy more stuff already, someone who wants to
be frugal will find plenty more opportunities to be frugal
pursuing a minimalist life. I guess it's probably what I've
(24:56):
should have said. If someone doesn't want to be frugal, like,
it's still for sue minimalism and spend even more money
than they did before. But but someone who who wants
to embrace those principles will find it easier to embrace
those as they pursue a minimalist lifestyle. For sure, those
powers combined are excellent. Yeah, yeah, well, I guess like
an example I can think of, Joshua, is that kind
(25:18):
of kind of counter that that sort of the opposite
of that. It was, like, I'm thinking of maybe someone
who has a bunch of stuff around right like that
they're keeping unused or barely used things maybe in their
attic or down on the basement in case that they
need them, or maybe in case like they want to
pull it out for like that one time of year
that they might use it. And so like, I feel
like that's an example where someone wouldn't necessarily consider themselves
(25:42):
a minimalist if they're hanging onto all those things, and
their argument would be that they are saving money to
not have to purchase those things again. Okay, right, I
could see that, right. The counter acting thought would be,
do I really have to go buy that thing if
I need to use it again? So kind of the
(26:04):
classic examples are is our folding table. We got rid
of our folding table and chairs, and then we decided
we're going to host a party on Halloween, and we
didn't have the folding table, and it took me about
thirty seconds to call my neighbor who has a folding table,
and we could we could borrow their's certainly, especially in
(26:25):
this sharing economy world that they were living in. Right, Like,
being able to find something that I ended up needing
isn't nearly as difficult as it might be. If it
is something that is rare and my neighbor is not
going to have it, and it's really expensive and there's
a really good chance that I'm going to need it
(26:46):
in a couple of months, then then I think you
hold onto it. But if it's yeah, I don't I
might need it some point, then there there becomes two
costs to that. There becomes the everything we own takes
up physical space and our home, but it but it
also takes up mental space in our in our mind,
and so storing all those things, it's constantly there in
(27:10):
our space, and we know it's there and we think
about it. Plus how our how our mind begins to
shift when we start realizing how much excess we have
and when we start seeing all the things that we
can get rid of, and life still goes on and
life even becomes more enjoyable by owning less. Then that
(27:34):
brings about maybe an abundance mindset as opposed to a
scarcity mindset that I that I need to hold onto
these things. That it just begins to change the way
I see the world and the way I see my things.
Realizing that I actually have more than I need, not
that I don't have enough stuff and so I have
(27:56):
to keep holding onto an accumulating things. Yeah, on that
On that note, Joshua, have you seen people kind of
dip their toes in and then they kind of start
to see how good it can be, and then they
just kind of start to go go whole hog with
it because they realize that starting to get there, fixing
you know, one aspect of their life in regards to
minimalism and starting to declutter and and change their mindset.
(28:20):
Have you seen people just kind of go a little
bit and then feel realized, Oh man, I gotta go
the whole way? Or or usually is it? Does it
happen quickly or does it usually? Is it usually a longer,
more drawn out process? Oh? I think it happens in
in any in every possible way, depending on a person's
personality and family and uh starting point and what they're
(28:41):
thinking about and stage of life and any number of
different things. But to answer your question, yeah, I think
people certainly can can sample it a little bit and
begin to see the benefits of it. In fact, it's
it's the approach that I take when I encourage people.
How do I start applying these staples in my home
(29:01):
and in my life? My My first thought is go
to the easiest room that you can minimize the possessions
in and and complete that area. So like, go go
to your car first and take everything out of your
car that doesn't need to be there, or go to
your living room and take everything out of your living
room that doesn't need to be there, and when you
(29:23):
sit down in that space, it feels calmer and more peaceful,
like you're able to focus on the people in the
room rather than all the stuff around you. And and
you'll find that you want that feeling in other areas
or in other spaces. Or if someone were to like say, hey,
I'm going to minimize my my clothes for example, so
(29:46):
like go to your closet and and pull out half
of the clothes, and you don't have to burn them, like,
just go put them somewhere else for a little while
and just keep your your favorite half of your clothes
in your closet. And the very next morning, when you
open your closet, you're like, this is kind of nice.
Everything hanging here. I love, And I don't have to
(30:07):
waste time deciding what to wear. It's easier to get ready.
It feels less stressful to get ready. So where else
can I apply these principles of owning less? Right? Yeah,
I mean part of what drives consumption, especially when it
comes to clothing Oftentimes, I think are these different desires
that we have, and when we seek to satisfy those
(30:28):
desires with purchasing with stuff, with material things in our lives.
Can can you share you know what you feel some
of these different desires are that we have, and then
how can we keep ourselves from trying to satisfy them
with spending? Wow? You know, I noticed it. And when
I started donating things and taking things to Goodwill. I
(30:50):
took a vanload of stuff to good Will and it
was great, And the second vanload was great. By by
about the third vanload of boxes and bags of things
that I was dropping off at Goodwill, I I started
to ask myself some pretty difficult questions, starting with why
in the world did I have three van loads of
(31:12):
things in my house that I didn't need? Like why
when you get to the heart of the question, why
do we buy more stuff than we need? Like what
could possibly be motivating us to buy more things than
we need to own in order to live our life?
And so I started asking myself that question, like the
(31:34):
more bags I filled and the more closets I opened
and boxes I went through, and I don't know, I
always say I didn't really like what I started to
find out about myself that I was probably motivated by jealousy,
you know, trying to impress people with the things that
I owned, or trying to prove that I was successful
(31:57):
to my parents or or my brother that maybe less secure,
maybe a little more discontent in my life. Maybe I
maybe I really was looking for possessions to bring about happiness.
Maybe I was a a sucker for sales. Um the
best buy ad that used to come in the Sunday
(32:18):
paper would compel me to go buy things, Like there's
a for some people with loneliness or boredom or overcoming stress. Like,
what are these triggers that cause us to go buy things?
It's probably where I separate myself a little bit from
(32:39):
some of the other writers on the topic, because a
lot of writers want to blame advertisers and marketing and
society and culture, and certainly there's a a role that
they play. We see like five thousand advertisements every single day,
and so certainly those ads are but they're feeding into
(33:01):
some internal unhealthy motivation that's that's causing us to go
to go over consume, and and they vary from person
to person. So how do you how do you overcome them? Um?
I think that's a hard right, Yeah, And certainly the
first step is realizing what they are and being able
(33:23):
to recognize them and articulate them. Probably the most helpful
way that I've seen people get to that step is
by embracing a shopping ban of some sort, whether it's
a two month shopping band. Some people go a whole year,
but that's pretty long. But most people I think could
(33:45):
could go for four to six weeks without buying anything
other than food, I guess, but just saying, Hey, I'm
gonna spend the next two months and I'm not going
to buy anything other than food or consumable toilet three items.
And every time I have an urge to shop, I'm
I'm not going to and I'm just gonna kind of
(34:06):
sit in that desire. What Why do I feel like
I need to go shopping right now? Why do I
feel like I need to go buy that newest, latest,
greatest thing? Is it? Is it a healthy motivation or
is it unhealthy? What is what is sparking some of
those things. One lady one time told me she she
(34:27):
had gone on a two month shopping band, and she
said she started to notice every time she had a
bad day at work, she really wanted to stop at
the mall on her way home, and usually she would
just stop at the mall. She said, I didn't always
buy anything, but sometimes I just walked through the store,
walk through the hallway that a lot of times I
(34:48):
bought something, but not always. But for two months, when
I said I couldn't stop at the mall, I started
to notice what days I felt that urge, and I
started to realized that when I was really stressed at work,
I would go try to alleviate that stress by buying
(35:08):
something on my way home, or whenever I felt lonely
or board, I just want to fill the time by shopping. Um,
whenever there's extra money in my bank account, I just
want to go buy something. And recognizing what those are,
I think that shopping band is probably the best way
to do that. And then how you overcome it probably
depends on what exactly it is that you're you're discovering,
(35:30):
but but typically there is a better way to meet
that need in your heart and in your life and
in your soul than than buying something, certainly a longer
lasting way to fulfill it. Man, I feel like we're
demystifying some of those classical things. Maybe the parodies of
minimalism that people have in their minds were really I mean,
(35:51):
that was some really really good stuff there, Joshua, And
so yeah, for for people who want to get started
actually going through the process of becoming a minimalist. We
want to ask you questions on that subject, and we'll
get to a couple of those right after the break. Alright,
(36:14):
we're back from the break and we're talking about minimalism
with Joshua Becker, and so Joshua, let's go ahead and
talk about, like how we can implement these principles. How
do we actually implement more minimalism into our lives? Right
if we, like a lot of folks are swimming and stuff, like,
how do we even begin the process of decluttering our homes? Well,
(36:34):
I would take a step back, and I would say
that the first step is for people to articulate their
bigger reason why they want to pursue minimalism. When I
wrote my first book, The More of Less, and I
met with a publisher and they said, what do you
want to call it? I said, becoming minimalist and she said, well,
(36:58):
you can't name it that, And I'm like, oh, that's
how this that's how this works. But she says, the
reason you can't title it becoming minimalist is because becoming
minimalist is the process that gets you to the promise,
so that the goal of minimalism isn't to become minimalists.
The goal of owning less is is something bigger. So
(37:23):
name your book the promise, and then I mean, what
is the promise of minimalism? That's that's what you should
title the book. And so we tell that the more
of less, finding the life you want under everything you own.
And so the first step I think for people is
to say, Okay, why does this appeal to me right now?
What is it that I want to get out of minimalism?
(37:46):
And it could be something as simple as I want
to get out of debt. And so I'm going to
pursue minimalism so that I can get out of debt.
Or I'm going to pursue minimalism so that I can
finally get ahead of my paychecks. Or I'm gonna pursue
minimalism so that I can reach a million dollar net worth,
right Like, yes, Tom, I'm gonna pursue minimalism so I
(38:09):
can spend more time with my family, so I can
do more traveling. Like there's any number of different things
that somebody might might pick. So I think it starts
there and realizing it and then and then from there,
certainly if you have a family, Uh, there's a conversation
to be had, um that that you're hoping to make
some changes in your life and and in your home.
And the greatest problem there is that it's easier to
(38:32):
see everyone else's clutter than it is to see your own.
So if you're listening to this podcast and and you
want to pursue minimalism, you don't get started by having
your husband or wife get rid of all their things
like you, you get rid of your stuff, and you
look for a common ground um with your spouse and
with your partner. And then, like I mentioned a little
bit earlier in the podcast, don't don't fall into the
(38:54):
trap of I'm going to tackle the hardest thing first.
I'm gonna start in my garage. I'm gonna start in
my basement. I'm gonna start by getting rid of my
sentimental things. Um, start easy, starting your lived in areas
that you can complete and finish and notice the benefits
of owning less in one area of your life, and
then you'll feel motivated and you'll have momentum to go
(39:17):
tackle the next area and the next area. Jeffua, you
you kind of talked a little bit earlier in the
show about how as you were unpacking, unpacking boxes and
bags and going through stuff, you were kind of going
through this personal existential sort of thought process about stuff
owning you. Well, what was the process like as you
were kind of navigating it with your family and with
(39:39):
your kids and with your wife. What were those conversations
like and how difficult was that? So my kids were
five and two, um, and I have noticed that there
are there are three types of relationships that emerge from this.
There's the there's the spouse who says, hooray, where you've been,
let's let's go. Um. There's a there's a spouse that says,
(40:01):
i'm I'm in I agree, but they differ on what
that looks like in their home. And then the trickiest
one to navigate is the spouse who says you can't
get rid of anything in the home. And that's a
pretty small percentage, but that's the toughest one. But for
me it was my wife was in the second boat,
(40:21):
and so she was like, yeah, I think you're right,
we we should make some changes here, which is where
most people tend to be. Uh. It was just that
we disagreed on how much stuff we were going to
get rid of, and so if she wanted to get
rid of, I want to get rid of. And so
the first fifty felt pretty good. Um, and then I
(40:44):
wanted to keep going, and she's like, I think we're
at a good spot right here, right. So that's so
I could still focus on my own things. I could
get rid of my my own things. In the end,
we get rid of about sixty of our possessions over
about a nine month nine month period. But my kids
were five and two, and again I tell parents, you
(41:09):
you can't go home and make your kids get rid
of all their things. First you do your own rooms,
you do all your own stuff, and then you start
putting these expectations on your kids. And the younger they are,
the easier it is. By the time we got to
my kids toy room and bedroom, like he had seen
(41:30):
us for months taking boxes of things outside the house
and we've explained over and over again, this is why
we're doing it, this is what we're hoping will come
from that. And by the by the time we got
to their their toys and their bedrooms, they knew it
was coming and we were able to I think set
some rational physical boundaries for them, Like, we're not getting
(41:52):
rid of all of your toys. They just need to
fit against this wall or they need to fit in
this closet, and you get to decide what to keep
want to get rid of. It's certainly leading by example
is a way to ease your family into it, And
I think that's so smart. Well, Joshua, you like, so
you're mentioning kind of going room by room basically and
kind of working your way through your house. Like what
you said, you said, start with the easier rooms, Like
(42:14):
what are those easier rooms? Like what rooms do you
recommend for folks to begin with when they are looking
to make that change in their house. Well, they'll they'll change, Uh, they'll,
they'll change from from home to home. But the way
I usually say it is easiest to hardest starting with
the most lived in areas first. So what is the
(42:35):
easiest most lived in area of your home? And I
know two superlatives isn't always helpful, but so, like, the
living room is a great example for most people because
some living rooms becomes a storage area for a lot
of things. In that case, it's not an easy room
to start in. But for most places that most people, uh,
(42:56):
the living room is a good place to start, and
you spend time in there, so you can finish it
in an afternoon or in an evening, and you can
notice the benefits the next time your family sits in
that room. The bedroom is also a usually somewhat easy
place for for people to get started. Bathrooms like those
(43:17):
are easier places, at least they were for me than
the kitchen, the home office spaces that I use. But
we're going to require a lot more time and effort
and thoughts in order to experience the benefits of them.
And Joshua, you know we're we're a money podcast, and
so a lot of times when people are getting rid
of stuff, they might say, you know what I want
(43:38):
to I want to sell some stuff and make some
money based on the used things that I have that
I'm no longer going to to have in my life.
So when we're talking about the question of donating, selling, recycling,
or tossing in the trash, sounds like you were loading
up the van and taking things to the goodwill. How
do you suggest people think through what they do with
those things as they're parting with them. Well, probably a
(43:58):
few things to think through. My my typical advice is
if you don't need the money, then then just donate
the stuff. But since it's The Money podcast and people
are probably a little more focused on those things. So
the problem becomes if you have a lot of stuff
to go through, if you've lived in your home for
twenty years and you have boxes and boxes of things,
(44:22):
trying to sell all that stuff really as a lot
of burden and time and stress and usually frustration to
the process and doesn't usually bring back nearly as much
financial reward as we think it's going to. There's some exceptions,
things that are really expensive or things that are really
(44:45):
large and you can't haulm away by yourself. Like there's
some easy selling winds along the way, in which case, yeah,
sell it, make the money along the way. But there's
there's a certain joy that comes generosity that that's selling
items can't can't bring. I think the generosity tends to
(45:06):
motivate people when they when they're getting rid of So
my daughter was too, and so we were getting rid
of all of the baby and newborn and maternity items,
and we stumble across the care Net Pregnancy Center in
downtown Burlington, Vermont, and it took like one phone call
with them to realize how much need there was in
(45:29):
my city for those clothes and those baby supplies that
were just being stored in boxes in my basement, like
families who legitimately needed those items. It like sparked us
to get rid of even more. I'm like, well, let's
go back and find even more things that people in
(45:49):
our community can use and need. So I tend to
to defer to the donating side because I think it's
more fulfilling. Um, but there's space for selling. One time
someone was they were they were minimizing. There were new
new couple and they just moved to a new city
(46:09):
and they needed like bicycles to get around in the
city to work, And oh my god, I think that
would be a great goal. Like you sell your items
until you make enough money to buy the bicycle that
you can use to get you around to where you
need to go. And um, so there's certainly freedom in that,
but the hard part becomes bogging ourselves down with that pursuit. Nice, excellent,
(46:33):
Joshua Man. This is this has been great stuff. I
think our listeners have hopefully been able to glean a
lot of what you're saying here and not only apply
it to their physical life, right as far as just
the possessions they have in their home. But you know,
I think there's a lot of parallels when it comes
to our money as well, you know, as far as
how we approach what it is that we're seeking after
you kind of mentioned earlier on how we need to
(46:54):
start with the Essentially, what I interpreted is that you
said to start with the end in mind, and if
you can kind of figure out the the type of
life that it is you want to live, that can
kind of shape minimalism, right, Like, minimalism doesn't have to
look the same for you as it does that the dentist,
you know, like all the different examples you gave, And
I think that the same can be so true of
(47:14):
our money. When we have the end goal in mind
and what we want to do with that money, then
that kind of that drives us and feeds our soul
to finish the task and not to get you know,
not to fall off the wagon along the way. Yeah,
it's uh, it's essentially about intentionality. It's about being intentional
with with my money and my time and my pursuits
(47:36):
and and making sure that all of my resources are
aligned with um my values and the person I want
to be and the life I want to end up living. Well, Joshua,
we really appreciate you taking your time to spend with
us and and sharing all your wisdom with our listeners.
This was an excellent conversation for folks that do want
more information, that are really interested now in at least
(47:59):
thinking about minimalism a good bit more. Yeah, how can
they find out more about the stuff that you've written
and what you're up to? Becoming minimalist dot com is
the home base for everything that I do, And there's
certainly books and um the Hope effect, Hope effect dot com,
but becoming Minimalist dot com is the home base for
(48:20):
for everything I do, and you can find anything else
I'm doing and where I can be found from from there. Well, Joshua,
thanks again so much for coming on the podcast. I
pleasure thanks for having me on. Yeah, Matt, that was
an excellent conversation. I think I say that every time
because we have just the best guest Whoever does the
guest booking for our show is awesome. Who does that?
(48:40):
By the way, I think it's you and me. We're awesome.
But there's ls on the back, but Joshua was even better,
And so I want to know from you, like, what
was your big takeaway from from our conversation with Joshua. Well, Joel,
you know how I am about goals right, goal setting,
knowing the big picture, having an understanding of why it
is that I'm doing something like that is so important
to me as a human being, whether it be you know,
(49:02):
just like a little project that I'm doing outside. You know,
I'm the question I'm asking myself is how is this
contributing to my larger plan, like the larger goal I
have for the yard, right, and it goes all the
way to minimalism, Like Joshua was mentioning, how we need
to start with our our goal in mind, and that
kind of dictates what it looks like to be a minimalist.
And I think it so applies to our money as well.
(49:24):
We talked about this all the time, how how we
need to start with the why behind our money, because
if we don't really have a clear goal of what
it is that we're trying to achieve, then it's gonna
be difficult for us to do the hard work of
not spending our money. But when we are informed and
we have a clear goal that we're chasing after. That
makes everything so easy. And something Joshua mentioned in his
(49:45):
book that we actually didn't talk about but was. He
talked about how it's important to revisit these goals as well.
A lot of times we don't exactly know what it
is that we're seeking after because bottom line, our taste changed,
like our opinions change, we have different goals. Our goals,
you know, our cheese gets moved and it takes time
to sort of recalibrate a little bit. And that's also
true if you don't necessarily know what your goals are
(50:05):
right now. Just because you don't know what your financial
goals are, that doesn't mean that you fail to do
smart things with your money, because eventually, through this process,
you will figure it out what it is that you
want to spend your money on. They'll come to light, yeah, exactly.
And the same thing with minimalism. You may not necessarily
know what it is that you're trying to to achieve
by having fewer possessions, but through the process of minimizing
(50:28):
your possessions, you're going to figure out what it is,
whether it's more time with your family or maybe that
means just having more mental space because you have fewer
things kind of clouding your judgment. It still makes sense
to do the smart things that we talk about a
lot of times here on the show, even if you
don't yet know what it is you're seeking after. Yeah,
and I really identify kind of with the more stuff
taking up more mental space. Ye, Emily, And I've been
(50:49):
kind of taking some of these things to heart based
on reading the books and lead up to this interview
with Joshua, and it's making a difference already. I can
tell the lack of clutter is really bringing some mental
clarity way. And we're hanging out in our house and
that's so nice. I think my big takeaway from this
episode was that you won't necessarily save money as a minimalist.
But I gotta say for our how the money listeners,
(51:10):
you will write the way our people, Yeah, the way
our listeners are peeps, the way they approach money. If
they begin to kind of consider the concepts of minimalism
and begin to declutter and be generous with the things
that they have that they're not actually using and they
buy fewer things, I think they will save money. Implementing
a shopping ban for a month or two, like Joshua suggested.
(51:32):
I mean, those are those are ways that we're going
to actually implement minimalism and save money at the same time.
And I think that's the best of both worlds. If
we begin to at least at minimum take some of
these concepts. You don't have to go all the way
full minimalist, and I think we address some of those
misconceptions too. But if you can take some of the
good or all the good for minimalism either either way,
however far you want to dive into it, I think
by embracing that at the same time, you will if
(51:54):
you're how to Money listener be embracing frugality their cousins,
they're not the same. But if if you kind of
take oath hand in hand at the same time, man,
I think it's gonna have a big difference, a major
impact in your life going forward. Yeah, totally, man. I
think that the shopping bands, it's a good way to
kind of self experiment a little bit and figure out
how you're gonna take to it a little bit, and
hopefully you will be able to see that there are
some amazing ways that you can save money that way.
(52:16):
But do. Let's take it to the beer. On this episode,
we had I Feel at All, which is a beer
by Monday Night Brewing. This is one that's actually this
is one of the three beers that we gave away
the Instagram actually a few weeks ago. So if you're
not following us on Instagram, look up how to money pod.
If you're not following us on Instagram, what are you
doing with your life? But but Joel, what were your
thoughts on this beer? Well? Man, this beer is called
(52:37):
I Feel at All. I felt the hops. Uh, it
really did have hop concentrate, sort of levels of hoppingess
going on. But man, and for me in a good way.
I know some people can get hopped out, can be overhopped,
and I'm not one of those people. I've not found
a beer yet where it's been too hoppy, and so
(52:58):
this was a ridiculous amount of hops in there. I
felt it was like super green, super tasty, super alive,
and I loved it. I think the green little alligators
on the label they're kind of lends itself to like
the herbal nature of hops as well. Yeah, you know,
like the La cost Uh, that's totally like it's kind
of like that, but it's like this repeating batter. I really,
I really dig this design, but yeah, this is a
(53:19):
hazy New England style I p A. So when we
board it, man, it was super cloudy, like you could
not see through it at all, and it had more
of that sort of sharp hot flavor. It makes me
think of cheese, right, like you've kind of got your
mild or medium, like your regular cheddar cheese, but then
you get the sharp stuff and it kind of has
like this, like it bites a little bit, you know,
like it's sharp cheddar, and you kind of feel it
on your tongue a little bit more. And I feel
(53:40):
like that's how it is with hops sometimes, like when
you have some of these New England style I p
A s that do have a lot of hops, sometimes
it feels like a sharp cheese. And this isn't the
first time I've alluded to cheese before when it comes
to these bears, but this one had a similar thing
going on. I really dug it, and I'm glad that
you and I got to share this one today. Buddy
man pick that up at the beer's release at my
Day Night Brewing. Oh yeah, man, we're big fans. We
(54:01):
go out once every six months, and this is one
of those times. Exactly. Well, man, that's gonna be it
for this episode. Our listeners can find our show notes
up at how to Money dot com. Yeah, man, we've
had so many great reviews from our listeners. But I
do want to ask if you have a friend that
could use a kick in the pants when it comes
to living a minimalist lifestyle spending less money, saving more
of what you make, well, then we would suggest letting
(54:24):
your friend know about the How the Money podcast, maybe
sneaking their phone, hitting a subscribe button for them, whatever
it takes, Okay, just hold that phone up in front
of their face so it gets that facial recognition into
this slipeo a podcast, real quick, make it happen. And
especially with this episode, man, this is such a fun
conversation that we had with Joshua Becker. I think this
canna be a kind of a soft introduction to personal
finance where it's not so money on the nose, not
(54:45):
too in your face. But all right, Matt, that's gonna
do it for this episode. Until next time, Best Friends Out,
Best Friends Out, m BO
Joel. How's it going, body, I'm excellent. By the time
this episode comes out, You're gonna be excellent, excellent, Tonte.
You're gonna have spent some time on the beach. You
and I were spending some time with our families on vacation.
That is why we are recording this Bestie episode. I'm
future Joel right now as we're recording this, and I'm
hoping that past Joel remember to put on the sunscreen.
(00:24):
Have you gotten your sunscreen? You can be such an
idiot sometimes, you know, Yes, of course I got like sunscreen.
We actually in the process of packing up the house,
like we shared with everybody this past Wednesday. You and
I were moving, we're moving our families, but we came
across the many, many, half empty bottles of sunscreen. We're
taking them all to the beach. By the way, I
don't think expired sunscreen is necessary. If it's like relatively
(00:46):
recently expired, not a big deal, still works. I think
I shared at one point I got a bunch of
sunscreen at the thrift store. It was like a dollar
per tube, and it was ever so barely expired that
the worst burn of your life. No, I worked just fine,
I would safe nice. Well, we wanted to to bring
this episode back for everybody, this bestie episode. This was
going minimalist to save more with Joshua Becker, and I
(01:06):
thought it was a good idea to bring this one back,
first of all, because it's summertime, and I think the
summer can be a great time to hit reset on
your life and reevaluate not only how does you're spending
your time, but the possessions that you're surrounding yourself with.
You know, one of the things I like about Joshua
is there there are a lot of minimalism people folks
in the space who focus mostly on the possession angle,
(01:28):
and Joshua takes like a broader approach to what minimalism
is and why he does it. His heart behind why
he wants to be a minimalist, and why he paired
down possessions so brutally um and and how it's impacted
his family in so many positive ways, how he's able
to being able to help other people start nonprofits and
really just make more of an impact with his life.
(01:48):
He gives so much credit to becoming a minimalist um
as as the reason for his ability to to make
more of a difference totally. Yeah, he takes a more
holistic approach towards minimalism, not just the aesthetic minimalism right
with them black t shirts, white walls, like that whole thing.
There's like this entire lifestyle that you could subscribe to,
and that's not necessarily what josh was going for. Um.
(02:09):
I also wanted to mention he's got He recently came
out with a new book too, Things that Matter, Uh,
and it's just about refocusing on the things that matter
in life. And actually, how that one queued up. I'm
planning to listen to that one on audio book during
some of these summer travels. If anybody out there has
listened to it and hit us up, let us know
if you enjoyed that one. But for now, enjoy this
conversation with Joshua Becker. Welcome to How the Money. I'm
(02:31):
Joel and I and that and today we're discussing going
minimalists to save more with Joshua Becker. We've all heard
(02:56):
about the minimalist lifestyle. Maybe you're picturing a bearded hipster
drinking coffee in his empty, perfectly white dining room, right,
It turns out that is not what minimalism is all about.
We've all been spending more time in our homes than
we'd probably like, and all that clutter might be getting
to you. And so here to talk with us today
about minimalist living is Joshua Becker. While beginning the process
(03:18):
of removing possessions from his life, Joshua started the site
Becoming Minimalist, and he's written several fantastic books over the years,
including The More of Less and The Minimalist Home. Not
only can a minimalist approach to life allow us to
spend less and save more of our money, but it
can have a positive impact in lots of areas of
our life. So Joshua, thanks so much for coming on
(03:39):
the podcast. Well, it is my pleasure. I'm delighted to
be here. Thank you from the invitation anytime, man, anytime, seriously,
if you want to come back next week too. And
and by the way, if there's a bearded hipster in
his dining room drinking coffee listening, I think that's fantastic.
So they might not need as many of your principles.
They might have applied them already. We'll see. But Joshua,
(04:02):
every week on the podcast, Matt and I drink a
craft beer. It's kind of our way of splurging on
something that we love now while also being intentional and
saving well for the future. So today on the show,
we're drinking a beer called I Feel at All by
Monday Night Brewing. And what's your splurge, what's your craft
beer equivalent? What is my well by the way Monday
Night Brewing. I think I've been there. I think you have.
(04:23):
You were here last time in Atlanta last summer, right, Yeah, indeed, indeed,
and uh and last fall we had had I've had
two events there in the past year. Your friends with
a buddy of ours, Jeff Schinnerbarger, Yeah, I think you've
done some events with him, and he's apply with people.
Is his organization? They do some amazing stuff for sure. Yeah, wonderful. Anyway, Yeah, splurge,
good question. I've I've kind of moved away from buying possessions,
(04:46):
buying things that I don't need, and I would say
that while I've replaced it with a number of different things,
one thing that we do like splurging on is trips, vacations, experiences.
My kids are seventeen and thirteen, and so my son's
(05:07):
a junior and my daughters in eighth grade. And I
think all the research that's ever been done that experiences
lead to more happiness than than possessions, I've found that
to be true. So while my kids are still at home,
I have always wanted to create good memories and fun stories.
And a lot of times those happens when we when
(05:27):
we go away together as a family. Well, with your
kids being older like that, Like, have you felt the
urge to kind of kind of squeeze in a few
more of these experiences before, you know, before your kids
kind of go off to school or whatever it is
they decided to move on to. I have, indeed, And
I don't know if it's an artificial urgency or not,
but I certainly feel it. You only get eighteen summers
(05:51):
with your kids, or at least ideally, right, and then
they're kind of moving on. And so Salem now is
a spring break for his junior year. And so yeah,
one maybe one or two more summers, one or two
more spring breaks when you can create some of those
create some of those memories. And from everything I can
tell talking to family, like it doesn't end there, right,
(06:14):
even when they're in college. They come back and you
do things. But you, I think you certainly feel that
feel that urgency. Yeah, for sure. Hey, Joshua, let's talk
about minimalism. And from everything I've read about minimalism, I
feel like you can be easily misunderstood. Everyone seems to
kind of have a different definition of what it means.
So kind of to set the stage for this conversation,
(06:35):
what's your definition of minimalism? Yeah, I think everybody, well,
I don't know if everybody has a different definition of minimalism,
but the way it plays out in a person's life
is always going to look different from one person to another.
Certainly there are different definitions of it. The one that
I have always used as this minimalism is the intentional
(06:58):
promotion of the things I'm most value in life by
removing anything that distracts me from it. In this way,
it's it's not about the goal of minimalism, isn't how
do I own the fewest amount of things as possible.
The greatest promise of minimalism isn't just owning less stuff.
(07:22):
The greatest goal of minimalism is that I get to
pursue with more passion whatever My greatest priorities and greatest
values are. And one way I do that, certainly in
terms of physical possessions, is I stop wasting money on
things that I don't need. I stop wasting time and
(07:44):
energy not just pursuing, but accumulating and maintaining and managing
all the things that I own, and and begin directing
my most finite resources towards the things in life that
matter most. And of course that's going to look differ
from one person to another. Yeah, and so to you
at least, what are some of the maybe misconceptions or
(08:06):
like false ideas of what minimalism is that you've heard
people share with you. Yeah, so I was probably the
first blog entirely dedicated to minimalism. I started writing about
it twelve years ago, and so there were certainly a
lot more misconceptions twelve years ago, but but a lot
(08:28):
more people are talking about it now than than back then.
But I think some of the some of the major
ones still pop into people's minds, you know, like the
intro that's just for young young college kids. Um, that
it means no beauty in life whatsoever. But but it's
(08:48):
just bearn that that the goal is quite Yeah, that
the the goal is just to own the fewest amount
of things that you possibly can, or that there's a
certain number you can't own more in a hundred things.
I think that there are there are those misconceptions, but
probably the biggest misconception that I think continues to pervade
(09:11):
is this idea that minimalism is a sacrifice in some way,
that that minimalism will lead to a boring life, that
I have to get rid of all my things and
my life is going to be boring and stale because
of it, when the exact opposite is true. It's it's
(09:34):
about getting rid of the things you don't need so
that you can spend more of your life in passionate
pursuit of the things that are are most important to you.
So I think that's probably the biggest one. And then
you know, just as I mentioned before, it's it's always
gonna look different from one person to another. If you're single,
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if you're have three kids, if you're an empty nest,
if you live in the city or you live in
the suburb or are in a out in a rural area,
if you're a farmer or a writer or a dentist, like,
all these things are going to change what you what
you own in order to be who you want to be,
or even where you live, and what you need in
(10:17):
order to live and get around. When you were talking
about that, Josh, what it kind of made me? It
gave this picture popped in my head, like a monk
in a cell. And I think maybe sometimes that's the
idea that I've had of minimalism, is is kind of
literally being devoid of possessions, and and yeah, I think
I'm interested to dive in a little more and here
kind of what how we think about what we keep
(10:39):
in our lives. And We've got some questions for you
about that, But I want to know first, like for
most people to even begin to explore the concept of
minimalism or implementing any minimalist principles into their lives, you
mentioned in your book that they need a tipping point.
So I want to know what was your tipping point,
what led you to kind of go down this path. Yeah,
So for me, it was a Saturday morning yet twelve
(11:02):
years ago now, I was I was living up in Vermont.
My children were five and two at the time, and
we're gonna do our spring cleaning that weekend, and I
offered to clean out the garage because I thought my
five year old son would want to help me clean
out the garage. Obviously, what five year old son wouldn't
want to spend a day the garage, right, So he
(11:25):
lasted about thirty seconds, and he was in the backyard playing,
and I'm in the garage and one thing leads to another.
Hours later, I'm still working on the same garage. My
son's asking me to come play catch with him, and
I just keep pushing him off and almost done. I'm
almost done. Well, I strike up a conversation with my neighbor,
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who was outside doing all of her yard work at
the time, and I think she noticed what was happening
on my side of the hedge, and she makes a comment, well,
the joys of home ownership, hunt Joshua, And of course
she'd been working all morning too, And I said, well,
you know what they say, the more stuff you own,
the more your stuff owns you. And she responded by saying, yeah,
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you know, that's why my daughter is a minimalist. She
keeps telling me I don't need to own all this stuff.
And I remember looking at my driveway and there's this
pile of dirty dusty things. I pulled out of the
garage and spent all day cleaning, and out of the
corner of my eye, I see my five year old
son swinging alone on the swing set in the backyard,
(12:31):
and suddenly I realized my possessions weren't making me happy,
which I think all of us would say, right, we're
not looking for happiness and our possessions. But the further
realization was, not only were my possessions not making me happy,
my possessions were actually taking me away from the very
(12:52):
thing that did bring me happiness in life, and not
just happiness, but meaning and joy in significance and purpose,
And for me, that was the tipping point. I think
that that is the realization that a person has to make.
That everyone who pursues a minimalist life at some point
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has that realization that not only our excess possessions not
making us happy, but our excess possessions are actually taking
us away from the very things that do bring us
happiness in life. Because you don't, you don't sit across
the table from somebody and ask them what do you
most want to accomplish in life? Nobody says, I just
(13:36):
want to own as much junk as I possibly can.
But somewhere along the way, society comes along and hijacks
our passions and we begin accumulating all these things that
we don't need. And suddenly there there comes a point
where we realize, what am I? I'm wasting my life
(13:57):
with those things when I could be doing far more
important things with my life. Right, yeah, what what a juxtaposition? Right?
Like you paint such a good image I mean now,
but in your book as well, when you kind of
contrast this heap of dusty, crummy junk sitting there in
the driveway and then you have like this youthful person
you know, your son, who you love and he's back there.
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That really struck me pretty deep, having young kids about
that age as well. And I mean, this is what
you mean in your book too, Like when you say
that the payoff of minimalism, it's not a clean house.
There are these bigger benefits and and that that we realize.
Can you talk about some of these I guess, like
some of these universal benefits that pretty much everybody realizes
(14:40):
as they kind of go down the path of minimalism.
Oh yeah, As a matter of fact, every time I speak,
I uh whenever time allows, I always have the person
turned to the person next to them and say, start
making a list of all the ways your life would
improve if you own less stuff, and no one ever
struggle to answer the question. Like when when you ask
(15:03):
how would life improve if you owned less stuff? That
the list just grow, So they're right, there's we would
have more time, we would have more money, We would
do less cleaning, we would have less stress in life.
We would have fewer decisions that need to be made.
It would be a better life for the environment. We
(15:25):
would be a better example for our kids. It would
be easier to find things in our house. We wouldn't
need to constantly upgrade the size of our house. The
average American home has tripled in size in the last
fifty years and still ten percent of American's rent off
site storage. It would pave the way for for more contentment,
(15:46):
and more generosity and more gratitude. There's less comparison that
we have with other people. Were able to own higher
quality things. Um right, If I'm gonna own fewer anything,
I can own a higher quality pairs of pants, watches,
whatever I mean, whatever it is, Um fewer means I
(16:06):
can own higher quality less work for someone else. I mean,
everything we own has to be dealt with at some
point by somebody. Might as well do the work now. Sure. Yeah,
and uh, Joshua, you've also given minimalism credit for your
ability to start a nonprofit, which is called the hope effect.
You did that with your wife, Kim, So can you
tell us about the hope effect? And how is minimalism
(16:30):
responsible for your ability to do more good in the
world around you? Too? Yeah? How long do I have? Um?
As as time as you want? Man? Yeah. The I
guess the medium length story is I started blogging becoming
Minimalist dot com. It was just going to be a journal,
(16:50):
a diary of what I was getting rid of and
what I was keeping, and it's uh, it quickly grew.
We have over two million readers every single month, and
the social media reach as in the tens of millions
that that cr CR posts each and every week. And
so at some point publishers come calling and they say, hey,
can you can you write a book? And I actually
(17:11):
had nine offers from publishers at the same time, and
so I asked my agents, I said, what do we do?
And he said, well, now they've been against each other
to to see who who's going to pay the most
for your book. It became pretty clear pretty early on
that I was going to get offered a lot of
(17:31):
money to write a book about how buying stuff won't
make you happy and the irony and that for sure. Yeah, yeah,
and so uh, we had cut our lifestyle down quite
a bit. We had moved into a smaller home, so
our our mortgage was less, we weren't buying a lot
of things, and we just didn't need a lot of
money to live our life. And in conversations with Kim,
(17:55):
we're like, what are we? Like, what are we gonna do?
We're not going to buy bigger screen television, are we?
And so we decided to to solve a problem in
the world. And man, there is decades worth of research
that traditional orphanages are actually pretty harmful for kids. When
you picture the four walls, a bunch of kids and
(18:16):
workers coming in and out like little or like most
people when they picture an orphanage, which is still used
in most developing nations, that seventy to children that grow
up in orphanages end up in homelessness, in prostitution, or
incarcerated because brains just don't develop correctly outside of the
(18:38):
family unit. And so our our mission with the Hope
Effect is to to change how the world cares for orphans,
um by by helping orphans children get placed into families
where they can receive the attention and affection that they
should as opposed to being in an orphanage and just
(18:59):
to set like an orphan is just better than nothing,
better than growing up on the streets. It's just not
the the best way for for children to be raised.
And so we so we work in Honduras and we
work in Mexico. We just signed um sign an agreement
with the with the Mexican government to to be one
of the leading nonprofits to to help recruit and train
(19:20):
families to care for orphan children. So that's what the
whole Effect does. And because I buy less, because I
don't need to spend money on on stuff, I'm able
to uh to do something like this with it, and um,
it's really exciting. I can't think of a more fulfilling
way to spend my money than help help orphan children
(19:44):
have a chance at life. Yeah. Yeah, seriously, man, thanks
so much for sharing the mission You've got there. Um,
it's amazing that through minimalism you've been able to do
something big, right, like big and lofty, And I mean
that's essentially the goal that that you've set for within
your books, is that like, hey, like through this lifestyle,
like through taking a different approach, you can implement these
(20:06):
practices that you know, some of these tips, and you
can completely change what it looks like to live in
our world today from one of consumption and doing unwise
things with our money to not only being financially responsible,
but then to be able to go beyond that and
do something amazing, like what what you're doing. Um, yeah, well,
we'll ask you for some links here at the end
of the end of the episode where folks can go
(20:28):
there if they're looking to to donate and er up. Yeah,
and support you for sure. But um but at the
very least, we do want our listeners. You know, hopefully
there'll be lots of nonprofits started after this conversation, maybe
you know, years on the road. Yeah, and you know,
I mean they don't even need to be started, like, like,
there are a lot of nonprofits are doing a lot
of good work. And and that was you know, the
(20:50):
first question that we had to ask ourselves was do
we do we start something new or do we partner
with someone who's already doing good work? And it was
it was out an easy question to answer, and we
got asked a numerous times, and I'd like to think
we fell on the right side of it. And you
don't have to sign a big book deal to start
helping out either, you know, so exactly, yeah, well, like so,
(21:14):
at the very least two we want our listeners to
be able to have changed their life through minimalism hopefully
uh to be able to contribute, to be able to
get themselves in a better position financially. And so we're
gonna talk more about ways to better ourselves when it
comes to personal finance. We'll get to that after the break.
(21:40):
All right, we're back from the break and we're talking
with Joshua Becker, who writes about minimalism on his website
Becoming Minimalist, and he's also written some great books. To Joshua,
you mentioned in your book that Americans spend one point
two trillion dollars annually on non essential goods, and you
talk you mentioned too that we spend three thousand, six
d and eighty hours of our lives looking for things
(22:01):
we've misplaced. I swear I spent half of those hours
just helping my wife find her cell phone. Um, so
what kind of effects do you think frugality and minimalism
have on each other? Like? How closely related are they? Oh,
that's a good question. Um. When I typically explain minimalism
to people, I usually make a point to say that
(22:24):
minimalism and frugality are not the same thing. Uh. There
are a lot of people who pursue minimalism because they're frugal,
but that's not always the case. And someone can pursue
a minimalist life and spend just as much money even
(22:46):
on physical possessions as they did before. If they're just
buying a lot higher quality things with their money, then
they can still spend just as much money. So in
some ways, I believe very strongly that most people who
pursue minimalism end up saving money in the long run.
(23:10):
But it's not automatic that everyone who does that will
start saving money. There still has to be the Okay,
how if I want to save money, how can I
pursue minimalism in a way that that allows me to
do that? And if you if you start with that assumption,
then certainly that you just you can see it all
(23:30):
over right, I'm just I'm just buying less stuff. I'm
I'm taking care of less stuff. We moved into a
smaller home because we realized we didn't need as much
square footage as we had, and so we saved a
thousand dollars a month on our mortgage. Like there are
there are very significant ways that that you can do that.
I think probably the most helpful connection that people can
(23:52):
see is that most people already have enough stuff already,
Like there are enough clothes in your closet already, there's
enough cookware in your kitchen, there's enough tools in your garage,
you have enough hobby gear already. And as you start
(24:14):
donating clothes from your closet, the mind shift becomes, wait,
I don't need to go buy more clothes. I had
more than I needed. I don't need to go buy
more cookwear. I'm getting rid of cookware. I don't need
more towels. I'm getting rid of towels. And so the
(24:34):
the consumption mindset that I that I need to go
buy more things starts to change as we realize, wait,
I I have more than I need, not I have
to go buy more stuff already, someone who wants to
be frugal will find plenty more opportunities to be frugal
pursuing a minimalist life. I guess it's probably what I've
(24:56):
should have said. If someone doesn't want to be frugal, like,
it's still for sue minimalism and spend even more money
than they did before. But but someone who who wants
to embrace those principles will find it easier to embrace
those as they pursue a minimalist lifestyle. For sure, those
powers combined are excellent. Yeah, yeah, well, I guess like
an example I can think of, Joshua, is that kind
(25:18):
of kind of counter that that sort of the opposite
of that. It was, like, I'm thinking of maybe someone
who has a bunch of stuff around right like that
they're keeping unused or barely used things maybe in their
attic or down on the basement in case that they
need them, or maybe in case like they want to
pull it out for like that one time of year
that they might use it. And so like, I feel
like that's an example where someone wouldn't necessarily consider themselves
(25:42):
a minimalist if they're hanging onto all those things, and
their argument would be that they are saving money to
not have to purchase those things again. Okay, right, I
could see that, right. The counter acting thought would be,
do I really have to go buy that thing if
I need to use it again? So kind of the
(26:04):
classic examples are is our folding table. We got rid
of our folding table and chairs, and then we decided
we're going to host a party on Halloween, and we
didn't have the folding table, and it took me about
thirty seconds to call my neighbor who has a folding table,
and we could we could borrow their's certainly, especially in
(26:25):
this sharing economy world that they were living in. Right, Like,
being able to find something that I ended up needing
isn't nearly as difficult as it might be. If it
is something that is rare and my neighbor is not
going to have it, and it's really expensive and there's
a really good chance that I'm going to need it
(26:46):
in a couple of months, then then I think you
hold onto it. But if it's yeah, I don't I
might need it some point, then there there becomes two
costs to that. There becomes the everything we own takes
up physical space and our home, but it but it
also takes up mental space in our in our mind,
and so storing all those things, it's constantly there in
(27:10):
our space, and we know it's there and we think
about it. Plus how our how our mind begins to
shift when we start realizing how much excess we have
and when we start seeing all the things that we
can get rid of, and life still goes on and
life even becomes more enjoyable by owning less. Then that
(27:34):
brings about maybe an abundance mindset as opposed to a
scarcity mindset that I that I need to hold onto
these things. That it just begins to change the way
I see the world and the way I see my things.
Realizing that I actually have more than I need, not
that I don't have enough stuff and so I have
(27:56):
to keep holding onto an accumulating things. Yeah, on that
On that note, Joshua, have you seen people kind of
dip their toes in and then they kind of start
to see how good it can be, and then they
just kind of start to go go whole hog with
it because they realize that starting to get there, fixing
you know, one aspect of their life in regards to
minimalism and starting to declutter and and change their mindset.
(28:20):
Have you seen people just kind of go a little
bit and then feel realized, Oh man, I gotta go
the whole way? Or or usually is it? Does it
happen quickly or does it usually? Is it usually a longer,
more drawn out process? Oh? I think it happens in
in any in every possible way, depending on a person's
personality and family and uh starting point and what they're
(28:41):
thinking about and stage of life and any number of
different things. But to answer your question, yeah, I think
people certainly can can sample it a little bit and
begin to see the benefits of it. In fact, it's
it's the approach that I take when I encourage people.
How do I start applying these staples in my home
(29:01):
and in my life? My My first thought is go
to the easiest room that you can minimize the possessions
in and and complete that area. So like, go go
to your car first and take everything out of your
car that doesn't need to be there, or go to
your living room and take everything out of your living
room that doesn't need to be there, and when you
(29:23):
sit down in that space, it feels calmer and more peaceful,
like you're able to focus on the people in the
room rather than all the stuff around you. And and
you'll find that you want that feeling in other areas
or in other spaces. Or if someone were to like say, hey,
I'm going to minimize my my clothes for example, so
(29:46):
like go to your closet and and pull out half
of the clothes, and you don't have to burn them, like,
just go put them somewhere else for a little while
and just keep your your favorite half of your clothes
in your closet. And the very next morning, when you
open your closet, you're like, this is kind of nice.
Everything hanging here. I love, And I don't have to
(30:07):
waste time deciding what to wear. It's easier to get ready.
It feels less stressful to get ready. So where else
can I apply these principles of owning less? Right? Yeah,
I mean part of what drives consumption, especially when it
comes to clothing Oftentimes, I think are these different desires
that we have, and when we seek to satisfy those
(30:28):
desires with purchasing with stuff, with material things in our lives.
Can can you share you know what you feel some
of these different desires are that we have, and then
how can we keep ourselves from trying to satisfy them
with spending? Wow? You know, I noticed it. And when
I started donating things and taking things to Goodwill. I
(30:50):
took a vanload of stuff to good Will and it
was great, And the second vanload was great. By by
about the third vanload of boxes and bags of things
that I was dropping off at Goodwill, I I started
to ask myself some pretty difficult questions, starting with why
in the world did I have three van loads of
(31:12):
things in my house that I didn't need? Like why
when you get to the heart of the question, why
do we buy more stuff than we need? Like what
could possibly be motivating us to buy more things than
we need to own in order to live our life?
And so I started asking myself that question, like the
(31:34):
more bags I filled and the more closets I opened
and boxes I went through, and I don't know, I
always say I didn't really like what I started to
find out about myself that I was probably motivated by jealousy,
you know, trying to impress people with the things that
I owned, or trying to prove that I was successful
(31:57):
to my parents or or my brother that maybe less secure,
maybe a little more discontent in my life. Maybe I
maybe I really was looking for possessions to bring about happiness.
Maybe I was a a sucker for sales. Um the
best buy ad that used to come in the Sunday
(32:18):
paper would compel me to go buy things, Like there's
a for some people with loneliness or boredom or overcoming stress. Like,
what are these triggers that cause us to go buy things?
It's probably where I separate myself a little bit from
(32:39):
some of the other writers on the topic, because a
lot of writers want to blame advertisers and marketing and
society and culture, and certainly there's a a role that
they play. We see like five thousand advertisements every single day,
and so certainly those ads are but they're feeding into
(33:01):
some internal unhealthy motivation that's that's causing us to go
to go over consume, and and they vary from person
to person. So how do you how do you overcome them? Um?
I think that's a hard right, Yeah, And certainly the
first step is realizing what they are and being able
(33:23):
to recognize them and articulate them. Probably the most helpful
way that I've seen people get to that step is
by embracing a shopping ban of some sort, whether it's
a two month shopping band. Some people go a whole year,
but that's pretty long. But most people I think could
(33:45):
could go for four to six weeks without buying anything
other than food, I guess, but just saying, Hey, I'm
gonna spend the next two months and I'm not going
to buy anything other than food or consumable toilet three items.
And every time I have an urge to shop, I'm
I'm not going to and I'm just gonna kind of
(34:06):
sit in that desire. What Why do I feel like
I need to go shopping right now? Why do I
feel like I need to go buy that newest, latest,
greatest thing? Is it? Is it a healthy motivation or
is it unhealthy? What is what is sparking some of
those things. One lady one time told me she she
(34:27):
had gone on a two month shopping band, and she
said she started to notice every time she had a
bad day at work, she really wanted to stop at
the mall on her way home, and usually she would
just stop at the mall. She said, I didn't always
buy anything, but sometimes I just walked through the store,
walk through the hallway that a lot of times I
(34:48):
bought something, but not always. But for two months, when
I said I couldn't stop at the mall, I started
to notice what days I felt that urge, and I
started to realized that when I was really stressed at work,
I would go try to alleviate that stress by buying
(35:08):
something on my way home, or whenever I felt lonely
or board, I just want to fill the time by shopping. Um,
whenever there's extra money in my bank account, I just
want to go buy something. And recognizing what those are,
I think that shopping band is probably the best way
to do that. And then how you overcome it probably
depends on what exactly it is that you're you're discovering,
(35:30):
but but typically there is a better way to meet
that need in your heart and in your life and
in your soul than than buying something, certainly a longer
lasting way to fulfill it. Man, I feel like we're
demystifying some of those classical things. Maybe the parodies of
minimalism that people have in their minds were really I mean,
(35:51):
that was some really really good stuff there, Joshua, And
so yeah, for for people who want to get started
actually going through the process of becoming a minimalist. We
want to ask you questions on that subject, and we'll
get to a couple of those right after the break. Alright,
(36:14):
we're back from the break and we're talking about minimalism
with Joshua Becker, and so Joshua, let's go ahead and
talk about, like how we can implement these principles. How
do we actually implement more minimalism into our lives? Right
if we, like a lot of folks are swimming and stuff, like,
how do we even begin the process of decluttering our homes? Well,
(36:34):
I would take a step back, and I would say
that the first step is for people to articulate their
bigger reason why they want to pursue minimalism. When I
wrote my first book, The More of Less, and I
met with a publisher and they said, what do you
want to call it? I said, becoming minimalist and she said, well,
(36:58):
you can't name it that, And I'm like, oh, that's
how this that's how this works. But she says, the
reason you can't title it becoming minimalist is because becoming
minimalist is the process that gets you to the promise,
so that the goal of minimalism isn't to become minimalists.
The goal of owning less is is something bigger. So
(37:23):
name your book the promise, and then I mean, what
is the promise of minimalism? That's that's what you should
title the book. And so we tell that the more
of less, finding the life you want under everything you own.
And so the first step I think for people is
to say, Okay, why does this appeal to me right now?
What is it that I want to get out of minimalism?
(37:46):
And it could be something as simple as I want
to get out of debt. And so I'm going to
pursue minimalism so that I can get out of debt.
Or I'm going to pursue minimalism so that I can
finally get ahead of my paychecks. Or I'm gonna pursue
minimalism so that I can reach a million dollar net worth,
right Like, yes, Tom, I'm gonna pursue minimalism so I
(38:09):
can spend more time with my family, so I can
do more traveling. Like there's any number of different things
that somebody might might pick. So I think it starts
there and realizing it and then and then from there,
certainly if you have a family, Uh, there's a conversation
to be had, um that that you're hoping to make
some changes in your life and and in your home.
And the greatest problem there is that it's easier to
(38:32):
see everyone else's clutter than it is to see your own.
So if you're listening to this podcast and and you
want to pursue minimalism, you don't get started by having
your husband or wife get rid of all their things
like you, you get rid of your stuff, and you
look for a common ground um with your spouse and
with your partner. And then, like I mentioned a little
bit earlier in the podcast, don't don't fall into the
(38:54):
trap of I'm going to tackle the hardest thing first.
I'm gonna start in my garage. I'm gonna start in
my basement. I'm gonna start by getting rid of my
sentimental things. Um, start easy, starting your lived in areas
that you can complete and finish and notice the benefits
of owning less in one area of your life, and
then you'll feel motivated and you'll have momentum to go
(39:17):
tackle the next area and the next area. Jeffua, you
you kind of talked a little bit earlier in the
show about how as you were unpacking, unpacking boxes and
bags and going through stuff, you were kind of going
through this personal existential sort of thought process about stuff
owning you. Well, what was the process like as you
were kind of navigating it with your family and with
(39:39):
your kids and with your wife. What were those conversations
like and how difficult was that? So my kids were
five and two, um, and I have noticed that there
are there are three types of relationships that emerge from this.
There's the there's the spouse who says, hooray, where you've been,
let's let's go. Um. There's a there's a spouse that says,
(40:01):
i'm I'm in I agree, but they differ on what
that looks like in their home. And then the trickiest
one to navigate is the spouse who says you can't
get rid of anything in the home. And that's a
pretty small percentage, but that's the toughest one. But for
me it was my wife was in the second boat,
(40:21):
and so she was like, yeah, I think you're right,
we we should make some changes here, which is where
most people tend to be. Uh. It was just that
we disagreed on how much stuff we were going to
get rid of, and so if she wanted to get
rid of, I want to get rid of. And so
the first fifty felt pretty good. Um, and then I
(40:44):
wanted to keep going, and she's like, I think we're
at a good spot right here, right. So that's so
I could still focus on my own things. I could
get rid of my my own things. In the end,
we get rid of about sixty of our possessions over
about a nine month nine month period. But my kids
were five and two, and again I tell parents, you
(41:09):
you can't go home and make your kids get rid
of all their things. First you do your own rooms,
you do all your own stuff, and then you start
putting these expectations on your kids. And the younger they are,
the easier it is. By the time we got to
my kids toy room and bedroom, like he had seen
(41:30):
us for months taking boxes of things outside the house
and we've explained over and over again, this is why
we're doing it, this is what we're hoping will come
from that. And by the by the time we got
to their their toys and their bedrooms, they knew it
was coming and we were able to I think set
some rational physical boundaries for them, Like, we're not getting
(41:52):
rid of all of your toys. They just need to
fit against this wall or they need to fit in
this closet, and you get to decide what to keep
want to get rid of. It's certainly leading by example
is a way to ease your family into it, And
I think that's so smart. Well, Joshua, you like, so
you're mentioning kind of going room by room basically and
kind of working your way through your house. Like what
you said, you said, start with the easier rooms, Like
(42:14):
what are those easier rooms? Like what rooms do you
recommend for folks to begin with when they are looking
to make that change in their house. Well, they'll they'll change, Uh, they'll,
they'll change from from home to home. But the way
I usually say it is easiest to hardest starting with
the most lived in areas first. So what is the
(42:35):
easiest most lived in area of your home? And I
know two superlatives isn't always helpful, but so, like, the
living room is a great example for most people because
some living rooms becomes a storage area for a lot
of things. In that case, it's not an easy room
to start in. But for most places that most people, uh,
(42:56):
the living room is a good place to start, and
you spend time in there, so you can finish it
in an afternoon or in an evening, and you can
notice the benefits the next time your family sits in
that room. The bedroom is also a usually somewhat easy
place for for people to get started. Bathrooms like those
(43:17):
are easier places, at least they were for me than
the kitchen, the home office spaces that I use. But
we're going to require a lot more time and effort
and thoughts in order to experience the benefits of them.
And Joshua, you know we're we're a money podcast, and
so a lot of times when people are getting rid
of stuff, they might say, you know what I want
(43:38):
to I want to sell some stuff and make some
money based on the used things that I have that
I'm no longer going to to have in my life.
So when we're talking about the question of donating, selling, recycling,
or tossing in the trash, sounds like you were loading
up the van and taking things to the goodwill. How
do you suggest people think through what they do with
those things as they're parting with them. Well, probably a
(43:58):
few things to think through. My my typical advice is
if you don't need the money, then then just donate
the stuff. But since it's The Money podcast and people
are probably a little more focused on those things. So
the problem becomes if you have a lot of stuff
to go through, if you've lived in your home for
twenty years and you have boxes and boxes of things,
(44:22):
trying to sell all that stuff really as a lot
of burden and time and stress and usually frustration to
the process and doesn't usually bring back nearly as much
financial reward as we think it's going to. There's some exceptions,
things that are really expensive or things that are really
(44:45):
large and you can't haulm away by yourself. Like there's
some easy selling winds along the way, in which case, yeah,
sell it, make the money along the way. But there's
there's a certain joy that comes generosity that that's selling
items can't can't bring. I think the generosity tends to
(45:06):
motivate people when they when they're getting rid of So
my daughter was too, and so we were getting rid
of all of the baby and newborn and maternity items,
and we stumble across the care Net Pregnancy Center in
downtown Burlington, Vermont, and it took like one phone call
with them to realize how much need there was in
(45:29):
my city for those clothes and those baby supplies that
were just being stored in boxes in my basement, like
families who legitimately needed those items. It like sparked us
to get rid of even more. I'm like, well, let's
go back and find even more things that people in
(45:49):
our community can use and need. So I tend to
to defer to the donating side because I think it's
more fulfilling. Um, but there's space for selling. One time
someone was they were they were minimizing. There were new
new couple and they just moved to a new city
(46:09):
and they needed like bicycles to get around in the
city to work, And oh my god, I think that
would be a great goal. Like you sell your items
until you make enough money to buy the bicycle that
you can use to get you around to where you
need to go. And um, so there's certainly freedom in that,
but the hard part becomes bogging ourselves down with that pursuit. Nice, excellent,
(46:33):
Joshua Man. This is this has been great stuff. I
think our listeners have hopefully been able to glean a
lot of what you're saying here and not only apply
it to their physical life, right as far as just
the possessions they have in their home. But you know,
I think there's a lot of parallels when it comes
to our money as well, you know, as far as
how we approach what it is that we're seeking after
you kind of mentioned earlier on how we need to
(46:54):
start with the Essentially, what I interpreted is that you
said to start with the end in mind, and if
you can kind of figure out the the type of
life that it is you want to live, that can
kind of shape minimalism, right, Like, minimalism doesn't have to
look the same for you as it does that the dentist,
you know, like all the different examples you gave, And
I think that the same can be so true of
(47:14):
our money. When we have the end goal in mind
and what we want to do with that money, then
that kind of that drives us and feeds our soul
to finish the task and not to get you know,
not to fall off the wagon along the way. Yeah,
it's uh, it's essentially about intentionality. It's about being intentional
with with my money and my time and my pursuits
(47:36):
and and making sure that all of my resources are
aligned with um my values and the person I want
to be and the life I want to end up living. Well, Joshua,
we really appreciate you taking your time to spend with
us and and sharing all your wisdom with our listeners.
This was an excellent conversation for folks that do want
more information, that are really interested now in at least
(47:59):
thinking about minimalism a good bit more. Yeah, how can
they find out more about the stuff that you've written
and what you're up to? Becoming minimalist dot com is
the home base for everything that I do, And there's
certainly books and um the Hope effect, Hope effect dot com,
but becoming Minimalist dot com is the home base for
(48:20):
for everything I do, and you can find anything else
I'm doing and where I can be found from from there. Well, Joshua,
thanks again so much for coming on the podcast. I
pleasure thanks for having me on. Yeah, Matt, that was
an excellent conversation. I think I say that every time
because we have just the best guest Whoever does the
guest booking for our show is awesome. Who does that?
(48:40):
By the way, I think it's you and me. We're awesome.
But there's ls on the back, but Joshua was even better,
And so I want to know from you, like, what
was your big takeaway from from our conversation with Joshua. Well, Joel,
you know how I am about goals right, goal setting,
knowing the big picture, having an understanding of why it
is that I'm doing something like that is so important
to me as a human being, whether it be you know,
(49:02):
just like a little project that I'm doing outside. You know,
I'm the question I'm asking myself is how is this
contributing to my larger plan, like the larger goal I
have for the yard, right, and it goes all the
way to minimalism, Like Joshua was mentioning, how we need
to start with our our goal in mind, and that
kind of dictates what it looks like to be a minimalist.
And I think it so applies to our money as well.
(49:24):
We talked about this all the time, how how we
need to start with the why behind our money, because
if we don't really have a clear goal of what
it is that we're trying to achieve, then it's gonna
be difficult for us to do the hard work of
not spending our money. But when we are informed and
we have a clear goal that we're chasing after. That
makes everything so easy. And something Joshua mentioned in his
(49:45):
book that we actually didn't talk about but was. He
talked about how it's important to revisit these goals as well.
A lot of times we don't exactly know what it
is that we're seeking after because bottom line, our taste changed,
like our opinions change, we have different goals. Our goals,
you know, our cheese gets moved and it takes time
to sort of recalibrate a little bit. And that's also
true if you don't necessarily know what your goals are
(50:05):
right now. Just because you don't know what your financial
goals are, that doesn't mean that you fail to do
smart things with your money, because eventually, through this process,
you will figure it out what it is that you
want to spend your money on. They'll come to light, yeah, exactly.
And the same thing with minimalism. You may not necessarily
know what it is that you're trying to to achieve
by having fewer possessions, but through the process of minimizing
(50:28):
your possessions, you're going to figure out what it is,
whether it's more time with your family or maybe that
means just having more mental space because you have fewer
things kind of clouding your judgment. It still makes sense
to do the smart things that we talk about a
lot of times here on the show, even if you
don't yet know what it is you're seeking after. Yeah,
and I really identify kind of with the more stuff
taking up more mental space. Ye, Emily, And I've been
(50:49):
kind of taking some of these things to heart based
on reading the books and lead up to this interview
with Joshua, and it's making a difference already. I can
tell the lack of clutter is really bringing some mental
clarity way. And we're hanging out in our house and
that's so nice. I think my big takeaway from this
episode was that you won't necessarily save money as a minimalist.
But I gotta say for our how the money listeners,
(51:10):
you will write the way our people, Yeah, the way
our listeners are peeps, the way they approach money. If
they begin to kind of consider the concepts of minimalism
and begin to declutter and be generous with the things
that they have that they're not actually using and they
buy fewer things, I think they will save money. Implementing
a shopping ban for a month or two, like Joshua suggested.
(51:32):
I mean, those are those are ways that we're going
to actually implement minimalism and save money at the same time.
And I think that's the best of both worlds. If
we begin to at least at minimum take some of
these concepts. You don't have to go all the way
full minimalist, and I think we address some of those
misconceptions too. But if you can take some of the
good or all the good for minimalism either either way,
however far you want to dive into it, I think
by embracing that at the same time, you will if
(51:54):
you're how to Money listener be embracing frugality their cousins,
they're not the same. But if if you kind of
take oath hand in hand at the same time, man,
I think it's gonna have a big difference, a major
impact in your life going forward. Yeah, totally, man. I
think that the shopping bands, it's a good way to
kind of self experiment a little bit and figure out
how you're gonna take to it a little bit, and
hopefully you will be able to see that there are
some amazing ways that you can save money that way.
(52:16):
But do. Let's take it to the beer. On this episode,
we had I Feel at All, which is a beer
by Monday Night Brewing. This is one that's actually this
is one of the three beers that we gave away
the Instagram actually a few weeks ago. So if you're
not following us on Instagram, look up how to money pod.
If you're not following us on Instagram, what are you
doing with your life? But but Joel, what were your
thoughts on this beer? Well? Man, this beer is called
(52:37):
I Feel at All. I felt the hops. Uh, it
really did have hop concentrate, sort of levels of hoppingess
going on. But man, and for me in a good way.
I know some people can get hopped out, can be overhopped,
and I'm not one of those people. I've not found
a beer yet where it's been too hoppy, and so
(52:58):
this was a ridiculous amount of hops in there. I
felt it was like super green, super tasty, super alive,
and I loved it. I think the green little alligators
on the label they're kind of lends itself to like
the herbal nature of hops as well. Yeah, you know,
like the La cost Uh, that's totally like it's kind
of like that, but it's like this repeating batter. I really,
I really dig this design, but yeah, this is a
(53:19):
hazy New England style I p A. So when we
board it, man, it was super cloudy, like you could
not see through it at all, and it had more
of that sort of sharp hot flavor. It makes me
think of cheese, right, like you've kind of got your
mild or medium, like your regular cheddar cheese, but then
you get the sharp stuff and it kind of has
like this, like it bites a little bit, you know,
like it's sharp cheddar, and you kind of feel it
on your tongue a little bit more. And I feel
(53:40):
like that's how it is with hops sometimes, like when
you have some of these New England style I p
A s that do have a lot of hops, sometimes
it feels like a sharp cheese. And this isn't the
first time I've alluded to cheese before when it comes
to these bears, but this one had a similar thing
going on. I really dug it, and I'm glad that
you and I got to share this one today. Buddy
man pick that up at the beer's release at my
Day Night Brewing. Oh yeah, man, we're big fans. We
(54:01):
go out once every six months, and this is one
of those times. Exactly. Well, man, that's gonna be it
for this episode. Our listeners can find our show notes
up at how to Money dot com. Yeah, man, we've
had so many great reviews from our listeners. But I
do want to ask if you have a friend that
could use a kick in the pants when it comes
to living a minimalist lifestyle spending less money, saving more
of what you make, well, then we would suggest letting
(54:24):
your friend know about the How the Money podcast, maybe
sneaking their phone, hitting a subscribe button for them, whatever
it takes, Okay, just hold that phone up in front
of their face so it gets that facial recognition into
this slipeo a podcast, real quick, make it happen. And
especially with this episode, man, this is such a fun
conversation that we had with Joshua Becker. I think this
canna be a kind of a soft introduction to personal
finance where it's not so money on the nose, not
(54:45):
too in your face. But all right, Matt, that's gonna
do it for this episode. Until next time, Best Friends Out,
Best Friends Out, m BO
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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