Minimalism In The Big City

Voluntary simplicity and minimal living have great cachet in today’s fragile economic times.  Frugal living is nothing new, and simple living has bee the mainstay of many environmentally aware people for decades.  However, the concept has not gained widespread acceptance for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the tendency to look to rural living or escaping from the “big city”  standards of living as the primary technique for achieving a simple lifestyle.  Yet, living minimally actually is easier to undertake in urban centres, even though the social pressures to conform to more materialistic lifestyles are significant.

Living with less is the primary focus of this lifestyle, but, in truth, the most gratifying aspect of cutting back on frills is the ability to focus on the most important aspects of our lives.  That is unique to each of us, yet proponents of the way of living too often urge us to adopt their own perspectives and interpretations of simple living.   It is far from an accurate or satisfying approach.

My wife and I opted to live in a yurt, off the grid, for several years.  However, I would never advocate that everyone else who wants to embrace voluntary simplicity move to a rural environment, live off the grid or build their own yurt.  It was our personal preference.

Other acquaintances have employed a more basic approach to living in the city, without any difficulty and with a lot of enjoyment.

In the city, one has greater access to options than in the country, and greater opportunities to employ alternative strategies to reduce ownership while increasing enjoyment of assets and activities.

One of the greatest materialistic and economic burdens is the automobile.  Yet, any owner will tell you that the car is essential to daily life.  There are several options, however, to reduce reliance on personal ownership of a vehicle in the city.  While public transportation is the most frequently cited substitute, other alternatives include “car sharing” (where owners either opt for specific times of the day or days of the week to use a shared vehicle),  commuter vehicles (mopeds, etc), bicycles, weekend vehicle rentals (or on-demand rentals) and seasonal leasing.

Of course, to reduce the need for a vehicle, simply either move closer to work or search for a job closer to home!

In the 1970s, many young people (most often, young men) cut housing costs by sharing a house.  The modern-day extension of this concept is for homeowners who wish to cut housing costs to lease out rooms or share the house with other renters.

In the vein of shared housing, consider sharing other entertainment assets.  On average, a video or DVD is viewed fewer than three times, yet millions of us buy and store vast collections of movies.  Similarly, print books gather dust on the shelves after one or two readings.  Why not develop an exchange program with friends, passing these movies, CDs and books or magazines among the members of the group.  Lower cost, greater reach of each piece of entertainment!  Even many e-books can be shared or “loaned” on Amazon and other e-book vendors.  Hundreds of thousands of free songs and books are available, legally.

Inexpensive entertainment can become free entertainment, if you opt for “open house” days at local zoos, art galleries, museums and even local high school drama productions.  In summer, most cities offer myriad free entertainment, including bands, dance groups and theatre.

Many places offer discounts for groups of six or more people.  Inquire as to whether the entertainment venue that you wish to visit will provide a bulk rate, and then arrange for a group outing.

Weekly visits to restaurants form the backbone of the food service industry.  However, home-based parties provide a much more relaxed atmosphere.  Consider arranging for a regular rotation of hosted dinner parties (e.g. each member of a group of eight hosts once every two months).   

There are hundreds of ways to minimize costs while simplifying your life in the big city.  Most rely on the principle of owning less, or getting more mileage out of each possession.  Be creative, and the need to own will become less of an addiction, or even a craving.  At the same time, you will find that your budget dollars last much longer!

Labelling Minimalism, Voluntary Simplicity, Simple Living and Frugal Lifestyles

The most significant problem with labels such as minimalist, living simply, voluntary simplicity or frugal living is that the categorizing itself is purely subjective.  A minimalist may eschew all possessions, or focus on a few premium pieces.  Voluntary simplicity suggests that one can acquire anything he wants, but opts for a Spartan existence. Frugal lifestyles seem to imply that the subject lives “on the cheap” with everything.  Living simply, too, evokes images of backwoods, back-to-the-earth survivalism.  Yet, each may describe the same lifestyle.  Rather than attempting to label, it is easier to visualize the concept of selective possession, and view true minimalism as a way of filtering out the excesses.

I, for example, own few material possessions, live in a yurt and often harvest wild plants.  Yet, far from being bereft of money or liquid assets, we own a newer Prius, holiday three or four times each year in exotic or far-flung locales and live a life free of worry about finances.  Our choices are the envy of many friends, yet are options available to anyone who wishes to prioritize his life similarly to us.  We do not measure ourselves by what we own, but how we live.  We own few tangibles, yet also own a library of memories and pleasurable moments.

How many of us, though, are mentally and financially prepared to make the sacrifices that allow us to make choices focused on voluntary simplicity?  A simple test will reveal our capacity to not only adapt, but to embrace this alternative way of living.  Oddly, the first time I tested myself using this simple strategy, I felt significant stress and anxiety – a little like being lost, alone and in a strange country.

 Choose a mid-week day for your trial. Leave home without your cash, credit or debit cards, and no means to access them.  If you take the bus or subway to work, carry the tokens essential for a trip to and from work, nothing more.  No coffee money, no gift cards for restaurants and so on.  If possible, leave your cell phone at home, and, under no circumstance use it to access a friend’s support or make purchases.  Sounds simple, right?  Almost certainly, the minute you are isolated from any means of funds to make spontaneous purchases, you will begin to go through a withdrawal, regardless how minor.  Yet, do we really need that morning latte, the afternoon drink, the chance to make an impulse buy?  A mere day of deprivation will reveal just how essential these comfort buys are to you, and whether you are emotionally ready to embrace a minimalistic lifestyle wholeheartedly.

That one day was tough?  Now set yourself up for three days, or a week. 

My first test, predictably, found me longing for my daily coffee fix, and wondering what I would do if a crisis occurred.  The fact that no such dilemma had confronted me for months (or perhaps years) prior was not material.  The “what ifs” drove my thinking for much of that day.  However, at the end of the day, I discovered that I was not embracing my return to materialism, but was, instead, exhilarated by my newly found freedom.  I have always been a spendthrift or a tightwad, depending upon the moment and the mood.  For years, I carried upwards of four to six thousand dollars cash in my pockets, and my low-limit credit card as backup.  Now, I carry no credit cards, no debit cards, and rarely have more than fifty cents in my pocket.  Do I long for the days of superfluous cash?  Hardly. 

The measure of whether you, too, are suited to involve yourself in a life of voluntary simplicity  really is whether you fear the lack of possessions or love the thrill of attempting to discard all of the excess you own.  In order to adopt this new way of viewing your possessions, you need to adopt a new way of viewing your life.  Is your life defined by the moments of pleasure you get from all of life, or is it defined by the status you feel that you acquire by owning and displaying material items?  Each of us finds our oasis of enjoyment in life uniquely, and the owner of a $450,000 sports car or a $3,000,000 painting is no less entitled to enjoy life his way as you are to choose a more focused yet Spartan way of living.  The labels attached to materialism or minimalism do not define you or your priorities.  You define, by the route you choose.  A minimalist simply chooses to cozy up to fewer possessions, and more moments.  Yet, even each minimalist is uniquely different from the next, regardless of the label attached.

Minimal Living Provides Opportunity To Spread Wealth

If minimalism or voluntary simplicity is about living with less, then the obvious corollary to the concept of minimal living is that such a frugal lifestyle will open up a surfeit of resources for other uses. I have discussed in many of my other articles that my minimalistic focus is toward enjoying the newly filtered aspects of life more thoroughly by de-cluttering my environment.
However, I have no desire to relinquish the pleasure that I gain from productive work. Thus, while I free up time to enjoy more targeted pleasures by eliminating redundancies and excesses, I also free up money.
Therein is one of the real bonuses of simple living: the ability to use surplus income for purposes that I find worthy; namely, a variety of charitable causes.
For instance, I have revived a cooperative housing project initiative that will enable those people who may not be able, otherwise, to afford home ownership, to engage in a strategy to purchase their individual homes through a group buying initiative. With my surplus free time and, fortunately, surplus income due to my frugal living approach, I am able to give back in areas of my own choosing.
Perhaps many aspiring minimalists are undertaking this new lifestyle because of budget constraints, or environmental concerns, or simply because of social conscience. Regardless, the new freedom that one discovers as priorities are rearranged to suit the minimalistic approach allow for more freedom to be charitable. It is often an unexpected frill that flowers from one’s new lifestyle.
Psychologists almost universally agree that a great contributor to unhealthy stress is the lack of choice. By freeing resources, by being less reliant on material success or need, a person is afforded a greater freedom to choose what is important individually. It is true, however, that when a person chooses to “ cut to the bone” on luxuries, and cuts the reserves that provide a “soft cushion” in times of financial hardship, a degree of stress results. The stress of facing a short-term bout of belt tightening on a frugal budget is far from the stress, though, than the stress of financial crisis when one is burdened with enormous monthly expenses. By trimming overhead, you open the door for more choices.
It is ironic that the greatest contributors to charities, per dollar earned, and the greatest number of volunteer hours committed are given by those people who live in more modest communities, states or provinces, and that those most likely to give in a crisis are those that have experienced a crisis of their own.
By entering the world of modest living through voluntary simplicity, a person almost automatically is drawn toward charity, volunteerism and community service, and, in turn, reaps the enormous benefit of reaching out to others.
As you contemplate your foray into minimal living, you may want to set out a template, or set of objectives, and include in that template the anticipated or sought-after benefits (as well as drawbacks). Work into your new budget an allowance for both time and money given to those in need, and establish that allowance as a priority. Simply by laying out, concretely and publicly, your intention to use your newly discovered freedom to benefit others, you will discover that your focus on what is significant in life alters dramatically. Again, it is an established psychological principle that, when a person publicly commits, even in a modest way, to a position or goal, he more adamantly defends and works toward that position in the future. Think, for example, of Weight Watchers or AAA meetings, where a public statement of commitment is used to drive dedication to an objective.
Consider that, as you gain freedom from stress and financial or material dependence for yourself, you also are opening the door for a more altruistic you. Go minimal, but give it your maximum effort!

Living With Less Does Not Always Mean Doing It Yourself

One of the problems inherent in “going minimal” is the tendency to radicalize. That is, some of us assume that minimalism requires that we not only do without every luxury and most essentials, but that we involve others at a minimal level in every purchase. We often suppose that doing with less means doing it yourself.
Need an oil change? It must be a minimalistic approach to do it yourself. Want a special meal, such as a lasagne? One has to obtain the ingredients and make it oneself. Of course, a true minimalist must do her own vehicle repairs, make his own clothes, grow every food item and complete every repair or household renovation alone.
These are just a few of the myths of minimal living.
Let us take a quick look, for example, at that lasagne dinner. Typically, a 2-pound store-bought, ready-made lasagne will cost you $5.99 to $9.99. Your total cost, including cooking in the oven for 45 to 60 minutes, will be $6.11 to $10.11, or $3.05 to $5.06 per pound. However, calculate the individual costs of buying the ingredients. Cheese, lean ground beef, spinach, spices and noodles will end up costing you at least $6.80 per pound if you buy the size required to make a 2-pound lasagne. Cooking will take two hours, for an additional cost of $0.22, while cleanup of the baking pan and utensils will add another $0.30-.40 to the total. This doesn’t factor in the cost of the pan & utensils, or place a value on the two hours that it may take to make the meal. Total savings, per pound, of buying the ready-made meal will be up to $4.37! Hardly worth the effort, is it, unless you prefer the quality and uniqueness of a homemade meal?
How about that oil change? With a litre of oil costing, on average, $4.19 and a filter $6-12, a four-litre oil change will cost $23.76, versus the $29.95 for a shop to do it. Yet, you don’t have to worry about the cleanup and environmental impact, or the cost of oil drain pans, jack stands, etc. It’s almost a fair trade to farm out the task.
Don’t even consider doing your own repairs on a new car. Just the OBII-compliant computer tester will set you back $100 or more, and you haven’t begun to figure out how to do the repairs, with the few outdated tools that you own. Each new car demands its own specialty tools to conduct repairs. However, buying the new car is more environmentally friendly, and generally more cost-efficient than maintaining the old one.
A true minimalist may want to mend his own clothes, make his own curtains, upholster his own furniture. Aside from the grotesquely ugly results that are likely, this option, too, is impractical, even for a minimalist. However, if you find someone who is handy with a sewing machine or needle and thread, and you have the cash, consider providing the material, while your partner provides the handiwork and skill necessary to make clothes, drapes or couch covers.
Similarly, home renovation skills are seldom within the reach of the typical homeowner. You may be great at rough carpentry, but lousy at finishing work. You may know the basics of plumbing, and fail miserably at electrical repair. Here is where a collage of colleagues, with compatible and exchangeable skills provides a real advantage. You may undertake the framing (or supervision) of a garage for a neighbour, while another provides skills at concrete work and a third can wire the building. When you need your recreation room renovated, those same people can pool their skills to assist you, and so on.
Have a large back yard? Grow your vegetables, and a few for your neighbours, in exchange for a few trinkets that you require from them.
The last three examples are perfect illustrations of the benefit of bartering for the frugal individual, or those who favour the minimal living approach. Bartering, or swapping services and goods not only lessens demand for duplicate items or redundant services, but reduces the cost to each individual in the barter group. Barter groups may be loosely arranged, or established as a cooperative, with specific assigned values for work and goods that are exchanged, with a “banking” option that allows a member to provide his goods into the pool, and obtain the benefit that he wants or needs at a later time.
Minimalism is not about doing it yourself. It is about seeking the path that is least intrusive, with the greatest benefit, to obtain those needed items, while recognizing that “need” and “want” are not synonymous, and that using less is a pathway to getting more out of your life, each day.

Minimalism Defined By Degree of Dependence on Assets

Minimalists place almost exclusive emphasis on getting rid of “stuff,” as if that is the panacea. Get rid of clutter, get rid of duplicate materials, get rid of ostentatious, overindulgent purchases, and so on.
While reducing dependence on assets is laudable, affluence is not the enemy, or is de-cluttering the solution to simplifying one’s life. By exerting oneself to part with items that have a link to your emotional or pedantic life, you are likely to experience a feeling of deprivation. It is one of the reasons why many advocates of minimalism recommend decreasing assets bit at a time, rather than immediately and thoroughly.
Why are we choosing to reduce our belongings? In many cases, it is due to the realization that we are wrapped up in a tornado of acquisition, seeking continually to own the best of everything.
Again, many minimalists suggest that the goal of minimalism is to reduce excess, so that we can focus on the remaining, valued items in our arsenal. What we are doing, then, is redirecting our efforts away from a blanket embracing of goods toward a bond with only a few, but a much stronger bond. In other words, we will be as reliant on assets as always, but we will cling to fewer of them!
For this reason, I urge that anyone who is considering a conversion to the minimalist lifestyle reflect very carefully on their reasons for doing so.
Is it because of the clutter? Then just reorganize! Is it because of the cost? Consider how to make your dollar work better for you. Is it because of the glamour of saying that you are unique? Consider how many “minimalists” live in the poor areas of your city, not by choice but by necessity.
Minimalism, as one blogger writes, has become the fad of white people. But few take the time to consider the impacts and consequences on oneself and those around us. Most importantly, we rush into minimalism like a crash dieter, and just as quickly fall of the regimen wagon.
Over twenty years ago -- ten years before I embraced minimalism -- I learned, firsthand, the impact of stuff on our lives. At the time, I had just entered into a business partnership that led into a huge growth of our operation. We went from annual revenues, between the two of us, of $125,000 per year to annual revenues of $1.8 million, in the space of a few months. We had hit the big time!
One of the “urgent” purchases I needed was a new car, given that I would be on the road for at least 80,000 kilometres each year.
I fell in love with a Plymouth Laser – hardly an expensive car, but what I really, truly wanted. My partner purchased a Mercedes – just what he wanted. However, I did not purchase the Laser. I imagined myself driving it, polishing it, speeding along Alberta highways in it. It had sex appeal! So I bought a Plymouth Colt 200 – a subcompact. I liked the Colt.
The reasons were simple. Because I loved the Laser, I would spend hours each week, cleaning, polishing, maintaining and driving it. Because I liked the Colt, I would keep it clean and in running condition. The Laser got 25 miles to the gallon, the Colt 42. The Laser cost $23,000, the Colt $12,000. I could repair the Colt myself. I could not repair the Laser. But the Laser came ever so close to winning the purchase lottery!
That one decision revealed to me that it is not the amount or the cost of the stuff we own, but the significance that we place upon things that controls us.
The big screen television may be more important than our daughter’s braces!
Not long ago, I walked through a coastal village in Mexico that had been devastated by a hurricane three years earlier. In beaten to the ground, I found a shell of a former home, now covered with six separate utility tarps, blowing freely. Two of the people who lived there were returning with 5-gallon jugs of water. The place was absolutely destroyed. Yet, in front of the home (where clearly, kids still lived), among the disarray of junk and broken lumber and two derelict cars were two –not one – satellite dishes!
The importance of that connection to television was so important that all other creature comforts paled.
There certainly was no doubt that this family lived minimally. But is it a choice that any of us would make?
If you are considering adopting a minimal lifestyle, I ask that you do one thing, above all. Sit down and evaluate, not the quantity of things you own, but the quality and tenacity of your attachment to items. Consider, thoroughly, what those items mean to you. If you do not, you’ll be like the impulsive parachutist who decided to jump, and then thought of putting on his parachute!

Converting to Minimalism? Know Before You Go!

Minimalists place almost exclusive emphasis on getting rid of “stuff,” as if that is the panacea. Get rid of clutter, get rid of duplicate materials, get rid of ostentatious, overindulgent purchases, and so on.
While reducing dependence on assets is laudable, affluence is not the enemy, or is de-cluttering the solution to simplifying one’s life. By exerting oneself to part with items that have a link to your emotional or pedantic life, you are likely to experience a feeling of deprivation. It is one of the reasons why many advocates of minimalism recommend decreasing assets bit at a time, rather than immediately and thoroughly.
Why are we choosing to reduce our belongings? In many cases, it is due to the realization that we are wrapped up in a tornado of acquisition, seeking continually to own the best of everything.
Again, many minimalists suggest that the goal of minimalism is to reduce excess, so that we can focus on the remaining, valued items in our arsenal. What we are doing, then, is redirecting our efforts away from a blanket embracing of goods toward a bond with only a few, but a much stronger bond. In other words, we will be as reliant on assets as always, but we will cling to fewer of them!
For this reason, I urge that anyone who is considering a conversion to the minimalist lifestyle reflect very carefully on their reasons for doing so.
Is it because of the clutter? Then just reorganize! Is it because of the cost? Consider how to make your dollar work better for you. Is it because of the glamour of saying that you are unique? Consider how many “minimalists” live in the poor areas of your city, not by choice but by necessity.
Minimalism, as one blogger writes, has become the fad of white people. But few take the time to consider the impacts and consequences on oneself and those around us. Most importantly, we rush into minimalism like a crash dieter, and just as quickly fall of the regimen wagon.
Over twenty years ago -- ten years before I embraced minimalism -- I learned, firsthand, the impact of stuff on our lives. At the time, I had just entered into a business partnership that led into a huge growth of our operation. We went from annual revenues, between the two of us, of $125,000 per year to annual revenues of $1.8 million, in the space of a few months. We had hit the big time!
One of the “urgent” purchases I needed was a new car, given that I would be on the road for at least 80,000 kilometres each year.
I fell in love with a Plymouth Laser – hardly an expensive car, but what I really, truly wanted. My partner purchased a Mercedes – just what he wanted. However, I did not purchase the Laser. I imagined myself driving it, polishing it, speeding along Alberta highways in it. It had sex appeal! So I bought a Plymouth Colt 200 – a subcompact. I liked the Colt.
The reasons were simple. Because I loved the Laser, I would spend hours each week, cleaning, polishing, maintaining and driving it. Because I liked the Colt, I would keep it clean and in running condition. The Laser got 25 miles to the gallon, the Colt 42. The Laser cost $23,000, the Colt $12,000. I could repair the Colt myself. I could not repair the Laser. But the Laser came ever so close to winning the purchase lottery!
That one decision revealed to me that it is not the amount or the cost of the stuff we own, but the significance that we place upon things that controls us.
The big screen television may be more important than our daughter’s braces!
Not long ago, I walked through a coastal village in Mexico that had been devastated by a hurricane three years earlier. In beaten to the ground, I found a shell of a former home, now covered with six separate utility tarps, blowing freely. Two of the people who lived there were returning with 5-gallon jugs of water. The place was absolutely destroyed. Yet, in front of the home (where clearly, kids still lived), among the disarray of junk and broken lumber and two derelict cars were two –not one – satellite dishes!
The importance of that connection to television was so important that all other creature comforts paled.
There certainly was no doubt that this family lived minimally. But is it a choice that any of us would make?
If you are considering adopting a minimal lifestyle, I ask that you do one thing, above all. Sit down and evaluate, not the quantity of things you own, but the quality and tenacity of your attachment to items. Consider, thoroughly, what those items mean to you. If you do not, you’ll be like the impulsive parachutist who decided to jump, and then thought of putting on his parachute!

Would You Like Apple Sauce or Pork N Beans?

Minimalism is not about doing without. It is not about continual sacrifice. It is about doing more (or, at minimum, the same amount) with less. That may sound a little like one of the three Rs of environmentalism – Reduce. But minimalism is about making choices that make sense, not necessarily making choices to leave less of a footprint. The end result may be the same, but the motivations may differ.
Let us consider the choice of apple sauce or pork and beans. In the grocery store, a can (14 oz or 400 ml) of beans may cost you ninety cents or so, but no more than $1.20. A jar of apple sauce, on the other hand, may cost upwards of $3.00 for 900 ml (32 oz). Yet, both are relatively inexpensive. Both can be grown and produced by you.
If both can be produced by you, then, should not a true minimalist make his/her own beans or apple sauce? Not necessarily.
This fall, we made our own apple sauce, from a basket of tart apples picked from our own tree. To make six quarts took us four hours. That’s hardly a productive use of our time, since we were working for less than $5 per hour! Yet, our only inputs (the tree was in the yard before we were) were a little cinnamon, the jars (which we already had) and the heat to do the canning. We canned on a cool day, so the heat generated would have been generated anyway, to heat our home. That meant our only true cost was less than fifteen cents worth of cinnamon.
On the other hand, we also grew a variety of beans. Those beans could have been made into canned beans with pork. Instead, we chose to pickle them and freeze some. Less energy input was required on the hot summer days when they were ripe for the picking. Our net cost to pickle and freeze? About six cents per pound. To can them into brown beans with pork would have required sugar, cooking heat, spices, and tomato or molasses. And the time to prepare them for canning would have exceeded four hours for twenty pounds. At a retail price of $1.00 per pound, we would have saved $20 over store-bought beans, minus the input costs of forty cents per pound, and worked for $3.00 per hour. That is considerably less than what we earned on the apple sauce.
There are three additional major differences, though. The homemade apple sauce is pure, with no artificial preservatives added, and no sugars. And we used recycled jars, rather than aluminum cans. For the beans, we had an easier option: freezing. For virtually no cost, and little labour, we preserved the same quantity of beans as we would have canned in the pork ‘n beans scenario.
Sometimes, it is an act of minimalism to buy, rather than produce an item yourself. But where your inputs will exceed what is consumed by commercial production, where quality of doing it yourself far outweighs commercial product quality, or where commercial products generates excess waste, “doing it yourself” is the minimalist’s best option.
Minimalism, it seems then, is not as simple as “doing with less” or “doing it yourself.” It is also about “doing it smart.”