Going Minimalist To Save More with Joshua Becker #187

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 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 minimal 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 the podcast. Well, it is my pleasure. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Anytime, man, anytime seriously, if you're gonna 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 these principles. They might have applied

them already. Peop'll see. But Joshua, every week on the podcast, Matt and I drink a craft beer. It's kind of our way of sporting 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. 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 and the past here. But your friends with a buddy of ours, Jeff Schinnerbarger, Yeah, I think you've done some events with him. 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, 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 a junior and my daughter's 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 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 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, 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 you know, from everything I've read about minimalism, I feel like you can be easily misunderstood. Everyone seemed to kind of have

a different definition of what it means. So kind of to set the stage for this conversation, 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 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? That the greatest promise of minimalism isn't just owning less stuff.

The greatest goal of minimalism is that I get to pursue with more passion whatever my greatest prior parties 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 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 different from one person to another. Yeah, and so to you at least, what are some of the maybe misconceptions or 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 more people are talking about it now then 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 just bear in that that the goal is, yeah, that 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 than a hundred things.

I think that there are there are those misconceptions, but probably the biggest misconception that I think continues to pervade 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

house of it. When the exact opposite is true. It's it's 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 if you're single, if you're have three kids, if you're an empty nester, 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 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 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 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? Um, so for me, it was a Saturday morning, Yeah, twelve 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 the day the garage, right, So he 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 acting me to come play catch with him, and I just

keep pushing them off. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. Well, I strike up a conversation with my neighbor, 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,

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. 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 thing that did bring me happiness in life, and not just happiness, but meaning and joy and 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 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 and life. Because you don't you don't see that. Cross the table from somebody and ask them what do

you most want to accomplish in life? Nobody says, I just 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, one of my I'm wasting my life with those things when I could be doing far more

important things with my life. Right, yeah, 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. 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 how there are these bigger benefits and that that we realized. Can you talk about some of these I guess like some of these universal benefits that pretty much everybody realizes 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 struggles to answer the question, Like when when you ask 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 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 and more generosity and more gratitude. There's less comparison that we have with other people. We are 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 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 responsible for your ability to do more good in the world around you too? Yeah? Well, how long do I have? Um as a 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, 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 reaches in the tens of millions that that cr CR post 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 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 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 are 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 so in conversations with Kim, 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 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 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 prostitute san or incarcerated because brains just don't develop correctly outside of the family unit.

And so our our mission with the Hope Effect is to to change how the world cares for orphans by by helping orphaned 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 to set like an orphanage is 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 families to care for orphaned children. So that's what the Hope Effect does. And because I buy less because I don't need to spend money on on stuff. I'm I'm able to uh to do something like this with it, and um, it's really exciting. I I can't think of a more fulfilling way to spend my money than help help orphan children

have a chance at life. Yeah. Yeah, seriously, man, thanks

so much for 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 forth in your books is that like, hey, like through this lifestyle, like through taking a different approach, you can implement these 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 We'll ask you for some links here at the end of the end of the episode where folks can go there if they're looking to to donate Huner 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 down 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 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 not an easy question to answer, and we got asked it 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, at the very least, do 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. 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 to that we spend three thousand, six hundred and eighty hours of our lives looking for the things 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 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

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. 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 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 the most helpful connection that that people can see is that most people already have enough stuff already, Like there are enough clothes in your closet already, there's enough cookwear in your kitchen, there's enough tools in your garage, you have enough hobby gear already, And as you start 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 cookwaar, I don't need more towels. I'm getting rid of towels. And so the 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

should have said. If someone doesn't want to be frugal, they could still pursue 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 or excellent. Yeah. Yeah, well, I guess like an example I can think of Joshua, is that kind 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

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 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 theirs. Certainly, especially in 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

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 in 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 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 brings about maybe an abundance mindset as opposed to have 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 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. 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 thinking about, 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 principles in my home 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 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 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

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 desires with purchasing stuff, with material things in our lives?

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 took a vanload of stuff to Goodwill 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 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 in order to live our life? And so I started asking myself that question, Like the 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 to my parents or or my brother that was 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 sucker for sales. Um the best buy ad that used to come in the Sunday 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

by things. It's probably where I separate myself a little bit from 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 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 yeah, And certainly the first step is realizing what they are and being able 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 ban. Some people go a whole year, but that's pretty long, but most people I think could 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 toiletry items. And every time I have urge to shop, I'm I'm not going to and I'm just gonna kind of 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 had gone on a two month shopping ban, 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 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 realize that when I was really stressed at work, I would go try to alleviate that stress by buying something on my way home, or whenever I felt lonely or bored, 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 disc ring, but but typically there is a better way to meet that need in your hearts 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, 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. M Alright, 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, 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, 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 minimalist. The goal of owning less is is something bigger. So 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? And it could be something as simple as I want to get out

of debt. And so I'm gonna 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 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 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 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 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 unpopping, unpacking boxes and bags and going through stuff, you were kind of going through the 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 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, 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, 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 just agreed 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 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 sev of our possessions over about a nine month nine month period. But my kids were five and two, and again I tell parents, you 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 it's sing 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 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 and what 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 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 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, 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 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 thought 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 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 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, 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

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 from generosity that that's

selling items can't can't bring. I think the generosity tends to 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 like 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 it's essentially about tensionality.

It's about being intentional with with my money and my time and my pursuits 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 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 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 pleasure and

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? 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, 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.

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

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 chieese 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

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 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 fear possessions, but through the process of minimizing your possessions, you're going to figure out what does 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. Emily and I've been 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 when 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 to Money listeners, you will write the way our people should, 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. 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 you're how to money listener be embracing frugality their cousins.

They're not the same. But if if you kind of take both hand in hand at the same time, and 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.

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 ba Joel, what were your thoughts on this beer? Well, Man, this beer is called

I Feel at All. I felt the hops. Uh, it really did have hop concentrate sort of levels of hoppiness 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 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, Like that's totally like it's kind of like that, but it's like this repeating batter. I really, I really did this design, but yeah, this is a 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 meat, 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 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 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 Monday Night Brewing.

Oh yeah, man, we're big fans. We 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 some 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 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 in the slipe over 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 can be a kind of a soft introduction to personal finance, where it's not so money on the nose, not 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,