WEBVTT - Going Minimalist To Save More with Joshua Becker #187 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.320 Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:05.480 that and today we're discussing going minimalists to save more 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:27.480 with Joshua Becker. We've all heard about the minimalist lifestyle. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.320 Maybe you're picturing a bearded hipster drinking coffee in his empty, 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.280 perfectly white dining room, right, it turns out that is 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.400 not what minimalism is all about. We've all been spending 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:40.239 more time in our homes than we'd probably like, and 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:42.239 all that clutter might be getting to you. And so 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.960 here to talk with us today about minimalist living is 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.360 Joshua Becker. While beginning the process of removing possessions from 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.760 his life, Joshua started the site Becoming Minimalist, and he's 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.760 written several fantastic books over the years, including The More 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.520 of Less and The Minimalist Home. Not only can a 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.320 minimal approach to life allow us to spend less and 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.880 save more of our money, but it can have a 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.480 positive impact in lots of areas of our life. So, Joshua, 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.240 thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Well, it 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.479 is my pleasure. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.560 for the invitation. Anytime, man, anytime seriously, if you're gonna 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:20.679 come back next week too. And and by the way, 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.440 if there's a bearded hipster in his dining room drinking 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:28.120 coffee listening, I think that's fantastic. So they might not 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:29.959 need as many of these principles. They might have applied 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.000 them already. Peop'll see. But Joshua, every week on the podcast, 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:35.679 Matt and I drink a craft beer. It's kind of 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.479 our way of sporting on something that we love now 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.800 while also being intentional and saving well for the future. 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:43.720 So today on the show, we're drinking a beer called 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.280 I Feel at All by Monday Night Brewing, and what's 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.560 your splurge? What's your craft beer equivalent? What is my well? 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:51.720 By the way, Monday Night Brewing. I think I've been there. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:53.840 I think you have. You were here last time in 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.040 Atlanta last summer, right, Yeah, indeed indeed, and uh and 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.680 last fall we had had I've had two events there 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.559 and the past here. But your friends with a buddy 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.240 of ours, Jeff Schinnerbarger, Yeah, I think you've done some 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.680 events with him. He's apply with people. Is his organization. 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:11.200 They do some amazing stuff for sure. Yeah, wonderful anyway, Yeah, splurge. 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:16.000 Good question. I've I've kind of moved away from buying possessions, 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.440 buying things that I don't need, And I would say 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.880 that while I've replaced it with a number of different things, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:31.560 one thing that we do like splurging on is trips, vacations, experiences. 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:36.760 My kids are seventeen and thirteen, and so my son's 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.400 a junior and my daughter's in eighth grade. And I 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.920 think all the research that's ever been done that experiences 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.920 lead to more happiness than than possessions, I've found that 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.720 to be true. So, while my kids are still at home, 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.840 I have always wanted to create good memories and fun stories, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.760 and a lot of times those happens when we when 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.200 we go away together as a family. Well, with your 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.240 kids being older like that, Like, have you felt the 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:04.600 urge to kind of kind of squeeze in a few 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.480 more of these experiences before, you know, before your kids 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.200 kind of go off to school or whatever it is 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.720 they decided to move on to. I have, indeed, and 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.400 I don't know if it's an artificial urgency or not, 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.600 but I certainly feel it. You only get eighteen summers 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.160 with your kids, or at least ideally right, and then 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.919 they're kind of moving on, and so Salem now is 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.560 a spring break for his junior year. And so yeah, one, 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.639 maybe one or two more summers, one or two more 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.000 spring breaks when you can create some of those create 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.520 some of those memories. And from everything I can tell 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.240 talking to family, like, it doesn't end there, right, even 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.600 when they're in college. They come back and you do things. 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:51.240 But you, I think you certainly feel that feel that urgency. Yeah, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.880 for sure. Hey, Joshua, let's talk about minimalism. And you know, 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.400 from everything I've read about minimalism, I feel like you 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.440 can be easily misunderstood. Everyone seemed to kind of have 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.480 a different definition of what it means. So kind of 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.640 to set the stage for this conversation, what's your definition 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.600 of minimalism? Yeah, I think everybody, well, I don't know 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.520 if everybody has a different definition of minimalism, but the 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.640 way it plays out in a person's life is always 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.120 going to look different from one person to another. Certainly 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.480 there are different definitions of it. The one that I 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:28.400 have always used as this minimalism is the intentional promotion 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:33.080 of the things I'm most value in life by removing 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.320 anything that distracts me from it in this way, it's 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:42.640 it's not about the goal of minimalism, isn't how do 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.640 I own the fewest amount of things as possible? That 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:51.480 the greatest promise of minimalism isn't just owning less stuff. 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.960 The greatest goal of minimalism is that I get to 0:04:55.080 --> 0:05:00.680 pursue with more passion whatever my greatest prior parties and 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:05.839 greatest values are. And one way I do that, certainly 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:10.360 in terms of physical possessions, is I stop wasting money 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.200 on things that I don't need. I stop wasting time 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:18.560 and energy not just pursuing but accumulating and maintaining and 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.919 managing all the things that I own, and and begin 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:27.760 directing my most finite resources towards the things in life 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.520 that matter most. And of course that's going to look 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.240 different from one person to another. Yeah, and so to 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.880 you at least, what are some of the maybe misconceptions 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:40.120 or like false ideas of what minimalism is that you've 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:44.960 heard people share with you. Yeah, so I was probably 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:50.200 the first blog entirely dedicated to minimalism. I started writing 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.600 about it twelve years ago, and so there were certainly 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:58.320 a lot more misconceptions twelve years ago but but a 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.040 lot more people are talking about it now then than 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.359 back then. But I think some of the some of 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.160 the major ones still pop into people's minds, you know, 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:13.400 like the intro that's just for young young college kids. Um, 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:18.240 that it means no beauty in life whatsoever. But but 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.480 it's just bear in that that the goal is, yeah, 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.920 that the goal is just to own the fewest amount 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.599 of things that you possibly can, or that there's a 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.600 certain number you can't own more than a hundred things. 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.080 I think that there are there are those misconceptions, but 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:40.760 probably the biggest misconception that I think continues to pervade 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:49.120 is this idea that minimalism is a sacrifice in some way, 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:54.000 that that minimalism will lead to a boring life, that 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.719 I have to get rid of all my things, and 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.000 my life is going to be boring and stale because 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.080 house of it. When the exact opposite is true. It's 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.040 it's about getting rid of the things you don't need 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.360 so that you can spend more of your life in 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.040 passionate pursuit of the things that are are most important 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.000 to you. So I think that's probably the biggest one. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.120 And then you know, just as I mentioned, before. It's 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.360 it's always gonna look different from one person to another. 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.240 If if you're single, if you're have three kids, if 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.680 you're an empty nester, if you live in the city, 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:32.840 or you live in the suburb, or are in a 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.520 out in a rural area, if you're a farmer or 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.520 a writer or a dentist, like, all these things are 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.040 going to change what you what you own in order 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.840 to be who you want to be, or even where 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.160 you live, and what you need in order to live 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.200 and get around. When you were talking about that, Josh, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.640 what it kind of made me? It gave this picture 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.840 popped in my head, like a monk in a cell. 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:58.680 And I think maybe sometimes that's the idea that I've 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:02.760 had of minimalism, is kind of literally being devoid of possessions, 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.200 and and yeah, I think I'm interested to dive in 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.280 a little more and here kind of what how we 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.080 think about what we keep in our lives. And we've 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.040 got some questions for you about that, but I want 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.640 to know first, like for most people to even begin 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.400 to explore the concept of minimalism or implementing any minimalist 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.200 principles into their lives, you mentioned in your book that 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.480 they need a tipping point, So I want to know 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:25.640 what was your tipping point? What led you to kind 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.080 of go down this path? Yeah? Um, so for me, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.480 it was a Saturday morning, Yeah, twelve years ago now, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.720 I was. I was living up in Vermont. My children 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.240 were five and two at the time, and we're gonna 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.160 do our spring cleaning that weekend, and I offered to 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.560 clean out the garage because I thought my five year 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:49.160 old son would want to help me clean out the garage. Obviously, 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.079 what five year old son wouldn't want to spend the 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:56.040 day the garage, right, So he lasted about thirty seconds, 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.040 and he was in the backyard playing, and I'm in 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.360 the garage and one thing leads to another. Hours later, 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.800 I'm still working on the same garage. My son's acting 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.760 me to come play catch with him, and I just 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.480 keep pushing them off. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. Well, 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.200 I strike up a conversation with my neighbor, who was 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:17.760 outside doing all of her yard work at the time, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.840 and I think she noticed what was happening on my 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.520 side of the hedge, and she makes a comment, well, 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.280 the joys of home ownership, hunt Joshua, And of course 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.199 she'd been working all morning too, and I said, well, 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:32.880 you know what they say, the more stuff you own, 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:38.600 the more your stuff owns you. And she responded by saying, yeah, 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.160 you know, that's why my daughter is a minimalist. She 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.200 keeps telling me I don't need to own all this stuff. 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.840 And I remember looking at my driveway and there's this 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.800 pile of dirty, dusty things I pulled out of the 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.720 garage and spent all day cleaning, and out of the 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.560 corner of my eye, I see my five year old 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.480 son swinging alone on the swing set in the backyard. 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.319 And suddenly I realized my possessions weren't making me happy, 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.079 which I think all of us would say, right, we're 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.560 not looking for happiness and our possessions. But the further 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:16.880 realization was, not only were my possessions not making me happy, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.680 my possessions were actually taking me away from the very 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.720 thing that did bring me happiness in life, and not 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:31.480 just happiness, but meaning and joy and significance and purpose, 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.520 And for me, that was the tipping point. I think 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:40.680 that that is the realization that a person has to make, 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.680 that everyone who pursues a minimalist life at some point 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:49.120 has that realization that not only our excess possessions not 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.440 making us happy, but our excess possessions are actually taking 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.640 us away from the very things that do bring us 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.920 happiness and life. Because you don't you don't see that. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.439 Cross the table from somebody and ask them what do 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.840 you most want to accomplish in life? Nobody says, I 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:10.360 just want to own as much junk as I possibly can. 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:17.160 But somewhere along the way, society comes along and hijacks 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.800 our passions and we begin accumulating all these things that 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.520 we don't need. And suddenly there there comes a point 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.600 where we realize, one of my I'm wasting my life 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.520 with those things when I could be doing far more 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.760 important things with my life. Right, yeah, what a juxtaposition, right, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:36.360 Like you paint such a good image I mean now, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:37.960 but in your book as well, when you kind of 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:43.320 contrast this heap of dusty, crummy junk sitting there in 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.000 the driveway and then you have like this youthful person, 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.640 you know, your son, who you love and he's back there. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.080 That really struck me pretty deep, having young kids about 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.040 that age as well. And I mean, this is what 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.240 you mean in your book too, Like when you say 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.920 that the payoff of minimalism. It's not a clean how 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.200 there are these bigger benefits and that that we realized. 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:05.920 Can you talk about some of these I guess like 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.520 some of these universal benefits that pretty much everybody realizes 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.520 as they kind of go down the path of minimalism. 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:14.800 Oh yeah. As a matter of fact, every time I speak, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.240 I uh, whenever time allows, I always have the person 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.080 turned to the person next to them and say, start 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.400 making a list of all the ways your life would 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:29.080 improve if you own less stuff, And no one ever 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:33.160 struggles to answer the question, Like when when you ask 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.839 how would life improve if you owned less stuff? That 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.240 the list just grow, So they're right, there's we would 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.600 have more time, we would have more money, We would 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.160 do less cleaning. We would have less stress in life. 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.439 We would have fewer decisions that need to be made. 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.080 It would be a better life for the environment. We 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:58.040 would be a better example for our kids. It would 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.440 be easier to find things in our house. We wouldn't 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.719 need to constantly upgrade the size of our house. The 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.360 average American home has tripled in size in the last 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.280 fifty years, and still ten percent of American's rent off 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.880 site storage. It would pave the way for for more 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:20.959 contentment and more generosity and more gratitude. There's less comparison 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.360 that we have with other people. We are able to 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.880 own higher quality things. Um. Right, If I'm gonna own 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:33.520 fewer anything, I can own a higher quality pairs of pants, watches, whatever, 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.439 I mean, whatever it is. Um, fewer means I can 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:40.000 own higher quality, less work for someone else. I mean, 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.040 everything we own has to be dealt with at some 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:47.280 point by somebody. Might as well do the work now, sure? Yeah, 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.640 and uh, Joshua, You've also given minimalism credit for your 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.000 ability to start a nonprofit, which is called the hope effect. 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.080 You did that with your wife, Kim, So can you 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.920 tell us about the hope effect? And how is minimalism 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.360 responsible for your ability to do more good in the 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.280 world around you too? Yeah? Well, how long do I have? 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.280 Um as a time as you want? Man? Yeah. The 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.680 I guess the medium length story is I started blogging 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.880 becoming minimalist dot com. It was just going to be 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.040 a journal, a diary of what I was getting rid 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.600 of and what I was keeping, and it's uh, it 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.680 quickly grew. We have over two million readers every single 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.840 month and the social media reaches in the tens of 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.000 millions that that cr CR post each and every week. 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:38.520 And so at some point publishers come calling and they say, hey, 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.320 can you can you write a book? And I actually 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:45.280 had nine offers from publishers at the same time, and 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.640 so I asked my agents, I said, what do we do? 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.000 And he said, well, now they've been against each other 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.640 to to see who who's going to pay the most 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:58.800 for your book. It became pretty clear pretty early on 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.400 that I was going to get offered a lot of 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.520 money to write a book about how buying stuff won't 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:10.640 make you happy and the irony and that for sure. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.600 And so uh, we had cut our lifestyle down quite 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.320 a bit. We had moved into a smaller home, so 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:18.760 are our mortgage was less, We weren't buying a lot 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.240 of things, and we just didn't need a lot of 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.760 money to live our life. And so in conversations with Kim, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:26.880 we're like, what are we? Like, what are we gonna do? 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.360 We're not going to buy bigger screen television, are we? 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.320 And so we decided to solve a problem in the world. 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:39.120 And man, there is decades worth of research that traditional 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:43.920 orphanages are actually pretty harmful for kids. When you picture 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.040 the four walls, a bunch of kids and workers coming 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.120 in and out like little or like most people when 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.480 they picture an orphanage, which is still used in most 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.200 developing nations, that seventy to children that grow up in 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:01.800 orphanages end up in homelessness, in prostitute san or incarcerated 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:09.840 because brains just don't develop correctly outside of the family unit. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.280 And so our our mission with the Hope Effect is 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.480 to to change how the world cares for orphans by 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:22.400 by helping orphaned children get placed into families where they 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.600 can receive the attention and affection that they should as 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.480 opposed to being in an orphanage. And just to set 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.920 like an orphanage is better than nothing, better than growing 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:34.520 up on the streets. It's just not the the best 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.520 way for for children to be raised. And so we 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.840 so we work in Honduras and we work in Mexico. 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.640 We just signed um sign an agreement with the with 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.400 the Mexican government to to be one of the leading 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.720 nonprofits to to help recruit and train families to care 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.160 for orphaned children. So that's what the Hope Effect does. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.160 And because I buy less because I don't need to 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:03.440 spend money on on stuff. I'm I'm able to uh 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.600 to do something like this with it, and um, it's 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.200 really exciting. I I can't think of a more fulfilling 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:14.160 way to spend my money than help help orphan children 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.560 have a chance at life. Yeah. Yeah, seriously, man, thanks 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.200 so much for for sharing the mission you've got there. Um, 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.320 it's amazing that through minimalism you've been able to do 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:27.159 something big, right, like big and lofty, and I mean 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.760 that's essentially the goal that that you've set forth in 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.960 your books is that like, hey, like through this lifestyle, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.080 like through taking a different approach, you can implement these 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.800 practices that you know, some of these tips, and you 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.080 can completely change what it looks like to live in 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.000 our world today from one of consumption and doing unwise 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.840 things with our money to not only being financially responsible, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.040 but then to be able to go beyond that and 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.520 do something amazing like what what you're doing. Um, yeah, well, 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:55.720 we'll We'll ask you for some links here at the 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:57.800 end of the end of the episode where folks can 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.800 go there if they're looking to to donate Huner up 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.439 Yeah and support you for sure. But um, but at 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:05.800 the very least, we do want our listeners. You know, 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:10.040 hopefully there'll be lots of nonprofits started after this conversation, 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.600 maybe you know, years down the road. Yeah, and you know, 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:15.639 I mean, they don't even need to be started, like like, 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.080 there are a lot of nonprofits are doing a lot 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.199 of good work. And and that was, you know, the 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.199 first question that we had to ask ourselves was do 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.080 we do we start something new or do we partner 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.159 with someone who's already doing good work? And it was 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.280 it was not an easy question to answer, and we 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.640 got asked it numerous times, and I'd like to think 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:37.760 we fell on the right side of it. And you 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:39.879 don't have to sign a big book deal to start 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.119 helping out either, you know, so exactly. Yeah, Well, like so, 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.000 at the very least, do we want our listeners to 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.680 be able to have changed their life through minimalism hopefully 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:51.959 uh to be able to contribute, to be able to 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.240 get themselves in a better position financially. And so we're 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.720 gonna talk more about ways to better ourselves when it 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:03.960 comes to personal finance. We'll get to that after the break. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:11.480 All right, we're back from the break and we're talking 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:15.080 with Joshua Becker, who writes about minimalism on his website 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.040 Becoming Minimalist, and he's also written some great books. To Joshua, 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.080 you mentioned in your book that Americans spend one point 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.639 two trillion dollars annually on non essential goods and you 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.320 talk you mentioned to that we spend three thousand, six 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:30.560 hundred and eighty hours of our lives looking for the 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.520 things we've misplaced. I swear I spent half of those 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.280 hours just helping my wife find her cell phone. Um, 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.760 So what kind of effects do you think frugality and 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.760 minimalism have on each other? Like how closely related are they? Oh, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:48.320 that's a good question. Um. When I typically explain minimalism 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:53.520 to people, I usually make a point to say that 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:59.399 minimalism and frugality are not the same thing. Uh. There 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:05.240 are a lot of people who pursue minimalism because they're frugal, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:10.720 but that's not always the case. And someone can pursue 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:15.919 a minimalist life and spend just as much money even 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:20.320 on physical possessions as they did before. If they're just 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:26.720 buying a lot higher quality things with their money, then 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.360 they can still spend just as much money. So in 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:35.280 some ways. I believe very strongly that most people who 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.280 pursue minimalism end up saving money in the long run. 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:45.080 But it's not automatic that everyone who does that will 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.320 start saving money. There still has to be the Okay, 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.280 how if I want to save money, how can I 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.159 pursue minimalism in a way that that allows me to 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.520 do that? And if you if you start with that assumption, 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.280 then certainly that you just you can see it all 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.600 over right. I'm just I'm just buying less stuff. I'm 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.359 I'm taking care of less stuff. We moved into a 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.320 smaller home because we realized we didn't need as much 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.840 square footage as we had, and so we saved a 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.320 thousand dollars a month on our mortgage. Like there are 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.320 there are very significant ways that that you can do that. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.440 I think probably the the most helpful connection that that 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:27.080 people can see is that most people already have enough 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:33.399 stuff already, Like there are enough clothes in your closet already, 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:38.399 there's enough cookwear in your kitchen, there's enough tools in 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:42.680 your garage, you have enough hobby gear already, And as 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:49.320 you start donating clothes from your closet, the mind shift becomes, wait, 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.800 I don't need to go buy more clothes. I had 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.240 more than I needed. I don't need to go buy 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:00.480 more cookwear. I'm getting rid of cookwaar, I don't need 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.600 more towels. I'm getting rid of towels. And so the 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.320 the consumption mindset that I that I need to go 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.080 buy more things starts to change as we realize, wait, 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.800 I I have more than I need, not I have 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:18.000 to go buy more stuff already. Someone who wants to 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:22.760 be frugal will find plenty more opportunities to be frugal 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.120 pursuing a minimalist life. I guess it's probably what I've 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:28.880 should have said. If someone doesn't want to be frugal, 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.680 they could still pursue minimalism and spend even more money 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.720 than they did before. But but someone who who wants 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.120 to embrace those principles will find it easier to embrace 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.080 those as they pursue a minimalist lifestyle. For sure, those 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.320 powers combined or excellent. Yeah. Yeah, well, I guess like 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.280 an example I can think of Joshua, is that kind 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:50.400 of kind of counter that, that sort of the opposite 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:52.920 of that. It was like, I'm thinking of maybe someone 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:54.800 who has a bunch of stuff around, right like that 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.359 they're keeping unused or barely used things, maybe in their 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.400 attic or down on the basement in case that they 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:03.720 need them, or maybe in case like they want to 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:05.640 pull it out for like that one time of year 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.040 that they might use it. And so like, I feel 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:12.400 like that's an example where someone wouldn't necessarily consider themselves 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:15.520 a minimalist if they're hanging onto all those things. And 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.760 their argument would be that they are saving money to 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.440 not have to purchase those things again. Okay, right, I 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:27.400 could see that, right. The counter acting thought would be, 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:31.120 do I really have to go buy that thing if 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.960 I need to use it again? So kind of the 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:37.040