What drives some people to be materialistic and others minimalists? (father, everything)
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To each their own...it's a shame if someone is seemingly addicted to buying things they don't use. But it's supposed to be a "thrill" when people shop and buy...there's actually a measurable rise in galvanic skin response at the time of purchase. So some must shop and buy over and over again to get that pleasurable "buzz."
It's interesting, isn't it?
Others, like yourself, don't find shopping and buying all that exciting. I understand. For me, it's a chore. I get the minimum of what I need and am satisfied. Though, I must admit, I over-do the consignment store clothing purchases when I find something of quality for a bargain price -- even though I don't "need" it -- I "want" it.
So I also understand the thrill of the hunt.
But once I get to the point of clutter, I do a purge...hate clutter.
Different strokes, eh?
Helping a friend get her Mom's house ready for sale. Her Mom had bins of gym bags stored. A Depression-era woman, she had so many things squirreled away. Lots of broken watches, for instance. Enough costume jewelry to stock a store. Saved for a rainy day?
We humans are so interesting...endlessly fascinating...
No, you can't take it with you--but someone is going to have to deal with the "stuff" after you leave!
For me, I don't want my sons to have to get rid of it/deal with it. When my mother passed away--she was quite the organized homeowner. No clutter, just a house full of things. All neat and tidy--still a house full of things. Took my sister and I days/weeks to clean it out. It is not easy getting rid of things. No one wants pianos anymore, no one wants the chest of drawers, no one wants the sofas, end tables, the beds, the many, many longaberger baskets , just general "stuff".
At 61 I just want to get to minimal stuff. I do travel a lot--so there is where I spend my money--no souvenirs!!! I just want my sons to deal with as little as possible.
That's why I said it's OK to spend it on stuff, or experiences, or whatever - the point being "you can't take it with you."
Both my parents died within the past two years. They had three fully furnished homes in two different states, over 100 acres, multiple barns and storage buildings, a business - all that had to be liquidated, sold, closed out, you name it. I know about "stuff." I have one house, and it's not packed to the gills. Like I said, I purge regularly - meaning that I give away stuff as I go along.
But my kids will inherit money as well as a house with nice stuff in it. I personally don't care if they burn it to the ground, get someone to come do an estate sale, go through it themselves and divvy it up, whatever. I will have led a full and happy life, full of experiences as well as some nice stuff. If it takes them a couple of months to go through one house, so be it. It will be worth it to them in the long run, believe me.
In my experience, it's all relative. After going through both our parents' deaths and estate settlements over the past four years, my one house with it's pleasant rooms and minimal paperwork (two file drawers in my office) seems easy enough to deal with. I am sure that if I live twenty more years, which is the plan, I will continue to downsize and things will be even less trouble for our five kids.
Most people I know who are materialistic
1. Seem stuck in some stage of development/maturity
or
2. Find it important to impress people
or
3. Are engaged in retail therapy
I just have a question, for those who choose to be minimalists, whether it's out of financial necessity or not:
How do you determine the reasons why other people enjoy buying things? I don't mean your best friend or your spouse - I mean the acquaintances you are saying are immature, trying to impress other people, accruing debt, etc. I'm asking because my acquaintances don't tell me much about their financial status, and I don't ask them either. I don't even ask much of my best friend.
Speaking of best friends, I got offended a few years ago (but got over it quickly - I don't hold grudges) when my best friend took it upon herself to give me a little lecture about how much money I was spending on home renovations. Well, for starters, she has no idea how much money my husband makes (it's a very comfortable paycheck, I'll just say that). She also has no idea how much money my husband or I inherited when our parents passed away. She has no idea what we save each month. She had no idea what we paid for our house either (far below market value because it needed to be updated and that was reflected in the price - but it had good bones so we bought it INTENDING to pay cash for all the renovations - which we did).
Yes, we spent a lot of cash on renovating and remodeling our home (though we stuck pretty closely to market value). We have the money to do this, without going into debt or robbing our retirement savings. Actually we had a lot of equity in our former home and we used a chunk of that for renovations - but I didn't tell her all that because it didn't occur to me that it might be any of her business.
Anyway, on about the third project - I believe it was the master bath, and it wasn't cheap - she sat me down and had "a serious talk with me." Actually what she said was "I'm concerned that you are spending so much money. This is the third project you've done, and I know it has to be expensive. I'm worried about how much money you're spending." SHE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY WE WERE SPENDING, OR HOW MUCH MONEY WE MAKE EITHER. My gosh, it irritated me for her to be so judgmental and sanctimonious, because that's really what it was. SHE couldn't have afforded to do it maybe, but we could, and we were, and we enjoyed the heck out of it and I love love love our house and all we've done to it.
As I shared earlier, we just ordered and got in a large rug for our bedroom. It's for our BEDROOM. How many people are going to see that? (Answer - not many.) Clearly we didn't do it to impress others. We also didn't go into debt buying the rug. We didn't buy it as a substitute for therapy. We aren't immature either, for that matter. Heck, we don't even NEED it - but we want it, we're tired of looking at the very economical rug we bought nearly ten years ago when we weren't nearly as financially "set," we can afford it, so why not buy it? We both really, really, really enjoy making our home beautiful - for ourselves, for each other. We didn't even buy "as much house" as we "could afford." We bought a house that was less than half of what we "qualified for," so it certainly wasn't to impress other people - we just liked it so we bought it, and we've enjoyed remodeling it over the past five years.
And no, we're not minimalists - not by a long shot. But if we like something and we can afford it without robbing our savings or savings plan, and without going into debt, we buy it. Heck, we both just bought a pair of athletic shoes and neither of us "needed" them, we just really liked them and so we bought them. Oh, and my husband bought me a pair of white gold earrings for Valentine's Day too - I didn't need those either.
I think this topic needs to be grounded in a more general way. Seems some are going off on "their" personal experience or habit. It is more an objective (minded) topic to parlay the dynamics of this mindset or way of life. Think more in economic, culture, and sometimes generation. I do delight in reading stories as I myself am guilty of such habit. This topic though seems deserving of take yourself out of the equation and hypothesize on what in the human condition allows this "minimal" vs " materialistic behavior to perpetuate.
How do you determine the reasons why other people enjoy buying things?
At some point it is to fill a void. Some form of bragging rights. I like you Kathryn, but the mere fact that you have to state how many houses/estates and such you have inherited makes me wonder what the need is to share all of that. Or how many times you have renovated or bought an expensive rug. I don't talk about money. I don't talk about how much I paid for something.
I was just at a gathering of friends/acquaintances. Someone asked me if my mother had had money. I was a bit stunned--of course this person was just talking about all her mother's money. I just said she had some and changed the subject. She continued to talk about giving her daughters money to fix their windows/roof or whatever. I was bored to death listening to her rant about her money.
The question was: what drives people to be materialistic or minimalists. For me, minimalist, because at this point in my life I am tired of shuffling things around. I don't want my sons to end up taking time to get rid of my stuff or figuring out what is of value.
You can apply the 20/80 rule to practically everything in life. I am trying to just keep the 20 part.
Correct! I have already told my sons do not feel guilty throwing my stuff away. Do what you have to do and move on...
See we are the opposite with our mom....”Why did you throw out our comic books, my Barbies, our Rock rm Sock em robots, the Beanie Copter, and any number of things that are worth a small fortune today, lol. The lesson I take from growing up in the 60’s and 70’s is we shouldn’t have thrown anything away!
At some point it is to fill a void. Some form of bragging rights. I like you Kathryn, but the mere fact that you have to state how many houses/estates and such you have inherited makes me wonder what the need is to share all of that. Or how many times you have renovated or bought an expensive rug. I don't talk about money. I don't talk about how much I paid for something.
I was just at a gathering of friends/acquaintances. Someone asked me if my mother had had money. I was a bit stunned--of course this person was just talking about all her mother's money. I just said she had some and changed the subject. She continued to talk about giving her daughters money to fix their windows/roof or whatever. I was bored to death listening to her rant about her money.
The question was: what drives people to be materialistic or minimalists. For me, minimalist, because at this point in my life I am tired of shuffling things around. I don't want my sons to end up taking time to get rid of my stuff or figuring out what is of value.
You can apply the 20/80 rule to practically everything in life. I am trying to just keep the 20 part.
Someone said we needed to try and discuss this with our own personal proclivities taken out of the equation.
I think we need to discuss this with JUDGMENT taken out of the equation. I mean, I know the question of "The Psychology of blah" gets us to ask, "Why do people do blah" which takes us to our highest of horses and "It is clearly a mental disorder" talk. But truly, as anyone with real knowledge of mental health matters will tell you, if someone is able to function just fine in life, can be productive, maintains healthy relationships, and is HAPPY in general with the life they are living, then trying to pathologize them is ridiculous and it's kind of wrong. Saying that anyone who lives in a manner different from you must have some kind of a problem, if they fit the general descriptions of happy, healthy and functional, is just being a judgmental so-and-so honestly. It's not a good look, folks.
People do what they want for whatever reasons are meaningful to them. If they aren't doing anyone (self included) any harm, then there's no call to be saying they are disordered in their behavior just because you don't like it.
And to illustrate my point a bit, I will take this post right here, and say we could easily turn it around and ask:
"What shame do you carry around that you are so private about such things, to the point you would recoil and frown at someone for sharing their OWN personal details of their OWN story of their OWN free will?"
I could pathologize your desire to keep such things private, and say you must be AFRAID of other people judging you, or ASHAMED of your truths. I'm not doing that, though. I think you have the right to not share, if you don't want to. But I think Kathryn, or I, or anybody, so long as it's on-topic and per TOS, has a right to share as MUCH as we like. And while these things might be very different, I don't think either is actually indicative of some kind of mental disorder, or deserving of a judgy scolding finger wag.
Some of us like stuff. I'm digging that phrase the de-cluttering show lady is now quoted as saying all the time, "Does it spark joy?" Well yes. Yes it does. This, that, and the other thing, they all do. Kathryn's got a hell of a joy-sparking rug in her bedroom now, and good for Kathryn.
Now when it comes to inheritance and all that... You know, I don't really mind dealing with dead relatives' stuff, but I do, as I said, like stuff in general. I love family antiques and heirlooms, and as I mentioned I have always loved "Antiques Roadshow." I dig so much when objects come with a story attached. It ain't the THINGS, it's the people who loved them and their stories that make me feel all warm and fuzzy like. I have trunks full of old photos, a wallet that belonged to my great great grandfather, and all sorts of odds and ends, and I love them...because of the stories. So what bugs me, is when the stories get lost. I truly wish that every one of my ancestors had been a writer and they'd all written a memoir. I'd read it! So for me, that's a thing I want to do. I want to write my story and I want to record any interesting stories that are connected with my belongings, so that, should I have a descendant who cares (as I do) about such things, the stories will be available.
And so, I think that's part of the human fascination with collecting and with stuff. It, as so many things we do in life, is an "Immortality Project." A matter of trying to leave behind something that says, "I was here, and this is who I was." And the idea (whether true or false) that a descendant or someone, might have enough of a care about who we were to treasure our things, or even some of our things, after we're dead...is a part of that. It's a very human thing. It's how we reconcile our understanding of life and death.
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, just general "stuff". 
