We go into our definition of minimalism, our attitude towards buying stuff as well as roasting what we believe to be misconceptions surrounding the popularised definition of Minimalism.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
We go into our definition of minimalism, our attitude towards buying stuff as well as roasting what we believe to be misconceptions surrounding the popularised definition of Minimalism.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Georgie: Hi everybody! Welcome to another episode of Toast & Roast. I’m Georgie and I have my friend Geoff here today. Geoff I’m going to dive right in and ask you when you first discovered –
Geoff: Ooh man. Scary.
Georgie: Or heard about minimalism.
Geoff: That’s a really good question. I mean, we’re full of it, to be honest. We’re full of good questions. This is a hard one because I’ve never really thought about it. OK… I guess it’s really – quite recent I think.
Georgie: Recent as in like?
Geoff: Maybe since I met you.
Georgie: So that would have been like…
Geoff: Five?
Georgie: We also haven’t really talked about how we met.
Geoff: Yeah.
Georgie: But I think it was around the time I got married or just before I got married, which would have been…
Geoff: Five? S…
Georgie: 2017 was when I got married, so.
Geoff: Yeah I think I never really thought about giving it a title until you know, YouTube started popping with minimalistic stuff. I saw the YouTube – I mean not the YouTube – the famous Netflix “The Minimalists” – I know we love that content –
Georgie: We’ll roast that shit.
Geoff: “The Minimalists”, if anyone hasn’t watched it, please go watch it. Because it’s a masterclass on how to be the wankiest minimalist.
Georgie: But yeah, take it with a grain of salt, is what I would say.
Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. Because they released two.
Georgie: They released “Less is more” recently. Is that the one you’re talking about?
Geoff: “Less is now”?
Georgie: Oh, OK.
Geoff: I watched the very original one in 2016. So yeah. About five, four or five, five or six years, is probably when the title or the descriptor of “minimalist”. And that’s probably when I started calling it minimalism or even having an idea of what people would associate with minimalism. And slowly, ah yeah, I guess that’s something I do? But they described it in another way, so I was hesitant to even call myself minimalist to begin with.
Georgie: So you were already doing this before you kind of knew there was a name for living simply?
Geoff: Ooh…
Georgie: So like, by the time you watched this documentary you were like, oh yeah I get all of this. It wasn’t like, mind-blowing to you.
Geoff: Yeah. It kind of made sense a few of their points made sense, stuff like living simply, not having a lot of stuff. Et cetera. And of course, the godmother, Marie Kondo, with her revolutionary Konmari tactics? Strategies?
Georgie: Tidying up.
Geoff: Tidying up.
Georgie: I find that quite different though. It’s more about being clean than being minimal.
Geoff: I think she touched on one principle of minimalism which was…
Georgie: Sparking joy.
Geoff: Enjoy the things you have, right. Don’t keep things around you don’t actually like. And don’t have storage for the sake of the things you have. Try and reduce the amount of things you have to fit in the storage you have.
Georgie: Storage is a trap. In my opinion.
Geoff: Yep, definitely. Definitely.
Georgie: I don’t know if I’ve told you this. But literally one of my goals in life, kind of thing, is to never have like a Kennards store. Like that’s a goal. I don’t want to ever have…
Geoff: Do people have them? Like just casually a Kennards storage?
Georgie: I guess, I don’t think it’s casual, but I was talking to Nick about how was my goal. Like I never want to get to the point where I need that. And he pointed out a period of time where he and his family, when he was younger, were between houses, they were – they just didn’t have a permanent home at the time. While they were moving to a new house. So it kind of makes sense in some respects to have one. But not – like for me, I wouldn’t have one permanently. But I know that some people do. I hear a lot of people in America have that because they just have so much stuff.
Geoff: Yeah that sounds like an American thing. I don’t want to roast America too much. I think it’s just too easy.
Georgie: Yeah I’m not going to roast them either, but I think it’s just – it’s just a consumerism problem that people don’t realise but then other people outside of that know about it.
Geoff: To be fair, the whole “The Minimalists” and Marie Kondo really took off from the fact that is integral to most of American culture that they collect a lot of stuff. It seems very apparent. That it’s a problem in the country. A problem so big that you can have a market for minimalism content.
Georgie: Yeah.
Geoff: And I’m sure it’s not just them, they just have the most media coverage on topics like this. They like to blow this stuff out to massive proportions with everything. That’s my roast on America.
Georgie: Yeah but I also wouldn’t see it as a roast. Like you said, it’s not just America, right? So for me, like I grew up in a family where my parents liked to collect a lot of stuff. And I think it’s like, a generational thing. I come from an Asian family, and my parents put a lot of worth on their stuff. Because they didn’t come from very privileged backgrounds. And so to be able to afford, like, good things and nice things was almost an element of pride. And I guess to own more, was to kind of like, have – represent or have a tactile representation of their success.
Geoff: I totally relate to that as well. My parents are quite – I would call them keepers more than hoarders. But they also came from – well my dad specifically came from a poor family. My mum came from a little bit more of a wealthier family. So I think they both have different approaches to it. And everyone, you know, everyone in their mind will try and kind of keep that thing they think that is going to be useful later. That makes logical sense. Why would you buy another thing when you just keep the old one and use it again at some unknown time. And to me, because I’m in a very privileged place, I feel like that’s – yeah, that’s a waste of space. If I could just – I could just buy it again later if it’s very low cost, if it’s a cable or something like that. So I actually have a pouch and the pouch holds like 8 or 10 cables, and I just went ahead and threw away or gave away all of my triplets, quadruplets of every cable, so I could fit it in this one pouch. One of every cable I could possibly need. And, ten of them. But to my dad, he’s got a cable that connects to electronics that don’t exist anymore. I’m pretty sure he got rid of the camera that the cable even connects to. But he’s still got the cable. Yeah I think it’s probably linked more to the lower socio economic backgrounds when it comes to feeling a stronger need to keep things.
Georgie: Yeah I also think that given your example with the cables, some people – and I tended to do this, before I discovered like, living more simply and with less stuff. But I would keep things just in case. That’s a bit of a trap. And I know that my mum also tends to keep things just in case. But then if you had this “just in case” item for like a year, and you like literally haven’t used it, I feel like it no longer saves a purpose. But I think that it’s just a really hard barrier for some people to recognise that. Like obviously you and I have had probably years of practice with these kinds of things. And it’s easy for us to be like, yep, this doesn’t serve a purpose. But some people who have so much stuff it’s just tough.
Geoff: Yeah. And I think that’s why Konmari was really, you know, popping. Because everyone started thinking about, does this item bring joy? And why am I keeping items that I don’t really like? If I look at it, and it annoys the hell out of me and I don’t even need it, then why keep it around? And we’re not only talking about throwing away stuff. You can donate the stuff that you don’t find attractive in your life anymore. I had a stack – oh my god. I had a stack of Australian photography magazines from 2014. And, no joke, I had carried – I had left it at my parents’ house, I think, for the last, like, obviously since 2014. And I even moved out, and then I only found them recently. So I brought them back, and I thought I’m going to read them. Obviously, didn’t read a single page of it. They’re basically plastic sealed. What do I do with these?
Georgie: Hahahaha.
Geoff: I guess I’ll go donate them? And I tried the library. That was a really trippy experience.
Georgie: Was it a bust?
Geoff: Yeah, they wouldn’t take it.
Georgie: Because I’ve tried it before. My local library, back when I lived with my parents, I used to have a lot of books. They were honestly in really good condition, the library could have done with them, but they said that we only accept certain books, and I tried bookstores, like a second-hand bookstore, and they were really particular about the books that they wanted as well. And I was just disappointed.
Geoff: Man, free stuff. Come on, free stuff, take it! It’s like if you went to a homeless person – and I think I’ve heard this story from one of my friends – they wanted to buy the homeless person a cheeseburger and the homeless person said no.
Georgie: Oh.
Geoff: And it’s actually that the homeless person gets a lot of food. They wanted a pack of cigarettes or something like that. Hell no, I’m not going to pay for a pack of cigarettes. And neither did the person who told me the story.
Georgie: Oh dear.
Geoff: But yeah, I went to the library, and it was trippy because – let’s put this into context – I haven’t actually been to a library in probably ten years. So I walked in like it was a whole new world, and I went up to the counter, and I was like, “I’ve got these magazines, can you take them?” And they asked what year, and I said 2014. They said, “well, we actually only keep one year in the past”, and I don’t know what they do with the old ones. But only one year. And they have a subscription to this exact Australian Photography magazine collection. And the rest of it’s digital. And I was like what? I can log in and I can read your books online for free? That’s pretty – forward thinking than I thought a library would be. For some reason?
Georgie: I think they have evolved quite a bit since the 90s.
Geoff: Yeah, who needs a library though? Like? Just go online and read all your books, god man.
Georgie: Yeah or you listen to audiobooks. Which I honestly have not tried yet.
Geoff: I have so many friends that love books though.
Georgie: I used to love books. I had a lot, and I was – I read a lot when I was in school. Like I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t read as much now. And back in high school my friend and I tried to read the entire fiction section of the school library including all the new books that came in every week. And it was just such a point of pride. And we’d be carrying books and we could borrow eight at a time, and we’d carry them around with us and read them between periods or when we’d finished our work in the middle of class or whatever. And I just feel kind of humiliated for like right now, because I have not read a fiction book in probably like, seven years. But you know, the library used to be like, kind of like a second home? Now it’s the gym, but you know.
Geoff: Hahaha. Yeah you replaced the library with the gym. So instead of eating your lunch at school you were reading books.
Georgie: Yeah. So, linking books to minimalism though, because I used to own a lot of books. I got rid of them slowly, like gradually.
Geoff: That’s what I thought.
Georgie: Yeah. I had maybe 150 books.
Geoff: Woahhh.
Georgie: Because my friend is still very much into books, even now. So at the time, I slowly palmed books off to her for free. Which is good, right. It felt good to give away something that I knew I wasn’t going to use anymore. So my reasoning when it came to getting rid of the books, was that I could probably count on my fingers the amount of books I’d actually re-read. Like, I love holding books, and the feel, the tactile, feel of reading a physical book. But I honestly felt like I could live without these books and they didn’t really server a purpose in my life. And they also just took up space just to look nice in my shelf and all that. By this time I’d already kind of decluttered a lot of my belongings and the books were kind of like, somewhere in the mid-point. They didn’t hold any sentimental value as much as like, physical photos and things like that. And they also weren’t as easy to get rid of as just, plain trash and trinkets.
Geoff: You keep physical photos?
Georgie: I do. They’re literally, like, I’ve got a few on my wall next to my desk. But I don’t – these ones are all from like photo booths and things. They were taken at…
Geoff: Oh yeah the photo booths.
Georgie: So they’re a bit different from just like, photo albums from the 90s. those ones, I have a few of those photos but not too many, and they’re enough that I kind of just keep them in a box but they don’t take up a lot of space. So I’m OK to keep some of those.
Geoff: Yeah, I’m pretty notorious for going super digital on everything. But I still have like, a stack of photos that I just can’t seem to throw away.
Georgie: They might just still have some value to you, I guess.
Geoff: I don’t – I mean, I say that I don’t have much sentimental value for anything, but I have a stack of photos and I can’t seem to get rid of them. To be honest I think it’s just because I can’t get a good quality scan. Maybe I should go back to the library because I saw a scanner. That’d be amazing. If I scanned every one of those photos, then I’d be done with them I think. I think that was just the crutch. The crux.
Georgie: I think scanners are a bit bad quality anyway. Like what I’ve been doing with some old greeting cards and things like that, with really nice messages and stuff, is I just take photos on my phone and I find that to be way better quality than a scanner. I don’t know what it is about scanning that just craps out the quality of even a old retro photo.
Geoff: Oh that’s interesting, I’ll give it a go. Maybe I’ll like the quality, maybe I won’t. But, I think that’s my first step to getting rid of these photos.
Georgie: It’s an easier thing to go.
Geoff: Yeah I completely agree. If I’m looking at greeting cards, or maybe even postcards, I might take a very very artistic like, photo of it, because I have this thousand-dollar paperweight at the moment just sitting there. A camera. So I might take some higher quality photos with my camera. Postcards are really difficult. Because you have two sides. And you can’t – you have to take two photos for the one thing.
Georgie: What’s wrong with that?
Geoff: Do I make an animation?
Georgie: It’s totally up to you.
Geoff: I don’t want to have two photos, I’m minimalistic.
Georgie: Woah.
Geoff: One photo for the one item!
Georgie: I would just take two photos.
Geoff: OK, yeah. I’ll take two photos.
Georgie: Speaking of photos – and you mentioned The Minimalists earlier. I found out about them maybe a couple years before you did? Maybe it was 2010 or 2011.
Geoff: Oh yeah, how did you…
Georgie: I found – I didn’t – so I also had that thing where I was decluttering my belongings and thinking about living simply, and it was actually an online friend of mine who said that she watched someone on YouTube who just happened to own less than a hundred things and he just lived really simply. And he – I think he might have encouraged or inspired her to get rid of some of her stuff. And we had this conversation about how much stuff we have that we don’t realise that we actually don’t need. I think this might have been around 2009 or 2010? I honestly can’t remember. But we started by saying, alright, in the next month or something, I don’t remember what year it was, but we decided on a number – I think it was 71 things. And I was surprised at how easy it was but also how much stuff I had that was honestly now just trash. Just crappy notepaper, trinkets, and keyring that just didn’t even get used. Like, broken items. These are the kinds of things that I think you easily recognise when you start on a journey like this. And you’re like, oh, I have a lot of stuff! So yeah. And when I found out about The Minimalists I kind of binge read their blog posts. And then I came across the scanning party one, and that kind of like – that kind of angered me a little bit. And I noticed it angered other people. Because they said –
Geoff: Describe the scanning party.
Georgie: So they said, you know. Sometimes you have a lot of photos, like lots of photo albums. I don’t know about your family but my mum has a lot of photo albums.
Geoff: Tonnes.
Georgie: And I totally understand the feeling and the need, the sentimentality, associated with that. Because you get open the album, you gather as family sometimes, you flip through it, tell stories, and there’s like a tactility to it.
Geoff: You have friends come over, and your family brings out the album… And they start showing the friend your photos. It’s – a whole thing. A terrible…
Georgie: It’s a thing. I don’t know if it’s terrible. But I can understand why people find that a nice, sentimental family time thing. And what The Minimalists…
Geoff: Family is OK. We’re talking about friends…
Georgie: I may not be talking specifically about family but I’m talking about just the way people value those photos. Especially now in the digital age. So what they suggest, The Minimalists suggested, was to, to bring out a scanner and get all your friends to bring all their retro printed photos that came from disposable cameras and everybody scan their photos and organise them digitally. And some people were angered by this because it ruins – well it takes away, it just takes away that kind of nice feeling of physically going through photos. And they were like, we don’t mean to anger anybody with this, this is a way you can minimise your physical belongings. If you like the experience of going through the photos then hang onto them. They reiterated that minimalism is different for everyone, and it’s about experiences, not things. And if you like the experience of going through photos, then by all means. But it sort of sent the wrong message kind of strongly.
Geoff: I mean, I’m pretty sure that the ink back then wasn’t recyclable. Like, correct me if I’m wrong. But I have a feeling the ink isn’t actually recyclable. So if you scanned all your photos and threw them out, you’re actually doing something worse for the environment even if you shredded them or whatever. They aren’t recyclable so, really, you’re doing better for the environment if you keep your photos, rather than scanning and throwing them away.
Georgie: That‘s a very interesting point. Because I don’t think anybody kind of thinks about that when it comes to photos.
Geoff: Yeah. Not, not to mention the electricity required to shred that many photos. Um, think about where the electricity is coming from, everybody. Come on.
Georgie: So you’re basically saying you can’t be environmentally – well, there’s some things, with minimalism – where you cannot be environmentally friendly, for specific tasks.
Geoff: Yeah, I think… I mean it just clicked just then. Throwing away stuff isn’t always the most…
Georgie: You can’t be zero waste and minimalist at the same time. Actually that’s a statement I kind of believe in to some extent. Because sometimes the efforts –
Geoff: I think we’re not at a stage where we can.
Georgie: But I think the efforts to go zero waste… the efforts to go zero waste sort of mean sometimes you actually end up wasting more. I’m trying to think of a solid example.
Geoff: You’re basically pushing the amount of waste to a different area. It’s all about shifting of the energy, right? So even if it’s really easy for you, somewhere along the line, the energy has to be spent. There is no net zero.
Georgie: So there is some energy being spent for everybody to digitise their scanned bloody photos somewhere in the cloud. Somewhere, some shit. There’s some fucking energy being used up big time, some server, for everybody to do this shit, because everybody wants to be a fucking minimalist.
Geoff: Exactly. Exactly. Minimalism is ruining the planet. I’m so glad we came to this conclusion. Because it makes sense.
Georgie: It’s the best conclusion.
Geoff: It’s the best conclusion. Throwing away your shit just ruins the planet.
Georgie: So don’t throw away your shit.
Geoff: So don’t throw away your shit. But also, throw away your shit because you have too much shit.
Georgie: But I think this ties in with, you know some people are like, I’m going to buy like these things to help me organise stuff. They buy things for the sake of minimalism but they don’t realise that the stuff they own isn’t really serving a fine purpose. And so they kind of, they kind of declutter their stuff to buy better stuff. And it’s kind of like that minimalism aesthetic. Some people associate it too much with an aesthetic and that’s not really what minimalism is. To me, anyway.
Geoff: Yeah, yeah. It’s the difference between minimalist the style, and minimalist the….
Georgie: Lifestyle!
Geoff: Life style. It’s a lifestyle, and a style, and also I think it’s something else but I can’t put my finger on it.
Georgie: It’s a mindset as well I think.
Geoff: Yeah, mindset. Well, the reason why I connected the dots on the energy wastage is that a lot of people have the same argument over cars. Right?
Georgie: Electric?
Geoff: No, not even just electric. The most environmental thing to do is to actually not have a car at all.
Georgie: Yeah.
Geoff: Even if you get an EV car, like that car required so much energy, so much material, to build in the first place. We‘re not at a point where car companies are actually net zero in producing the car itself. I don’t think anyone at net zero can produce anything. So, um yeah. When you’re like, man, I’m gonna get a car, it’s gonna be an EV, it’s gonna be great for the planet. Well, if you could actually do everything without the car then you actually save the planet a little more than if you had the car. And like, you walk to work, instead of taking the train.
Georgie: That’s just because of COVID.
Geoff: Really? You take the train if you…?
Georgie: I took the train a couple of times before this lockdown, I took the train because I was short on time and cases weren’t as bad. But I remember like – it’s been fluctuating here. But I walked to work partially for the exercise and also because I just wanted to avoid people. I just wanted to –
Geoff: I’m a big fan of avoiding people.
Georgie: As we’ve established.
Geoff: Love the lockdown. Love lockdowns. That’s the new slogan. Love lockdowns. But yeah. I think to be honest, I think when I started having less stuff was when I moved out. So, I spoke about before, I moved from Perth to Newcastle. Probably didn’t go into details about moving to Newcastle. But I got my first job out of uni in Newcastle. And to be honest, I was just lazy. I just took whatever I could feasibly pack, and my PC. Got it all, brought it over – shipped the PC over, and just lived off whatever I took from home and just left all the random crap back at home. Because obviously, my suitcase was really just for clothes. So I kind of fell into it. And this was in around 2011, 2012 as well. And so I lived out of whatever I brought back, brought over, and I think maybe it was a good catalyst, because I just didn’t get any more stuff.
Georgie: You didn’t feel the need to go back to any of that stuff you left behind? It was just not important?
Geoff: Yeah pretty much. Except for apparently, my Australian Photography magazines.
Georgie: Hahaha/
Geoff: Don’t ask me what I was thinking when I picked those up. But… yeah. I think that was also around the time where I got my – as people call it, “signature Geoff style”, where I wore a black t-shirt and jeans all the time. That was yeah, around that same time I started doing that. And I just didn’t need to get any more stuff. Who can say, who can say.
Georgie: Either way, it turned out to be really convenient for you. In like, every aspect.
Geoff: Yep, pretty much. My friend also likes to call me a bit of a capitalist or a consumerist. I was like hell no, I’m not a consumerist, right? I’m a minimalist. But, you know what? They can work hand in hand. I’ve come to terms with that collision of terms.
Georgie: I think you’re just really specific about the stuff you buy. And you may be, get sucked into buying some of the more expensive or highly marketed things? But you still think about those decisions quite deeply.
Geoff: Exactly. And that’s why I think it, it doesn’t matter if you’re consumerist or not, minimalism can apply because it’s like, for us, or me, I guess for us, intentional buying, right. As long as we are very mindful and calculated I suppose, that the thing we’re going to buy is actually going to serve a purpose and that it’s going to meet that purpose as well. That’s the things we buy. Even though I have messed up buying a monitor like three times now. So over it.
Georgie: It’s not meant to be, Geoff. It’s not meant to be.
Geoff: It’s just not meant to be. So, right now, I bought a monitor, I don’t really like it, but it works. And I’m just going to live with my choices, because I want to also save money. In a weird way.
Georgie: I think that kind of works sometimes. Like, how many times have I also made mistakes with buying jeans. And then kind of eventually decided to live with some of them. And then give it a little break.
Geoff: Can you tell me how much –
Georgie: Yeah?
Geoff: Can you tell me how much you’ve lost in jeans. Like, monetarily.
Georgie: I don‘t even want to know! But I have, I think, and we talk about – quality of items, higher expensive items, don’t necessarily mean higher quality. And so I did spend like, maybe $200–300 on some boujee – supposedly boujee – pair of jeans. But I think, I just found the quality to be extremely disappointing. And I remember keeping that for maybe… and I tried to put up with it, and wear these pretty uncomfortable jeans for like, I think I wore them on a holiday to force myself – because I pack minimally when I travel – so I wore them to force myself to wear the jeans, and then like six months later I tried to sell them, these boujee 200 plus dollar jeans, tried to resell them, because you know, they’re a boujee brand, usually they’re resellable. Fucking had no fucking luck. And so I think I ended up donating them. It was just this big, big burn.
Geoff: Yeah…
Georgie: But thinking about stuff like that though. There is this woman I follow on YouTube and her channel is called A Small Wardrobe. And I really like her – she has this motto, or philosophy I guess you could call it. She said, the only value that items have is the value you assign them. So I think that these boujee jeans are worth, whatever. Maybe I could have gotten a hundred bucks back for them. But to someone else looking for some second-hand boujee jeans, they want a bargain right. They’re probably like, that’s worth like thirty bucks. And it’s just like, similarly, we can compare items we both own, and you probably think, that’s a piece of shit Georgie! And I could think of something you own that’s a piece of shit worth nothing. But to you it probably means the world.
Geoff: But we can both agree my monitor’s a piece of shit.
Georgie: Hahaha.
Geoff: But yeah, totally get it. The… the value between things. And, you make a good point about how the jeans. Anyone looking for a second hand pair of jeans, obviously wants a steep bargain. Because if they could afford it they could just buy it new.
Georgie: Totally.
Geoff: I’m a “buy new” type of person. I rarely ever bargain hunt my stuff. But I also rarely buy a lot of stuff. Like in the past month I bought a lot of things, like I did my whole desk setup. But that was the biggest buy session in a year. So, I don’t do it very frequently, but I know that he impression for most people is that I buy a lot of expensive stuff and I do buy it frequently. But it’s only because I am the loudest when I am buying it, and I think that kind of gives that impression that I’m always buying stuff.
Georgie: I don’t think you’re always buying stuff. I think you just, yeah you just talk about it when you do. And like you said you don’t really buy expensive things that frequently. And like you were saying earlier, you think about it, and you’re intentional and you’re like, am I going to need this?
Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. I think overall, reselling stuff is, yeah. I think technology reselling is a lot easier than clothes reselling though.
Georgie: I do agree. I actually – I have managed to sell this year, a bunch of clothes which I was quite surprised about. And it might just be a sign of the times. Maybe people in COVID are kind of looking for something more interesting in the second-hand market. I mean the reason I started looking for second-hand clothes is because I started to become familiar with brands I liked. And I just wanted to see what was out there. And I just gave it a go, and I’ve actually found some really nice clothes that I actually still wear to this day. But I remember when I was younger, I would buy second-hand tech on eBay, because I couldn’t really afford – with my part-time job or whatever – couldn’t really afford to buy an iPhone new. So I just bought it second-hand. But yeah, a lot of people associate it with like, being poor or something. But no, it’s just that sometimes people don’t want these items anymore, and they still can be used. So they’re just looking for new homes.
Geoff: Yeah. As a big reseller of iPhones myself.
Georgie: You upgrade every year right?
Geoff: I don’t actually. I don’t upgrade every year. The last one I had was an iPhone Xs and now I’m on an iPhone 12 mini.
Georgie: Fuck yeah, 12 mini!
Geoff: 12 mini club! So I actually lasted four years on an iPhone. I think usually my churn is one to two years. But usually it’s when someone else needs a phone that I make that jump to upgrade. Because I’ll sell my phone second hand to a friend of a friend or family. Actually my family are not big fans of iPhones, so, not my family. But yeah. I think it all kind of works out to, you know, if you have no longer a need for an item and it’s perfectly working. Sell it to somebody else. Well for me, I sell things so that I can recoup the cost and purchase the new thing.
Georgie: Yep.
Geoff: But that’s my more pragmatic way of saying recycling is good.
Georgie: Yep. But I’m pretty sure Geoff, if I tried to sell you my jeans, you probably wouldn’t want them. Not just because you’re not into second-hand stuff, but cos they wouldn’t fucking fit you. Heheheh.
Geoff: Yeah. I don’t have the quads. Like you do. The quad queen.
Georgie: They’d just fall off.
Geoff: But yeah. Back to. I guess the minimalist stuff. Is fraught, as we probably alluded to. A lot of people probably have that impression. Actually. I just watched a YouTube video that I think I was rewatching. It was FINANCIAL minimalism.
Georgie: Hmm tell me more.
Geoff: Yeah, and Graham Stefan, he’s like the current financial king of YouTube. He was talking more about like, Konmari but for your expenses. He talked about a “dollar to fun” ratio. And I think it kind of an interesting way of taking a look at your finances. You go and have a meal with somebody. Or a group of friends. The value of the meal was maybe $25. But the fun was, I dunno.
Georgie: Max?
Geoff: Put it on a scale of 1 to 100. Yeah. It was 100. A hundred worth of fun for a twenty five dollar meal. Now if you say that the meal was $250 that changes things, right. You’re actually paying $250 for the same amount of fun. Of a level 100. So why would you do that?
Georgie: Why not, why not just have fun for free? Why don’t you just go to the park and play soccer? And like, it’s free.
Geoff: Exactly. Well, there’s a meal involved.
Georgie: Just bring your picnic. Bring a picnic. People might have stuff at home already.
Geoff: Exactly. Exactly. If you can have the same level of fun but for less of the cost. That‘s good. That’s already a good start. You can apply it to a lot of things, right.
Georgie: Yep.
Geoff: So I think it was actually quite a good way of putting it, and basically links it to Konmari. You just look at it, and does it spark joy? How much joy does it spark? Does it spark enough joy? Then don’t do it. Then just don’t, don’t spend the money on it.
Georgie: Yeah I like that. Because it ties into, like, minimalism kind of being about experiences, and enjoying your life. Rather than focusing on the stuff you have. And it ties it into money as well.
Geoff: Yeah, yeah. He is known for, like, cutting expenses to the bone. He often rips on Starbucks because he makes 20 cent iced coffee. And it’s just as good as Starbucks. So why would you ever spend…
Georgie: Why would you.
Geoff: Spend a hundred percent extra… a hundred times the cost on Starbucks. But it was really interesting to see this video out of him, because he said, it’s easy to say, just cut all your expenses. Just spend no money. And then you will save money. But he came at it from a better perspective. Fun to dollar ratio. And it was pretty good. What would I cut out. What would you cut out that’s not fun?
Georgie: So where the fun to dollar ratio is not high?
Geoff: Yeah, not high. Man.
Georgie: It‘s interesting…
Geoff: Have you already done it?
Georgie: Well I was thinking about like, how much it costs for me to like, go to a gym. And at first, because now I go to a gym that’s a bit better than my previous gym. And it was really expensive, it was basically like three times the cost, and I couldn’t think about it that way. But now that I’ve been paying for this gym for several years, and like, there’s a sense of community around it, and I really genuinely enjoy it. This is fun. This is definitely worth keeping. But for something that doesn’t have a high fun… dollar to fun ratio…
Geoff: My monitor probably doesn’t have a high dollar to fun ratio right now. Uh. If I could get rid of it, if this lockdown wasn’t here, I’d be able to get rid of it instantly I think. And then go get the thing I would have most fun with. I think it‘s a bit hard that we‘re in lockdown. There’s not much that like, you can compare to. Like, going out with people, is probably the only time that you could make a comparison of dollar to fun.
Georgie: You know the other thing is, we’re also already like, minimalists. So I feel like there’s nothing else that I’d want to remove from my life at this point because I kind of like everything I have.
Geoff: Actually that’s a really good point. You should really nip this in the bud. Like, to begin with. I think I’ve thought about – of course we’ve thought about this in the past. But. A lot of comments about minimalism and it’s a lot about getting rid of things. And being a bit more intentional about what you keep. But it – you should really fix it from the source. You should be really intentional about what you buy, rather than what you keep. So I think, actually my camera right now, the dollar to fun ratio is not super high. So I might get rid of that. And yeah, over time a lot of stuff that I’ve bought in the past have kind of reduced in dollar to fun ratios.
Georgie: Yeah.
Geoff: The Apple Pencil.
Georgie: Yeah I guess another way to think about it is, what do you have right now and to also appreciate what’s good, that you have. And if something just doesn’t, isn’t meeting that kind of level of serving you, or making you happy, then let it go.
Geoff: Yeah let it go.
Georgie: Yeah it’s not just about kind of trying to live with just a hundred items and that kind of thing.
Geoff: Yeah I don’t think having that sort of goal is that great. Because I know a lot of people, and you included, you love your fashion, people have their passions, they want to spend money on. And that’s kind of our main point. Is that it’s OK to have things that you want to spend money on. It’s OK to have things that you want to collect. Just make sure that you’re intentional in the collecting of it.
Georgie: Yeah. And I think it’s also like, to have more room for the things that you enjoy. Like me with my wardrobe and my clothes. Like, I would, I feel like if I get rid of anything that I don’t like or stop doing activities that I don’t enjoy that just leaves more room for the things that I do enjoy. Like going to the gym. When it’s not lockdown.
Geoff: Gymming it up.
Georgie: Getting jacked. Getting quads bigger than yours.
Geoff: Quad queen. Back on top. Aw yee. Oh yeah. And oh my god. That kind of ties into the whole shifting of energy, right. I think during lockdown everyone thought about shifting their energy to things that they find the most important. I mean, we’ve been friends for quite a while. But actually I think when the pandemic started, maybe even for a year, we barely talked. And look at things. Things turn around. It’s all about shifting energy. And who knows. If you wanted more space for your clothes, I’m sure you would ditch some other furniture.
Georgie: I would make the space.
Geoff: You would make the space. Exactly. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
Georgie: Nee minuet my bed will be gone. Just to make room for clothes. I’m just kidding.
Geoff: The underneath your bed is calling for you to add way more clothes.
Georgie: I have those drawers that go under the bed, so there is actually some clothes there already.
Geoff: Yeah I had two of them when I moved here from my old apartment. And one of them – and I think both of them actually had linen in them. And some winter stuff. I was like, why do I need two of these? I don’t even know why I bought two of them. And I palmed off one of them and managed to fit everything in one drawer. So, you know. That worked out quite well.
Georgie: I like what you just said there Geoff, about reflecting back on the past year and what‘s most important to them while trying to figure out what to do during this tough time. But I wanted to end and ask you, it’s been a tough week for everyone this week. Well, in Sydney, specifically for us, and I wanted to ask what was one thing that was good for you about this week? One positive thing. Please say this podcast!
Geoff: Yeah, I gotta say it’s probably this podcast.
Georgie: Fuck yeah.
Geoff: I wasn’t coerced into saying that at all. Like, I find it hard to relate this week. Because I enjoy lockdown.
Georgie: You won’t say that for very long.
Geoff: I don’t enjoy, enjoy lockdown. Hehe. I don’t enjoy, enjoy lockdown. But nothing really changes when you ask me to lockdown I’m like OK I’ll just stay home more than I did before. I go out very little and I talk to very little people. So, it’s kind of what I say my natural habitat in lockdown. So everything’s been good. It’s fine for me. And I am, you know, single. Living in my own apartment.
Georgie: Thriving.
Geoff: I have no kids running around, I have, yeah. No issues. Really. With lockdown. So what about you?
Georgie: I made bruschetta bagels today. Well, a bruschetta bagel. My first attempt. And I hope to keep trying it. OK so everybody that has been Toast & Roast. You can find us on all the major…
Geoff: The big ones.
Georgie: Haha.
Geoff: And of course our Twitter, @ToastRoastPod.
Georgie: And on Instagram @ToastRoastPod. Tell us about – tell us if you’re on a minimalism journey or when you first heard about minimalism.
Geoff: What‘s your definition of minimalism? It’s OK if you’re the person that throws away all your shit. But also, be wary. We are judging you.
Georgie: We’d love to hear you throw shade at us.
Geoff: And that‘s it, right? That’s the show! We’ll see you all next week!
Georgie: We’ll see you next week!