Not So Materialistic

If any one thing defines me, besides supreme awesomeness and authentic gangsta flavor, I’d say that it’s my materialistic bent. The fact of the matter is that I usually love buying things. I love finding the best deals, I love buying the best of things (yeah, sorry… had to put that project on hold for a minute). There have been weeks where I’ve gotten a package every single day. Check part of my intro in the game :

In his spare time – which was basically all his time – he explored caves, recorded extremely catchy rap songs, and surfed the Internet for unusual items to buy and then never use.

It’s true too. I have a $500 fountain pen. I don’t even handwrite anything ever. I have three japanese LED watches, one watch with a GPS, another that tracks my sleep patterns, another that monitors my heart, and I don’t wear a watch. I have the best toaster in the world (Dualit), the same one the queen uses. I use that a few times a year.

In my old house I converted a bedroom into an equipment room. In it is an 8′ tall rack (yeah, the kind used in server farms) with 7 computers inside it. The other wall is completely covered with shelves with tupperware boxes labeled and holding some of my unused items. There are digital cameras, computers, boxes of remote controls, miles of cables, three portable printers, etc.

This leads me to my point. Now that I’m finally selling that house I’m faced with a major task – get rid of all my stuff.

It never occurred to me before that I’d have to sell this stuff. I got used to hoarding it in my mini warehouse so that I could use each thing that one time a year that I wanted it. It was like having a mini Fry’s. If any of my friends or I needed something for our computers, chances are that I had it.

Now I’m keenly aware that I somehow have to get rid of everything I buy. Either I sell it or wait until it’s depreciated and donate it or throw it away. The few times I’ve been tempted to buy something online recently I immediately think, “Ugh… some day I’m going to have to sell that.”

Then I close the window.

You might remember that I moved about 6 months ago, but still hadn’t sold my house. As a result I took what I actually needed/wanted and left everything behind. It wasn’t intentional, I just brought stuff as I wanted it. Needless to say, the house is still full.

So now I’m selling everything. I have more than a dozen ads on craigslist. I’m trying to sell FOUR robotic lawnmowers. Seriously.

My new philosophy is that I want to have as few possessions as possible, but to have them be as high quality as possible. Getting there is basically just a process of selling off my extra stuff. I want to be as portable as possible without sacrificing functionality. I used to have over 20 computers working. Now I have one, and it’s a laptop. I even want to get rid of my clothes. I want two pairs of jeans, 7 identical t-shirts, some outerwear, my hats, and a pair of shoes. I can’t even tell you how many shoes I have. I’m not at girl level or anything, but I have at least two pairs of Ferragamo shoes I haven’t worn in a year. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on these clothes. Now I wish I just bought some black t-shirts and saved the money. That could have been a couple extra shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

When I see people buying things now, I almost cringe. I was in Best Buy getting movie theater equipment for the woman buying my house and I felt bad for everyone there. Most of them were buying crap they didn’t need. I used to read bensbargains.net and fatwallet.com several times a day. Now they’re deleted off my bookmarks. During some months in the past I’ve had $10k/mo credit card bills. I have no idea how I even spent that much. This month I think I’ve spent $700 so far, and almost all of it is advertising and setup costs for my book.

I’ve been thinking about moving to Panama recently. That thought alone makes me wish I didn’t even own a bed. Too bad the ladies frown on aerobeds (because I have two.) Some of my best times are when I travel, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that it’s simple. I have a few very necessary possessions (laptop, phone, etc.), and no extra clutter. I bring my favorite clothes and leave the closet filler behind.

I’m a little worried that people might thing I’m turning into a Bona Fide hippie between this and the Vegan thing. If it makes you feel better, I am still hell bent on becoming a millionaire and then billionaire. I think money is the best thing in the world and I am working on making as much of it as possible. Some day when I can live off of the interest I will have a huge mansion with a warehouse with every product under the planet and a person in charge of maintaining my inventory. I’ll have a plane, a submarine, a yacht, an island, and a host of low paid help from a third world country. I can’t wait.

But until I have all that, I want to live as simply and unburdened as possible.


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8 responses to “Not So Materialistic”

  1. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    If you don’t want to deal with it, you could have someone else sell it off for you and they get to keep %10 in value of whatever they want.

  2. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    Oh yeah, when money was tight, you could of just sold off your stuff! When I did that, I didn’t really realize how much money I had in junk to use.

  3. phik Avatar
    phik

    I hear you.

    It’s not that I don’t like the things I have, but I’m really sick of moving them, and I’m not ready to stay in one place. When I get back to the US, everything must go. It will be a veritable fire sale.

    It’s going to be hard to resist buying a plane, though. At least that’s fun to move.

  4. Casimir Avatar
    Casimir

    Strange that you would have so much useless crap. I always thought you were into self-discipline, and to me, this includes financial discipline. It seems you are a shopaholic. I just wish I had the cash required to support such a habit!

    I’d also really like to hear what you used your 20 computers for. And 4 robotic lawnmowers. Seriously.

  5. Tynan Avatar
    Tynan

    I’m really disciplined about most things, but I have my weaknesses. I never went into debt to buy stuff (I pay my CCs in full every month), and have always saved money. I also get really good deals on everything I buy, but still – I’ve bought way too much.

    I used the computers first when I was gambling. I was also bad about selling old computers, so I’d have three laptops lying around. Here’s what the 20 computers were for :

    Thinkpad A31P – Laptop I used sometimes
    HP Z4900 – Laptop I rarely used (functioned as my alarm clock when I was polyphasic.)
    Libretto U105 – Mini laptop I started using a lot
    Rackmount #1 – I made my own router using Astaro Linux
    Rackmount #2 – Home theater PC. Controlled the theater in the next room over
    Rackmount #3 – Media getting PC. Downloaded / error checked movies and TV shows all day
    Rackmount #4 – X-10 PC. Controlled the 20+ computer controlled light fixtures in my house as well as the 20+ motion detectors
    Rackmount #5 – NAS PC. Network attached server with almost a terabyte of storage at its peak
    Rackmount #6 – Automatic poster PC. I had two stupid little blogs and this ran a program/macro I made to automatically post free articles to them. I made about $2 on this waste of time.
    Rackmount #7 – Unused after a while, started out with gambling.
    Rackmount #8 – Unused after a while, started out with gambling.
    Dell Servers #1-3 – Unused after a while, started out with gambling.
    Desktop #1 – Linux desktop computer. It used a 24″ screen and two 17″ ones simultaneously. There’s a picture of that in a super old blog post.
    Desktop #2 – Ran windows, stopped being used when I switched to #1.
    Then in the storage room there were 3 old dell servers that sucked and a mini cube PC I was going to make into another theater PC for my bedroom or kitchen. For a bonus, I had an Audrey that I almost never used.

    See? I don’t make this stuff up.

    Tynan

  6. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    Wow that’s a nice rack.

    Must have used up quite a bit of your monthly datacap downloading tv and movies all day.

    Those robotic lawnmowers must be awesome! I could do with a couple of those for my backyard.

  7. The Reel Deal Avatar
    The Reel Deal

    Congratulations. Maybe you can move to Buenos Aires with me and TD. haha.
    Anyway, one of the reasons I moved to LA was to get away from all my ‘stuff’. I had a house off Burnett just full of ‘stuff’ and very little of it truly made my life easier and happier–just cluttered me and my mind. They said Einstein had only two suits and they were exactly alike because he said he didn’t want to waste his thoughts on what he had to wear in the morning. To a degree I agree and understand, but, still, clothing is a luxury I don’t skimp on–too much of an expression of myself that I take pride in.

    Anyway, when I left Austin, I only kept what I could put in my Jeep and have pretty much kept it that way ever since. Very minimalist and it’s liberating. Always ready at a moments notice, if the right opportunity arises, to up and move or take on a new adventure(I guess I’ve always liked Chuck Palahniuk’s quote about how things you own tend to start owning you).

    Also, I’ve always been this way, but the only things I buy must be the best. In other words, I buy with purpose and (most of the time) I fully use the things I buy.

    Interestingly, for those guys worried about “game” and how materialistic girls can tend to be (technically, more of an issue in LA than ATX, but still the same), it has had zero impact for me to dating some of the hottest and most desired women in the world. Some even appreciate it in this crazy place.

  8. Evan Avatar
    Evan

    I went over to Ty’s old house a few days ago to help him clean stuff out. He is extremely sentimental and never wants to get rid of anything, so I just stopped asking and started throwing things out.

    I was in the kitchen, going through drawers and cabinets, and I must say I’ve never seen anything like it. He owned an ice cream maker, a snowcone maker, two blenders, a deep fryer, a juicer, a steamer, a food processor, a big mixer and probably a lot of other small appliances I’m forgetting. And that doesn’t include the blender, toaster, etc that he moved to his new place.

    This is crazy and hilarious to me for one obvious reason: Tynan doesn’t cook.

    I make dinner and brunch on the weekends, or we eat at Casa de Luz or Whole Foods. The entire time I’ve known him I think he’s made us pasta once. Other than that, I have only ever seen him make oatmeal or almond butter sandwiches. Did I mention he also owns a full set of cookware with his first and last name printed printed in lacy script on each pot? Compulsive online shopping isn’t a laughing matter, kids…

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