People often confuse the term minimalist with frugality, they are not the same. The difference between the two is relatively simply a minimalist chooses what he spends his money on while a frugal man is forced to live his current lifestyle. When it comes to life it is best to make efficient choices all the way down to where you stand in a bar to what kind of clothes you buy. Don’t let this be you. Unless you are rich you should begin with the following question “how can I efficiently maximize my results” that is how a minimalist thinks.
As a quick example if you are a deca millionaire you are free to blow money on whatever you like all day long. We’re not losers that hate on the rich so you can spend your cash in any way you like. If however, you are making a measly $75K per year and you are going into debt for a sick whip, you’re a loser.
This is how you can Maximize your Minimalist lifestyle until you’ve got those 8 figures, cold hard cash in the bank:
Weightlifting: Build muscle and have low body fat, as a young person the cost of clothing comes down because you can walk around in a fitted sweater, v-neck, wife beater, shirtless or otherwise. To help you see that its quite difficult to get ideal measurements here are the numbers. Arm size (2.52x wrist measurement), calf size (equal to arm size), neck (equal to arm size), waist leaned out entirely (hip to hip measurements no fat), Shoulders (1.618 times waist at lean measurements), Thigh (1.75x knee). Why do you do this? Now you will live longer because you are healthy. Not only will you feel better and live longer, you won’t need many cheesy pick up lines, “hello” works just fine.
Dancing Venues: Dancing in general is healthy as it improves your coordination skills and makes you more flexible. Not to mention the fact that a smooth dancer is associated with great bedroom skills. Find venues where the drinks are strong+cheap. Most guys who are good dancers don’t want to teach newbies so you can happily pick off the only cute girls at the venue. Besides, at the newbie dance venues, most guys are ugly. That’s your competition, ugly dudes who can’t dance. Layups.
Central Apartments: While it would be great to have that mansion and throw champagne parties 24/7, a central location in a major city is a much better set up. You are now more liquid and can simply use cabs to move around your city. Driving from suburb to suburb certainly doesn’t help with logistics, besides now you’re not on the hook for upkeep fees either.
Alcohol and Drugs: We have been over the use of drugs many times and only when picking up girls or going on dates should these be used, unless of course you need to focus to make some more $$$. Drinking at home with no girls is a waste of health and money.
Cooking At Home: Yeah, we should all have a 9.75/10 cooking and cleaning for us all day, but the reality is most people are not deca-millionaires so instead focus on controlling your diet 80%+ of the time. Take up juicing and remember that the sanitary conditions at restaurants is sub-par to say the least. Again, unless you are rich there is no value in spending a lot of money having someone cook for you. You haven’t earned the right to that luxury just yet. Finally, you should be eating healthy organic vegetables and fruits, so find ways to eat healthy without killing your budget. No matter how you slice it, eating at $20-25 a pop on a daily basis at restaurants will certainly be more costly than organic foods, more costly both in $$$ and health.
Conclusion: That’s about it a quick minimalist post on minimalism. Remember it’s about “maximizing” all of your cash, not minimizing your cash. Constantly review yourself in an honest fashion, that $50K BMW is not going to make up for being 100lbs over weight or your lack of social skills. If however, you have $100M in the bank, we will become mute and let you do whatever you like. You are free to go because money, in the end, is what it’s all about.
“It is not impressive to live in a studio apartment when you are forced to, it is impressive if you choose to live in a studio apartment and can afford a mansion”
Wow every new post applies more and more to my life even though I’m nowhere close to wallstreet
Nice piece. This is a great article, good perspective and is something my parents always tried to enstill in me. At the end of the day, i truely believe that a considerable amount of money is not related to happiness. I find that extending the use of cash is almost more respectable. I recently read an article on the challenge of having a zero dollar day. It has made me shoot for this once/week. I’ve enjoyed this challenge so much that ive cut my cc bills down from $2700/mo to $1700 to $1300 to $800-$900. I limited my eating out to once/week at a nice restrt, hit gym more frequently (6/7 days weeks), and supplmented gym efforts with good (health conscience) foods. For dates, i cook thai good and pour cheap sweet wines in volume. This is an awesome post and i encourage everyone to challenges themselves in the same manner i have and as this article suggests.
Another top notch article guys. This reminds me of the “day in the life of a trader” post, where Wall Street guys get addicted to lifestyle inflation and are never able to leave the rat race.
Frugal people are broke, minimalists are efficient.
Baahhh, screw you SV fully catered meals. For guys who have the mixed blessing of fully catered work food:
http://www.returnofkings.com/10209/open-letter-to-fat-girls
This is the minimalist approach for men and women to lose weight with anything. It’s common sense, but it finally made it click for me. Replace all the high calorie snacks with pre-washed, pre-cut baby carrot bags if you must snack, drink diet, drink plain tea, drink water.
This describes our weekends perfectly!!
“Most guys who are good dancers don’t want to teach newbies so you can happily pick off the only cute girls at the venue. Besides, at the newbie dance venues, most guys are ugly. That’s your competition, ugly dudes who can’t dance.”
BTW, all the men with Teslas at work..too busy at their desks working hard so they can pay them off or simply ugly.
Great post.
The juicing thing is an awesome tip. I started it a month ago and can’t believe I’ve managed to survive this long without things like kale and ginger root.
Hey WSP, this is an aside but after looking at your sample resume articles a few weeks ago, and your tips on how to improve your CV, i’ve basically managed to upp my [ getting to interview] rate, 400%. Still going for jobs, but its nice to get some damn good advice from people who know their shit and have it work out.
So cheers, this Brit owes you one
Good article, guys. You need to get some sharing buttons on your articles. Fellow bloggers would tweet and share you’re stuff more often.
Grabbed you on Twitter will have tweets there + Facebook loads up all posts as well.
How about an article for people who are making decent salary, i.e. > $150K. What should we be doing, anything diff?
I just came across this site. Love the articles because its all TRUE.
Story of my life, haha. Can attest to the dancing-venue-thing. Seems like I need to read more on your website.
I think minimalism and being frugal are basically the same thing…I think you’re confusing frugal with cheap.
“Remember it’s about “maximizing” all of your cash, not minimizing your cash.”
Frugality has nothing to do with minimizing your cash…that’s called being cheap.