In my first decade or so of being an adult, I was not a minimalist. I held on to many, many things “just in case” I could use them in the future. I had very little money, so having a bunch of random stuff allowed me to be resourceful without having to spend additional money by purchasing something new. It wasn’t anything even approaching hoarding level, but just stuff that could conceivably come in handy in the future. This was particularly true for things like office supplies and such that I could snag free from my job at Staples and re-use for one of my many advocacy projects and organizations. No need to get rid of that generally-functional-but-slightly-bent easel if I could make use of it in that next organization I worked with.
There was a point, however, right around the time that ZenHabits.net and other minimalists were ascendant in the blogosphere, where I got into minimalism. I was already rather anti-consumerism, so this was probably a more natural default for me anyway.
During that period, I purged more than 50% of the things I owned, and even spent a couple days perfecting a 100 Things list to help re-orient my brain towards only keeping what was necessary. Of course, I actually owned waaaaay more than 100 things—I’m certain I had more than 100 things of ASU Football memorabilia alone—but it was a good exercise nonetheless. Being a backpacker probably helped in all of that; you don’t really need much to live.
These days, however, I’ve probably swung back in the other direction. First, I now have enough money to solve convenience problems by buying things, which is, admittedly, much better than the alternative. I’ve also evolved on how I think about these sorts of things. I have fewer of the extraneous things that I once owned, but I probably still own the same number of total items.
My goal now is to reduce friction in the things I want to do, not necessarily to own the fewest things.
For me, that often means purchasing duplicates of things I already own, simply so they can remain in a ready-to-go kit to make things quicker and easier—especially around camping and travel.
For instance, I have a whole slew of charging adaptors and cords stashed away in each bag I use (and in each car, too) so that I never have to worry about grabbing a random cord to charge something before I leave the house. I even have a dedicated charging kit for the tent, so I can just grab that as we head to bed during a trip. Stuff like this seems a bit silly, but when you add up all these little improvements, it ends up making a surprisingly significant difference.
Similarly, I have multiple fully-stocked toiletry bags to match different trip types. One is a very lightweight ”short hotel trip” bag with only a few essentials, geared towards just a long weekend away that involves flying and staying in hotels or at a friend’s house (and that fits into a small personal item or carry-on).
And I have a more meaty camping road trip toiletry kit, which includes additional items, like what I’d need to shower at a campground, that is also big enough to accommodate additional items I’m more likely to need on a longer trip (like my beard trimmer and razor).
All I need to do is to grab the appropriate toiletry kit, add in the RX pill case for the scheduled duration (yes, I have several of these ready to go too!) and I’m ready to go. Easy peasy.
All of these kits means I do in fact, own lots of things, even if a whole bunch of it are simply multiples of the same general stuff. Far more than a minimalist could own. But that’s more than fine with me.