Despite living in one of the most expensive cities in the country,san diegowhere Median home prices soared Bartender Alicia Rice regularly saves $2,000 a month and is debt-free.
Despite living in one of the most expensive cities in the country,san diegowhere Median home prices soared Bartender Alicia Rice regularly saves $2,000 a month and is debt-free.
“People think of living like this as poverty or that I'm suffering, but I'm perfectly happy with what I have,” said Rice, who earns $70,000 a year. “It's very liberating not to want things all the time. We've been caught up in the idea that more is better.”
Ms. Rice, 40, chronicles her adventures in what she calls “ultra-minimalism.” YouTube Channel ExploravoreShe estimates she has saved tens of thousands of dollars in five years as an extreme minimalist.
Depending on whether she travels or not, Rice has between $500 and $2,000 stashed away in her savings account each month. (She does not invest in the stock market.)
Compare that to the $1,000 a month she believes she was spending on non-essentials when she lived like a maximalist in Las Vegas, with at least 1,000 items in her wardrobe.
“A huge walk-in closet was stuffed with every type of clothing imaginable,” she said in the video. “Ironically, I wore very little.”
Despite working two jobs and paying a low $600 a month in rent, she says she lives “paycheck to paycheck” and “hasn't saved anything.”
After the breakup, the former swim coach moved to San Diego and began the process of dumping most of his decade-long fortune. Since childhood, she had a tendency to not want things. (“Why do you want more than one doll?” she asks in the video. “You can only have one at a time.”)
Somehow that philosophy got lost in rampant materialism.
She became more into minimalism after watching the hit 2021 Netflix documentary, The Minimalists, featuring minimalist gurus Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus. It has become.
Rice is not alone in her desire to live with less. Interest in minimalism is rapidly increasing. For the past 20 years, web searches for the term “minimalist design” in the United States have steadily increasingAccording to Google Trends.
Similar movements that have taken hold in recent years include decluttering (Marie Kondo reigns as queen), frugality, buying less or buying cheap, circular economy, and zero waste. All have the same goal. It's about reducing damage. mass consumerismIt's been rampant since the 1940s, impacting not just bank accounts but the planet as well.
Now there's even more self storage unit That's more than McDonald's, Subway, and Jack in the Box restaurants combined. And the average American carries $8,674 in credit card debt. US Census Bureau.
Rice's minimalist journey took a turn to the extreme at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when she was forced to spend much of her time at home with her belongings. . And in 2021, she wanted to drive around the West Coast, but didn't want to pay to store her luggage.
So she got rid of most of them.
The Spartan lifestyle benefited her savings.
“I have a lot of savings,” she says.
She was able to pay off her car loan in two years and has no debt at all. She has never owned a credit card.
“It’s the prison system,” she asserts.
In addition to the $2,300 monthly rent (utilities included) for a one-bedroom (she couldn't find a studio), her monthly bills include a cell phone ($130 with an unlimited data plan) and car insurance ($50). , gas ($240), and Dropbox subscription ($12). She also sponsors children in Uganda through a $40 per month charity program.
Despite frequently uploading videos to her YouTube channel, she doesn't have Wi-Fi and instead uses her local library's free connection.
But even the most minimalist must eat. Rice, who is vegan, estimates she spends about $600 a month on groceries and treating herself to eating out once a week at a Thai or Indian restaurant. (This bartender also stopped drinking several years ago.)
After moving into her new apartment four months ago, Rice debated whether to replace all the furniture she had gotten rid of and decided to try living with very little furniture.
Rather than spend thousands of dollars on a mattress, box spring, frame, headboard, etc., she bought a $170 Japanese tatami mat on Amazon.com.
A friend gave her a vintage lamp, and she took back a folding chair she had lent to another friend. She lives without sofas, chairs, tables, desks, televisions, or any other decorations. (The apartment had an air conditioner and a microwave that were hardly running.)
She has one pot, one pan, and one wooden bowl in her kitchen. Her beauty routine consists of one product: coconut oil soap, which she uses on her face, body, and hair. She doesn't buy cosmetics other than lip balm. Her wardrobe has been reduced to 23 items, including shoes.
Compare this to the average 176 items of clothing American women own, according to . capsule wardrobe.
“You have to be smart about what you buy,” Rice says. “I was in the mountains of Oregon and it was 20 degrees and snowing, but I had two coats on so I was still warm.”
The world's most famous minimalist, Steve Jobs, wore a black shirt and jeans every day, but Rice loves bold colors and crop tops.
“If you're a minimalist, you can have a colorful wardrobe,” she says. “You can wear what you like. The idea is not to have too much.”
Perhaps most shockingly, the content creators don't own computers (a new laptop costs about $2,000) and upload everything via iPhone and Dropbox.
Her determination to own as little as possible extends to homeownership.
“After paying off your mortgage for 30 years, will you finally be debt-free at 70?” she asks in the video. “That seems like an absolute prison to me.”
Rice doesn't own much, so he packs everything into his Volkswagen Beetle and goes on trips whenever he feels like it. (She spent months touring the West Coast.) Her goal is to live out of a backpack in different countries. Ultimately, I would like to build an off-grid, eco-friendly cabin or tiny house.
“This is not about aesthetics, it's not about, 'Look at me, I'm so cool and weird,'” she says. “It's about the big picture of acting better as humans. Our consumption is outrageous and unsustainable for the planet.”
As for whether she'd like to go back to owning a lot of stuff someday, she says: It feels normal and natural to live like this. ”
