I’m a Maximalist Now: Some Transparent Notes on Having Money
For a good stretch of time in my early 20s, I thought I might be a “minimalist.” I didn’t like the idea of being burdened by stuff. I wanted a mattress on the floor, the same outfit to wear every day, a clean and organized and empty living space, et cetera. I think moving across the country when I was 23 certainly helped me maintain this mindset, since I could only bring the things that would squeeze into my tiny but reliable two-door Honda Civic — and that’s not factoring in myself and my dad, who also had to fit.
Fast forward two years and a graduate degree later, and I was 25 dropping off my entire collection of Shakespeare and Norton Anthologies at the Corvallis library to lighten the load before heading back east. Poor planning and my general tendency to procrastinate everything meant I also left behind a great air mattress, a bike, a desk lamp I’d had since freshman year of college, and a bunch of other very useable items I’d find myself wishing I’d had the foresight or room to bring with me when I landed in Pittsburgh about six months later after a brief (and very hairy) stint in good ol’ Johnstown aka the Dirty J.
From there, I moved from one tiny apartment to the next about every year (or six months) from 2017 until 2019. And my minimalist tendencies helped me move as much as I did, as frequently as I did, with relative ease because I didn’t have much furniture besides a busted IKEA bed frame/mattress and an old $50 desk I bought from Wal-Mart in, like, junior year of high school. No couch, no chairs, no TV, et cetera.
Look at me, so go-with-the-flow. But what I gained in ease of transport, I lost in comfortability. Eventually, I had to start buying back the things I used to own and had abandoned on one or another move so that I could finally…I don’t know, go on a date with someone and be able to offer them a chair to sit on if they came over for a meal. This was incredibly daunting at first because I was working a series of low-paying jobs, buckling under student debt, and reaching the end of my rope in multiple directions. I didn’t have the money to drop on a couch, or a microwave, or a table with chairs. And I wasn’t resourceful enough to get most big-ticket items for free. I had grown up in comfortability. It was easy for me to pack up my Honda in that cross-country move to Oregon because the reality of the situation was that most of my bigger or less important belongings could stay behind, at my childhood home. I skated through grad school with help from my dad, who picked up my car insurance and phone bills while I deferred payment on my student loans — student loans, I should add, that were significantly less terrible than they could have been because my dad helped me out with college tuition as much as he could. So, I’d never had the need to develop the skillset many people grow up learning just to survive: how to bargain, how to budget, how to make do with what you have, how to hold onto things.
What I didn’t understand then, or failed to see from lack of perspective, was that minimalism only really works if you have some kind of safety net to fall back on when times are tough. Whether that be money, or family support, or something else, it’s much easier to get rid of a bunch of crap if you know you can easily get it back, one way or another, when you really need it. As much as my family has been rocked by my mother’s death in 2016, I knew that I could rely on my siblings or grandparents for anything I wasn’t willing to ask my dad for. But I’m thankful for those years immediately following her death in at least this one way: they forced me to learn how to manage my money and finally become financially independent. I’m much more aware of the value of a dollar, not to mention the many privileges I had growing up because my parents could afford to give me opportunities, like sports and college, that would change my life for the better.
When I moved into my current 2-bedroom place, I was at first overwhelmed with the space. My belongings could fit in one room, but now I had multiple rooms to fill. Eventually, over the ensuing two-three years and with the help of good friends, my belongings started accumulating again. I have desks, and a couch, and an armchair, and a bookcase! I have two beds! I have a record player! I have a goddamn exercise bike! I have art on the walls, and I buy books now with the same relish I had in high school when I used to peruse the shelves at B. Dalton with my dad’s money. I have a table with chairs to eat at when my girlfriend comes over for dinner (though to be fair, we mostly eat on the couch while watching re-runs of Mad Men).
So, okay, having stuff requires having money, too. Just in a different, more obvious way. And I have that money now, after starting a new job last August. I’m working as a copywriter at an ad agency based out of NYC (very Mad Men of me). I find the work challenging enough without being too stressful, which means I have the time, energy, and space to devote to my creative pursuits. With this job, I was finally able to pay off my credit card debt that built up over the years when I was making swim-school/hotel-front-desk-person/adjunct-teacher money (goodbye $3,000 money-hole from Louise’s emergency vet visit last year). Soon, I’ll have the remainder of my student loans at a $0 balance (even despite those Supreme Court motherfuckers denying student loan forgiveness). Maybe someday, I’ll even be able to afford my own home — a dream of mine since I realized how important that kind of security means to me.
I’m a sentimental person, and sentimentality doesn’t really jive with minimalism. Now that I have monetary means I didn’t before (at least not of my own), I want to be as maximalist as possible. I want to buy your art. I want to invest in a good-feeling couch that will last a long time. I want to help you out if you’re in a tough spot. I want to give and share the wealth as much as I can. I want to be a good steward of my life and possessions, and that means my money, too. I don’t want to succumb to the terrors of late-stage capitalism, but nor do I want to deny the reality of living in the U.S. Money fucking helps!!! If it doesn’t buy happiness, it certainly buys the means to pursue happiness.
I don’t want to strip my life of everything that makes it functional, or enjoyable, or uniquely me by subscribing to an aesthetic that never truly fit me to begin with. And I don’t want to be evasive in the means I have to achieve a lifestyle more suited to my needs. I just want to…be honest. I want to share what I’ve learned about myself following the “money scripts” I inherited from my parents, as well as the money scripts I learned along the way to young adulthood and beyond. A lot of my life includes experiences involving very sick family members, years in hospitals, years of anticipatory grief and angst about that grief. But it would have been infinitely worse if my family didn’t have access to money and support. As I’m writing about my family, I want to bring that theme to the forefront. In a lot of ways, we were lucky. We still are. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it goes a long way in helping you take care of yourself when you’re down bad. That’s important for me to acknowledge.
As always, thanks for coming along for this ride.
X
Sam
