I must confess that I have been frugal throughout my entire life. As a kid working various jobs, I loved to watch my account grow after each bank deposit; whereas any withdrawal caused me temporary depression.
Along that same line, I have sort of a mental block when it comes to replacing old stuff with new stuff. Like right now, I’m wearing a pair of reading glasses which has been repaired a dozen times with glue and duct tape but still works—as long as I hold my head perfectly still.
Over the years, I’ve been called a penny-pincher, tightwad and cheapskate. But now I realize this whole time I’ve been a closet minimalist.
If you haven’t had time to read about it because you’ve been busy finding new locations to store the clutter you’ve accumulated over the years, a lifestyle movement called minimalism is trending across the country. It stresses reducing all the ‘stuff’ in our lives.
Comedian George Carlin illustrated this quite cleverly in his hilarious ‘stuff’ routine. He said the only reason people buy a house is so they can put a roof over all their stuff because “. . . your house is a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff!”
Learning about the minimalism movement, it dawned on me that I was a minimalist clear back as a child in the 1950s.
This insight came to me while looking at a scrapbook. First, I noticed that there are only a handful of extant childhood pictures of me and my siblings. That’s understandable since people back then didn’t have time or the money to take photos of. . . well, of everything, like they do today.
But what really stood out is that in every photo of me I am wearing the same long-sleeved flannel shirt. Doesn’t matter if it’s summer or winter in the picture, I’m wearing that shirt.
Also, as I looked more closely at my siblings’ photos, it dawned on me that I’m wearing the same flannel shirt that my four older brothers are pictured wearing at various stages of their childhood! Guess I was lucky there was any flannel left by the time I got the shirt.
