You may have heard of the 80/20 rule, or the Pareto principle. It generally says that 20% of the effort towards any given project will result in 80% of the results.*
When it comes to buying things, I like to use my own 80/20 rule: 20% of the stuff you own is used 80% of the time. Buy and purge accordingly. There is obviously has a bit of a minimalist ethos to this. If you're rarely using it, it's probably just taking up space and should be removed. But it's also great when considering new purchases - especially those involving housing and vehicles. For example, we live in a 600 square foot apartment. There isn't a whole lot of room to spare here, and we'd like to upgrade at some point. However, I've noticed there's a lot of pressure to upgrade right now and the 80/20 rule helps keep things in perspective. 80% of the time, I'm totally satisfied with the amount of space I have. And for now, that's good enough. Also, for the 20% of the time when the space feels too small, such as for entertaining, the cost of outsourcing that endeavour (e.g. taking friends out for dinner) is very small compared to paying a mortgage on a bigger place. Another great example is cars and recreational vehicles. Where we live, even the summer nights have a cold edge that can make camping comfortably challenging. Because of this, I think RV'ing would be a great way to explore (not to mention having a kitchen while camping! I hate doing dishes in a plastic bucket). But here's the thing - I would probably only use an RV 2-3 weeks a year at most. 80% (or more like 95%) of the time, I'm perfectly happy without an RV. So paying $40,000 for a used camper, plus storage fees, plus depreciation on the asset, doesn't really add up. A much better tactic would be to shell out the three grand to rent one every couple years. The point is, before you buy something (or store something long-term in your house), determine whether this will benefit you 80% of the time, or 20% of the time. If it's 20% or less, it's probably cheaper and easier to rent, borrow, or outsource the solution. That doesn't always mean that will be the solution you want long term (I want a garage to store a winter bike!), but it can put things in to perspective. * This is particularly interesting when applied to learning a language. Adherents take the approach that learning 20% of the words of a language (the most often used ones) will make you 80% fluent. For more on this, see Tim Ferris on Language.
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