Becoming Minimalist’s Joshua Becker: 3 Benefits of Minimalist Budgeting for Your Wardrobe

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Joshua Becker is a financial influencer, author and founder of Becoming Minimalist. Through the Becoming Minimalist blog and his YouTube channel, which has 315,000 subscribers, Becker teaches his audience how to live a richer life while spending less.

In his recent video, “How To Upgrade Your Lifestyle Without Spending an Extra Penny,” Becker explained how minimalism has helped him boost his standard of living without increasing his spending.

The Strategy: Buy for Quality, Not Quantity

While looking for ways to declutter his space, Becker discovered Courtney Carver’s Project 333 Challenge. The challenge invites people to reduce their wardrobe to 33 items or fewer, including accessories but excluding underwear and sleepwear, for a three-month trial period.

Becker noticed that the 33 items he kept were of a higher quality than those he discarded. He did the math and saw that if he bought fewer items, he could spend more on each one without inflating his clothing budget.

“I could immediately upgrade the possessions in my life by spending twice as much on an item but only buying half as many,” he realized. That philosophy now drives most of his household spending, and he’s noticed three key benefits.

1. Less Clutter-Related Stress

Becker described his pre-minimalist closet as full of “cheap fast fashion and items I had found on clearance racks.” He owned hundreds of items.

After paring his wardrobe down to 33 basics, Becker realized how unnecessary many of his purchases were. He didn’t need 20 pairs of pants or 10 pairs of shoes. Instead, those extra things weighed on his mind and well-being.

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In a Becoming Minimalist article, Becker explained how minimalism has made him think about “stuff” differently. He wrote, “[An] unused item … is visual clutter in your home. It calls for your attention every time you walk into the room … And it serves as a constant reminder that at some point you have to decide what to do with it.”

Paring down your wardrobe eliminates a significant source of that stress. Instead of opening your closet and seeing dozens of low-quality items, you have only a few to choose from, and you know each one belongs there. You’ve bought less and freed up space in your mind.

2. Higher Quality, No Extra Spending

“Minimalism and frugality are not the same,” Becker explained. He aimed to simplify his wardrobe, not pare down his clothing budget. He could still spend money, but he would buy for quality, not quantity.

Unsurprisingly, this guideline is one of Project 333’s essential tips for success. “You will find that having one well-made version of something will be far better than 10 of the knockoff,” Carver tells potential project devotees.

Becker agrees. “If I don’t need 20 pairs of pants in my closet, I could spend twice as much on the 10 that I do own. If I don’t need to own six different watches, I could buy one really nice one.”

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He calls this realization “simple yet life-changing.” To fill his wardrobe with high-quality clothing, he needed only to buy less junk — less of what would rip, go out of style or linger in the back of the closet.

3. Spending Less

Saving money isn’t one of Project 333’s main goals, but it can be a welcome side effect. If you want to save money while buying for quality, you’ll still need to be mindful about how much you spend. You won’t pay less if you buy one $150 dress shirt instead of two $30 polos. 

Before you adopt the mindset of buying better, not more, think about how you currently shop. Find out how many clothing items you’ve purchased in the past year and calculate the average price per item. You can even calculate the average cost for each category.

From there, it’s easy to determine how much you should spend on each high-quality item. If you’re a low-ticket buyer or buy clothes infrequently, you may have to do a four-to-one shift: one high-quality item for every four cheap fast-fashion buys. 

You could also try your luck at the local consignment shop. Well-made items are more likely to last long enough to resell.

Whatever the right strategy looks like for you, you’ll have less clothing clutter and better-made items. Consider that a win-win.

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