This Guy Loves To Party

(Photo: kthread)

I desperately wanted a cup of milk. No, I needed it.

The milk I already had on hand. All I was missing was the cup to pour it into.

Going through my friend’s cupboard, I only found cheap-looking wine glasses. Fair enough, a cup is a cup.

I don’t need to describe how I poured the milk into the glass, or how delicious and refreshing the milk was. You can use your imagination.

What you probably didn’t expect, though, was my friend’s reaction to this. To put it simply: she freaked out.

“Could you PLEASE not use those wine glasses?! They’re VERY special to me. They’re from my mom’s wedding. Oh god, let me wash it, no, give me the glass.”

I thought she was joking at first, but it turned out she wasn’t.

There’s something weird to me about keeping functional items where they belong and then freaking out if anyone ever touches them. Just get rid of the wine glasses and save yourself the stress of worrying about them.

I’ve realized in the past couple months that I really don’t like owning things.  One of the big reasons is the cost that stuff entails.

Most stuff is a money trap.  When I had my nice flat screen TV, I was always buying gadgets and electronics to go along with it.  My car constantly had money thrown at it.  I always felt like I had to get new little things to decorate my room with, to compliment the other stupid things I had decorated my room with.

Owning one worthless item almost always leads to buying other worthless items to compliment it.  When I cleared out everything I owned and didn’t want, I was embarrassed to find bags of untouched feng shui stones and sand I desperately searched for and bought to compliment a weird glass vase I picked up on impulse and never really used.

Do you want to save money?  Then stop buying dumb junk.  It’s draining you in more ways than one.

Being “successful” with money is about how you use it, not how much you make.

I inadvertently saved lots of money while working a retail job in Los Angeles.  I spent $850 a month in rent alone, so it’s not like I didn’t have plenty of expenses.

But I cut out so many miscellaneous, small expenses that I was able to put at least a thousand dollars into savings every month.  That’s the power of not having cable TV, of preparing my own food, and of picking up average women in lieu of high-class prostitutes.

Now the money I saved is worth many times more, since I’ve been spending it all in South America, where not only is everything cheaper, but currency fluctuations have worked out in my favor, making the dollar even more powerful here.  Essentially every dollar I spend here is buying me 3x as much as it would have in the United States.

And when I do return to the United States, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to keep my cost of living very low, including staying temporarily with friends, family, and renting apartments from people desperate to sublet them for a month or two at the last minute.  These are just a few of the things I’ll do to keep my cost of living low in one of the world’s most expensive countries.

My savings aren’t substantial, but they’re enough to sustain me for almost two more years at my current rate of spending.

So why is your money goal so low?

I’ve been questioned about my current measly income goal of $1,000 a month.

$1,000 a month is enough for me to live on very happily and comfortably at the moment.  I’ll consider myself a success with an income of $12,000 a year simply because that puts me at the break-even point if I were to continue the awesome lifestyle I’ve been living for the past 8 months.

And if I were to bring in only $2,000 a month, then I’d be able to put an extra $1,000 into savings every month.  I consider this my “mini-retirement fund.”

I’m looking to grow my income, but I am a success if I have only $1,000 a month in income.  This is because my $1,000 is far more valuable than someone else’s $5,000, $10,000, or more.

I’ve been on the road for about 8 months at this point.  The whole time, I’ve never had more than one small 35-liter backpack, and I’ve never been inconvenienced by a lack of stuff.

Here are some tips you can use to lighten your load.  Use them and then maybe someday you’ll be showing off how small your backpack is to everyone, like I do (a lot).

1. Only pack thin, synthetic jackets.

Why do backpackers insist on wearing thick wool and fleece jackets the size of a small child?  Any kind of non-synthetic jacket is going to end up taking up way too much room in your bag, and they’re not necessary to keep you warm.

I spent two weeks in Ushuaia, Argentina, which is the closest “mainland” city to Antarctica.  It’s cold there.  Here’s what I wore, and I never had any issues, even walking around at night:

Posing in Ushuaia in front of my favorite pile of debris.

2. Bring shirts that are thin and less than 100% cotton.

I wear t-shirts from American Apparel (god they’re comfortable), and merino wool Icebreaker shirts.  Both are thin and fold up very small in my bag.

My American Apparel shirts are 50% cotton/50% polyester, while the Icebreaker shirts are 100% merino wool.

I’ve bought 100% cotton shirts before and they ended up taking up twice as much space in my bag, if not more.

3. Fold and pack your clothes like a pro.

I wrote an article on what I dubbed the “Rational Packing Method” that shows you the best way to fold and pack your clothes.

Basically, put your heaviest, thickest items on the bottom — jeans, in my case — and then pack everything else tightly with rubber bands and ziplock bags, organizing them to all fit together like a puzzle in your bag.

Pack like you’re on a mission and you’ll end up fitting twice as much stuff into the same space.

4. Take advantage of the versatility of your laptop and/or cell phone.

I love my iPhone.  It not only works as a phone, but it also serves as my Spanish-English dictionary (with the help of an application from the App Store) and my music player.

A lot of today’s smart phones can give you all the same benefits.

I lug around a 13″ MacBook but you could get just about all the same advantages with a cheap, tiny netbook.  I read books, watch videos, and do just about everything on my laptop.

5. Re-bottle your toiletries, and toss the unnecessary.

I’m very white.  I need sunscreen.  The problem, though, is that sunscreen consistently comes in comically-sized tubes.

These containers are annoying.

What I recommend is buying smaller plastic containers, and just putting what you need in those.  You can do this with sunscreen, toothpaste, shampoo, or really any toiletry you need.

Or even consider ditching some toiletries.  I haven’t shampooed my hair for months now and am loving it.

6. Bring a maximum of two pairs of jeans.

I like my jeans.  The problem, though, is that they’re thick, heavy, and take up a lot of room when being packed.

If you’re style-conscious, then pack a maximum of two pairs of jeans: one dark pair, and one light pair.  No one will notice.  Wear one of the pairs of jeans every time you’re traveling with your backpack.

7. Question every item you pack.

I have a thing for notebooks.  I don’t know why, but I do.  I hardly even use them.  I always think I’m going to write down amazing thoughts, but I don’t.

I had three in my bag until I really stopped and questioned myself.  “If I didn’t have two of these notebooks, how would it negatively impact my trip?”  The answer: it wouldn’t.  So I’ve tossed two of them.

Do this with everything in your pack, including extra clothes.  You don’t need eight shirts — pack just the few you love.

8. Only bring one pair of shoes, no matter the conditions.

You don’t need both “casual shoes” and “hiking shoes.”

I went on a 5-day trek through the Colombian jungles in November, 2008 with my buddy Derek.  Take a look at the shoes he wore:

Sporty, yet casual.

We hiked through rivers, miles of muddy trails, and uneven rocks.  He did just fine.

And in fact, he still wears those same shoes to this day in the gym, out on the town at night, and really in any situation.

You only need one pair of shoes.

9. Use versatile shorts for everything.

If you bring a good pair of thin, water-resistant shorts, you can use them for working out, swimming, and casual day-to-day activities.  That means you’ll only need one or two pairs of shorts total in your bag.

Anything else?

Leave any other light packing tips in the comments here.

The giant red "X" suggests this is not smart.

Everything I own fits in one 35 liter backpack that I lug with me around the world.

One reason everything fits is simply because I don’t own a lot of stuff. But that’s not all there is to it; the real reason I can cram everything in my backpack is because I figured out the best method of folding and packing my clothes.

Folding Clothes To Minimize Space

Travel nerds all over the web are having a heated debate over the subject of how to fold clothes to minimize space in a bag.

The Methods That Fail

Bundle Wrapping
One popular folding method in the travel community is the Bundle Wrapping method. This one is popular simply because it seems exotic. In reality, it’s retarded, and I doubt many people use it successfully. That doesn’t stop them from blogging about it, though.

The problem with the Bundle Wrapping method: the entire idea is that you wrap items of clothing within eachother. This supposedly saves space. On paper, this seems great. In reality, you end up with a giant bundled ball of clothes that’s impossible to fit in any standard-sized bag.

Rolling
God I wish everyone would stop fellating the rolling method. It’s awful, awful, awful. It takes up unnecessary amounts of space, saves nothing, and wrinkles your clothes like no other. Essentially you just roll your clothes up into little cylinders and hope for the best.

The problem with the rolling method: for one, your clothes end up taking up too much space vertically. The rolling method also leaves small, unused pockets of space between your clothes on either end, since your rolled clothes are naturally thicker in the middle.

The Method That Works

After failing with the other popular packing methods, I found one that worked, still works after seven months of traveling, and will continue to work into the future.

It’s not special at all, but I’m going to give it a special name anyway. It’s the Rational Packing Method.

How The Rational Packing Method Works

Along with your clothes, you’re going to need rubber bands and (optional but very handy) ziplock bags.

• For jeans, pants, and other thicker items: fold them completely normally as tight as you can. Wrap a thick rubber band around them to keep them from unfolding. Put them at the bottom of your bag.
• For underwear, socks, and thinner items: fold them as tightly as possible, putting a double-wrapped rubber band around each one, and put them in the small available creases to the sides of your pants in your bag. Put any extras wrapped together into a ziplocked bag.
• For shirts: fold them normally, folding them over into as tight a square as you can. Put a double-wrapped rubber band around each one. Pack the shirts together into a large ziplock bag, which will keep them fresh and help keep them from sliding around in your bag, taking up more space.
• All other items (scarves, jackets, etc): wrap them completely normally, as tight as you can with rubber bands around them. Fit them in on top of the other items in your bag.

Step 1. HOW WILL THAT GIANT SHIRT EVER FIT IN MY BAG?

Step 2. Keep folding the shirt into smaller and smaller squares, completely normally.

Step 3. Once you can't fold the shirt over anymore, wrap it tightly with a rubber band.

Step 4. Take a picture with your folded shirt and write a blog post about it.

Essentially, you’re just folding your clothes into tight squares (with the exception of pants, which go somewhat flat at the bottom of your bag) and keeping those squares tight with rubber bands and ziplock bags.  When you pack everything into your bag, it’ll all fit together like one giant, satisfying puzzle, and not into a bunch of nasty clumps like with the other popular methods.

This method is very space-efficient and makes packing light very simple.  I have no problems fitting a full wardrobe of clothes inside a 35 liter (school-sized) backpack.  A nice bonus is that, surprisingly, your clothes won’t wrinkle.

The biggest draw-back, though, is that you won’t be able to blog about how great the Bundle Wrapping method is, and how you’re a revolutionary backpack packer because you pack your bag like a futuristic spaceman.  Sorry.

In that backpack is every item I own. The cat wouldn't fit.

In May of 2008, I followed the dream of just about every one of today’s 20-somethings: I got rid of all my stuff, quit my job, and left to travel the world.

At the time, my collection of “stuff” was pretty average. I had a bedroom filled with everything I assumed I needed. I had a closet filled with clothes. I had furniture and electronics out in the living room. My kitchen was filled with some handy gadgets.

My ultimate goal was to cram everything I owned into a 35 liter backpack that I could lug with me around the world. This is roughly the size of the standard school backpack that you used to carry your books around in.

Why did I want to do this? Mostly because I saw that the guys over at LifeNomadic had done it and I thought it was a cool idea.

What I realized while doing this, though, is that minimizing your possessions down to only the necessities also has a lot of benefits for people who don’t plan on packing up and leaving the country. The peace of mind and relief I got from clearing out almost everything I owned was amazing.

Whittling down all my possessions to only those that fit in a teenager’s backpack was a four-stage project, and took about two months in total. This is about how long it took my mind to adapt to the idea that I really didn’t need everything I had.

The Four Stages of Decluttering and Minimizing

In the first stage, I mostly went through the stuff I had that was literally junk. Broken electronics, old papers I had no use for, stupid little toys I had bought that served no purpose.

This first stage took a lot of time — I had a lot of crap — but actually inspired me. I found containers full of college orientation papers I hadn’t seen for three years or so (and never actually had a use for), and I had lugged these containers around with me through three different apartments in that time.

Obviously I really didn’t have a lot of use for stuff that my mind used to think was a necessity.

The second stage involved collecting stuff that was functional, but that I just didn’t need. This means clothes that I hadn’t worn for months, electronics that were collecting dust, and small items that I forgot existed. These items were all put in a giant pile and either sold or donated.

The third stage was exactly the same as the second stage. I just took a week off to reflect on the items I really needed, and ended up tossing even more stuff on this next go-around. The more time I sat and thought about it, the more I realized that I hardly used the majority of my stuff.

The final, and fourth, stage also took place after about a week of rest from my purging. In this final go-around, I had had enough time to sit and think about what I really use. The final result: getting rid of almost all my clothes, all the furniture I have no use for, and literally almost every item that did not serve a necessary utility for me.

Getting Into The Right Minimalist Mindset

Getting into the minimalist mindset is difficult. Here are a couple things I realized that helped me clear out my stuff:

• How many items of clothes do you actually wear? When I looked into it, I realized I really only rotated between three or four shirts of mine that I really loved. The rest sat in my closet, getting worn maybe once every few weeks. I also almost exclusively only wore two pairs of jeans — one light, one dark — so all the others got tossed. Most people have way too many clothes — this will be the biggest relief to clear out.
• How many uses does your computer provide? If I didn’t have my laptop, I would probably have a lot of junk. But, with my laptop and a good Internet connection, I have a TV, a DVD player, a book reader, a music player, a photo album… the list goes on and on. Can you get rid of electronic devices that can be replaced by your computer?
• When you look at an item, think to yourself: have I used this in the last 3 months? If so, how many times have I used it in the last 3 months? If I hadn’t used this item, what would I have done? Is this an item that, if I absolutely needed it for only one or two tasks in the last few months, I could have borrowed from a friend or neighbor?
• Look at an item and ask yourself, “If I didn’t have this thing, would I still be able to do the task it helps me with?” Usually the answer is yes. If yes, get rid of it — you’ll get over the hurt in a week or so.
• If all else fails, think about how much money you could make selling the item on eBay or Craigslist.
• Sentimental items — this one is tough. I had a tendency to hold onto things with sentimental value. The truth is, though, that you usually forget you even had those items until you find them. If you run across a sentimental item that you forgot you even had, then it obviously doesn’t really mean too much to you. Toss it.
• Don’t forget bigger items. This might be a little extreme for most people, but I realized that where I was living (Los Angeles) I could easily get to 99% of locations by bus. I sold my car about a month before I left the country and actually survived perfectly fine without it.

Try It Out

Clear out your stuff as though you’re leaving the country, even if you’re planning on staying at home.

This is a hard project to approach. Post any suggestions or ideas you have in the comments.