And don't forget. Tune in tonight for our show
need to know starting at five PM Eastern right here
on Cheddar News and filling in for Director Gino Tonight
. So you don't want to miss that in just
about 13 minutes. It is time now for stretching
your dollar where we give you tangible tips on how
to make the most of your money. Do you
feel like you're spending too much time maybe cleaning,
organizing and it might just be time to get rid
of some of your stuff. Well, if so
you're not alone. New data from a recent Yougov
poll says 48% of American adults say they would adopt
a minimized lifestyle to simplify their life. The poll
also discovered that 41% said they would adopt a minimized
lifestyle for financial reasons. Well, joining me now
is Joshua Becker, founder of becoming minimalist, a
website dedicated to intentional living. Joshua. I like
this. Right. Living with intention is I think
what we all strive to do. How can it
save us money? Yeah. Lovely. Thanks so
much for having me on. It's such a,
uh, important conversation. I love seeing the fact
that 41% of people see the financial benefits of decluttering
. It's interesting, a higher percentage of people,
um, maybe don't think about the benefits of decluttering
financially. They think if I declutter stuff, I'm
gonna have to buy it all back again rather than
seeing how decluttering our lives, removing the physical possessions
that we don't need frees up space and brings calm
and a less stressful existence into our home and also
makes us more intentional with how we spend our money
and our time going forward. So there's a lot
of financial benefits of decluttering and love to be here
to talk about it. Ok. So let's talk
about those benefits specifically, how much money can people
save and what's the right way to do this?
Yeah, certainly. Uh, how much people,
money can, how much, uh, money people
can save will vary from person to person. But
I've done the numbers and I think it's somewhere around
$20,000 a year that people could save by adopting a
more minimalist lifestyle. A couple of years ago,
the USA today came out and did a study and
they said that the average American spends$1500 a month
on non essential possessions. Uh, we buy five
times more clothing than we used to just 35 years
ago, over$2000 annually per household. And then
if you were to think storage costs, the third
of Americans rent offsite storage and all the maintenance and
utilities that have to go into caring for bigger and
bigger houses. Uh, over$20,000 per year on
average is what I've come up with that people can
say by decluttering and minimizing their possessions. Ok,
Joshua. So what are the steps, uh,
to be on a path of declutter if that's what
you want to call it? How do you get
started? Sure. Uh, lots of steps.
And, uh, certainly this takes more than one
weekend, at least for most people, it takes
more than one weekend. Uh This is my most
important advice that I give to people when it comes
to decluttering or minimizing their possessions. Number one,
you start in the easiest spaces in your home because
a lot of people think about decluttering and they think
it would be great to go through my garage.
It would be great to go through my attic or
my basement and then you go, spend an hour
and a half in your garage and you see almost
no difference. But if you were to spend an
hour and a half in your living room or your
bedroom, you could see a pretty significant difference just
by taking out all the things that you don't need
. And when you do that, then you start
to feel the difference right away. Uh, you
start to notice how much nicer it is to sit
around in a clutter free living room or wake up
in a clutter free bedroom and then that inspires you
to go tackle the next space and the next space
and the next space eventually getting to the attic in
the basement and the garage. So let's just say
when you're looking through your finances, right, Josh
, and you're trying to figure out where to cut
, to save money.$20,000 a year, you
said on average, do you think people can save
, how do they approach it from a financial perspective
? Well, uh, you know, certainly budgeting
and setting up a, a spending plan. But
what I have found happened in my life and what
I found happened in so many other people's lives is
as you begin removing possessions from your home that you
don't need, just decluttering the stuff that you don't
even want anymore. You start taking boxes and boxes
of things to goodwill or a local thrift store or
I gotta jump in. We're tight on timing.
But this was a great segment, Joshua Becker founder
of becoming minimalist, a website dedicated to intentional living --> .