Becoming Minimalist

I'm an engineer living in the UK who likely _could_ move to the US and take a larger salary, but actively choose not to pursue that option. As I've said many times on this site, it's likely that after paying rent for an apartment in SF, health insurance, and all my living costs, my pay after that would be more than the gross pay of an engineer in most parts of the UK, I still decide not to move for a few reasons.

The first question I ask is what would I do with the extra money. I don't _want_ to retire at 40 to pursue my dreams, I like what I'm doing and the pace that I'm doing it at. If I had the choice, I would choose to be where I am doing what I am doing. Why would I move somewhere else for 10 years to make money only to come back and do what I'm doing right now? [0]. I have friends, family, a life here. I don't want to uproot all of that (I have no kids and have already moved country, I don't want to do it again unless it would improve my quality of life). My partner would likely need to find something to do, as it's unlikely she would find a company willing to sponsor a visa for her line of work. Health care being tied to my place of employment is a total nightmare - I can only imagine what happens if I'm in a car accident and I end up at the wrong hospital, or treated by an anaesthetist that is out of network. It's also not just me, the injustice of it boils my blood, and I don't really want to contribute to that system.

I own a car, but it spends 5 days a week…

From [1], we already allocate roughly $6k per person per year in the US, enough to fork over $25k/year to the poorest 20%. (This doesn't account for the potential savings of reduced crime (prisons are expensive!), improved health/nutrition, reduced administrative overhead of replacing all welfare systems with a single basic income, etc.)

Also: not all value is neatly captured on a W-2 form. If turning my backyard into a decorative garden allows me to set a higher sale price for my home later, I've contributed. If I buy groceries so that I can play videogames all day without falling over from hunger, I've contributed. (If I can pay in cash instead of food stamps because I collect a basic income, even better: there's less bureaucracy on the way to collecting tax on my purchases from the grocery store.)

[2] notwithstanding, people who contribute literally nothing to the economy are extremely rare.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_budget

[2]: http://www.becomingminimalist.com/the-man-who-quit-money-an-interview-with-daniel-suelo/

>I'm finding that the rewards in mental health are more than sufficient to justify the astronomical opportunity cost.

The opportunity cost is that obiefernandez is not working to earn money? Or not studying to improve their income? Earning money to be able to spend it later on things like overseas travel.

Reminiscent of Heinrich Böll's parable of the fisherman: https://www.becomingminimalist.com/recognizing-happiness/ (this version doesn't presume the fisherman is Mexican - is the original story in German?).

It took about 3 seconds to check. Pop open the case the tapes came in and look at the plastic window and you can easily see both reels. If the tape was all on the left reel, it was rewound. Just about all rental places did this when you returned the tape. Audio cassette tapes were the same way. The VHS cassette was basically just a larger version of an audio cassette with wider and longer tape.

Pic of rewound VHS: https://www.becomingminimalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/vhstape.jpg

You might be interested in this 10 year old (well, ancient, but rebranded for millennials) trend called "minimalism":

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/what-is-minimalism/

https://www.theminimalists.com/archives/

And relevant vloggers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrf_dMnatW0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVcwvCL2C2c

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCZ40QwZtFs_7h5MZ0ZTTwg

and so on...