I Moved to NYC with 132 Things
What Walden taught me about saving money
“Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify.”
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Last week, I shared the idea of enough as a ceiling.
A line you draw that protects what matters instead of a finish line you race towards.
The biggest question I get after sharing that story is always: “How did you actually save that money?”
Some people want the math or the budgeting tricks.
But most people want to know about the living part.
How did I stay below the ceiling without feeling deprived?
My path started with subtraction.
Before I Had Anything to Save
In college, long before I had money to manage or a career to optimize, I read Walden. Henry David Thoreau wanted to live deliberately. His experiment wasn’t about living with nothing. It was about asking the questions most of us never stop to ask.
What is essential? And what is simply in the way?
I became obsessed.
I got rid of my furniture and slept on the floor with my mattress. I even gave away my CD collection, which, as a music lover, I considered a timestamp of who I was when I bought each album. I looked at everything I owned and asked: Do I need this, or am I just used to it?
By 1997, I had declared myself a minimalist.
That Christmas, I told my mother I didn’t want presents anymore because I had everything I needed. She paused. “Are socks still okay?” I laughed. “Socks are still okay.”
It was a small moment, but it taught me something. Minimalism changes how you relate to the people around you. My mom didn’t fully understand my choices, but she found a way to meet me there.
I learned that enough doesn’t mean refusing everything. It means knowing what actually matters.
132 Things
When I moved to New York City in 2008, I owned 132 things.
This was around the time the “100 Things Challenge” became popular. A movement challenging people to cut back to the essentials. But I’d already been practicing minimalism for over a decade. For me, it wasn’t a challenge. It was just how I lived.
I know I wouldn’t have been able to move to NYC without minimalism.
I wouldn’t have been able to move quickly, which I did seven times in ten years. And I certainly wouldn’t have been able to afford it all.
Here’s what moving looked like for me: five boxes, a backpack, and a mattress. The longest part was usually walking up the stairs.
I chose to have a roommate. I sold my car. I kept every expense as low as I could without sacrificing what actually mattered to me.
My apartments were sparse, and I leaned into it. I used to joke with my friends: “When I throw a party, it’s BYOC. Bring your own chair.”
Not everything I kept was practical. I had a red spatula that made the cut, and I still have it almost twenty years later. It’s not essential, but it’s mine.
It reminds me that minimalism isn’t about owning nothing. It’s about owning what you actually use and love.
The Day I Sold My Car
Selling my car was one of the most freeing decisions I’ve ever made.
Financially, it was obvious. No insurance, no gas, no maintenance, no parking tickets. But it was more than that. I felt lighter. Like I had just put down a bag I didn’t realize I’d been carrying.
Then I woke up the next morning in a panic.
Where did I park?
For a split second, I genuinely thought I’d forgotten where I left my car. The habit was so deep it outlasted the thing itself.
That feeling faded, and eventually, I grew to love walking everywhere. Taking the train. Hailing a cab when I needed one. I wasn’t missing anything. I was just moving through the city differently.
How The Numbers Took Care of Themselves
Thoreau wrote that “the cost of a thing is the actual amount of life which is required to be exchanged for it.” That idea rewired how I thought about money.
Every purchase became a question: How many hours of my life is this worth?
Once I stopped funding a life I didn’t want, the savings followed. The money you don’t spend is the life you get to keep.
These habits added up: the small apartment, the roommate, the five boxes, and the no-car life. In three and a half years, I saved $30,000.
That’s the money I used to buy my freedom in 2018.
The sabbatical didn’t start when I quit my job. It started in my childhood bedroom in Montana, with a mattress on the floor and a copy of Walden.
Where the Compass Points
When I look back, the Compass was already there.
Undo: What am I maintaining out of habit rather than choice?
One Focus: What am I actually trying to protect right now?
Honor What’s Yours: What feels essential to this life, not someone else’s?
Minimalism gave me space to answer those questions honestly.
A Small Practice
This week, don’t declutter your house.
Instead, ask one question: What is one recurring expense in my life that costs me more life than it gives back?
You don’t need to cancel it yet.
Simply notice it.
Minimalism always starts with awareness. The rest comes later.
Exhale.
P.S. What would you remove if you trusted that you already had enough? What’s the thing you keep “just in case” that might be weighing you down more than you realize?