Im a minimalist who owns barely anythingI save $2K monthly despite living in an expensive city

Despite living in one of the country’s most expensive cities—San Diego, where median home prices have skyrocketed to nearly $1 million—bartender Alicia Rice routinely saves $2,000 a month and has no debt.Despite living in one of the country’s most expensive cities—San Diego, where median home prices have skyrocketed to nearly $1 million—bartender Alicia Rice routinely saves $2,000 a month and has no debt.“People think living like this is deprivation or I’m suffering, but I’m completely content with what I have,” says Rice, who earns $70,000 a year.“It’s very liberating not to want things all the time.

We’ve been sold this idea that more is more.”Rice, 40, who chronicles her adventures in what she calls “ultraminimalism” on her YouTube channel Exploravore, estimates she has saved tens of thousands in the five years she’s been an extreme minimalist.Depending on whether she’s traveling, Rice stashes away $500 to $2,000 a month in a savings account.(She does not invest in the stock market.)Compare this to the $1,000 a month she figures she used to shell out on nonessentials while living like a maximalist in Las Vegas, with at least 1,000 items in her wardrobe.“I had a gigantic walk-in closet filled with every kind of clothing you can imagine,” she says in a video.

“The irony is, I didn’t wear most of it.”Despite working two jobs and having a cheap $600 monthly rent, she says she was living “paycheck to paycheck” and “not saving anything.”After a breakup, the former swimming coach moved to San Diego and began a decade-long process of shedding most of her possessions.Even as a child, she’d had a natural inclination to not want things.

(“Why would I want more than one doll?” she asks in a video.“You can only hold one at a time.”)Somehow, that philosophy had gotten buried under rampant materialism.She became more committed to minimalism after seeing the hit 2021 Netflix documentary “The Minimalis...