“All this means that the total cost of stuff is much larger than its initial sticker price. Despite this, and perhaps due to short-sightedness or failure to take the systemic problem into account, owning many things is often confused with a high quality of life. Hence, reducing the amount of stuff is perceived as a major barrier. As a counter-reaction, a recent trend towards simplification is to own as few things as possible. Here, the barrier prevents owning more things. The optimal point is somewhere in the middle. In particular, it’s important to realize that it’s not the things themselves that are the problem; it is their side effects! ”

拥有物品的成本不仅仅买来时的价格，还有拥有它的空间和时间成本。作者觉得物品需要有好的质量和低的lifetime cost，这不代表这个物品的价格低。举个栗子，买把切菜刀可以很便宜，也可以很贵，便宜的刀可能2年就不行了，贵的刀加一定的保养可能可以用20年甚至更长时间。

“Annual cost = (Your cost - Used price)/(Years in service). The depreciation principle is widely understood to apply to cars, given the popularity of the used car market. Most people have an idea of the blue book value of their car–that is, how much it can be sold for used. However, everything else has a market price even if it doesn’t have an army of salesmen or corresponding blue book. Make it a point to know the market price of all your stuff. Doing so makes it a simple matter to calculate the annual depreciation cost, which is the true cost of ownership. Everything I own is for sale. In my mind, I’m only holding it temporarily. If I need something else for a while, I can always buy it on eBay or find it on Freecycle or Craig’s List. In this way, these become like giant libraries of stuff I can “rent” for a while at the cost of depreciation. With sufficient capital, the initial outlay never matters. What matters is the depreciation cost because this determines how much value can be recovered. Even though this is nominally ownership, I prefer not to think of it this way, which allows me to avoid becoming attached to my stuff.”

这儿作者具体说了他觉得物品只是暂时拥有，成本可以按每年的成本来计算。