3 Keepers and a Regret is a recurring series on Retail Therapy on Substack where I ask people I admire to name 3 things they’d fight to keep — bought, inherited, stolen — and 1 thing they regret.
I’m in awe of how Amy Suto challenges us to re-think our assumptions about money and writing. She’s proof that what we’ve told ourselves isn’t possible — writing full-time, on our own terms — is actually just a decision. I keep my writing as a fun hobby alongside a full-time corporate tech job. Meanwhile Amy’s lived around the world while running the popular Substack writing job board Make Writing Your Job.
She’s a bestselling author — her latest is Write for Money and Power — and the reason I know anything about Substack is Sutoscience, where she’s now dropping a serialized fiction novel in weekly installments.
She’s the kind of person you’d hate if she weren’t so genuinely kind.
Three Keepers
3 things you’d fight to keep — bought, inherited, stolen
No. 1 — 8Sleep mattress
Sleep is so important and having a temperature-controlled mattress is the one splurge that pays off for 8 hours/night! I got this years ago and it's one of my best purchases. The price tag is shocking, but once you consider the payoff of sleeping (way) better than you would on a normal mattress, it's worth it. I also run cold, so I love curling up in bed with a good book in the afternoons and turning up the temperature to +10.
No. 2 — Branch Duo standing desk
I love my standing desk, and the wood is so nice on the Branch desks. They also have some cool attachments like cord organizers, and as something I use daily it was important to get a desk I love writing at each day!
No. 3 — Stainless-steel Vitamix blender
Blending things in plastic is bad if you’re trying to avoid microplastics, and I use my stainless steel Vitamix blender every day for smoothies. Stainless steel is also better if you’re blending things like hot soup ingredients (i.e. for a puree) and it’s really easy to clean!
One Regret
now the regret
I don’t really have buying regrets as a minimalist! Anything I don’t love I end up offloading at Goodwill, but so far I’ve had a good track record of purchases that I’ve loved and kept.
Why I'm Still Shopping
Amy is a minimalist. She doesn’t accumulate regret because she doesn’t accumulate stuff. I tried. I even listened to The Minimalists podcast for a brief stint. But those dudes stressed me out. I was hoping to take little nuggets of lessons that I could apply to my life. You know, ways to have…less. But when they started talking about how they all dress the same, and why they only wear black, I couldn’t do it. Just thinking about it again makes my breathing get way too shallow.
I’m not a minimalist. But I’m apparently open to being influenced by one. I took her Vitamix recommendation. I had just done what I thought was impossible: I broke my machine-grade Vitamix. So much for being indestructible — I don’t even cook.
Amy’s response made me send back the replacement plastic container I’d already received. The stainless-steel is on the way. In case.
Thanks to Amy Suto — subscribe to Make Writing Your Job and Sutoscience. You may not become a minimalist, but you’ll learn lots.
When life stops making sense, we shop. More soon.
3 Keepers & a Regret: Lindsay Sword
Five cities. Ten days. One carry-on. And a boss. I can't do it but Lindsay Sword did.
I love this series!!!