"Minimalism is expensive" vs "Minimalism is cheap". What's the truth?

Seems like we have two schools of thought:<br><br>**1. "Minimalism is expensive"**: where people say that minimalism is only for rich folks who can afford $3000 planting tables and 300 dollar pots made of porcelain and glass and fancy expensive knick-knacks from West Elm. Apparently, you need a ton of money to look minimalist, as it turns out.<br><br>**2. "Minimalism is cheap"**: where people say that the true way to be minimalist is to be frugal and lower-class. If you cut out all the noise and truly live with the bare essentials, that's always the traditional working-class or lower-class way of living, where people didn't have a lot of money for fancy things and had to make do with the bare essentials --- broken hand-me-downs, hand-me-downs from mother to daughter, giving things to each other, buying secondhand, borrowing from your neighbors, etc. This is the frugal, thrifty version of minimalism, where you live life as cheaply as possible, and you *never* throw anything out. You fix things yourself, use rags instead of paper towels, have a victory garden to save on food costs (no fancy pre-washed, pre-cut veggies here), and you buy in bulk and save as much money as possible. Never waste, never throw anything out, and never throw away broken stuff because you can fix it yourself.<br><br>Which one is the truth? Is it both? I'm leaning towards the second, because the first is definitely not sustainable. But I'm also sure there are plenty of counterarguments for the second as well, since this seems to be the *same* kind of lifestyle that your grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents had for generations. Like, is this really minimalism, or is this just plain old-fashioned living? Because I don't know about you all, but I feel like "plain old-fashioned living" doesn't sound like "minimalism" to me.