Are you amazed at all the junk you have collected?

Hanfonius said:
There's always a way of getting rid of junk...

When I was living in Florida, I bought a new 'fridge/freezer.

I put a note up in the charity shop offering the old, but fully functional, 'fridge to anybody he could use it.
... nobody wanted it.

I tried to sell it in the Penny Saver, but not one person called up.

I asked the Council if they had a service where they collected and scrapped it.
They said they could do that, but it would cost me $20.

I stuck it at the bottom of the drive with a large FREE sign on the front.
Nobody wanted it.

After a week, I changed the sign to read '$10 bargain.'
That very night, somebody stole it...

:p
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Did you really do that or is this one of those stories that goes around, that has some life lesson or deep wisdom about the psychology of 'man'?

And I burst out laughing when I reached the end! Aren't we humans the most unstable and weird sort of species?! Amazing
 

It really did happen to me.

I was telling one of my neighbours about it a few days later, and she told me who it was.

The next time I met him, he blushed and stuttered. He knew that I knew.
 
Debby said:
Well if you do manage to part with some of it, you might find that you feel lighter and a little freer. At least that has always been my experience and I love it. My mom hangs on to stuff and I think she's frustrated by it.....but can't let it go, so she's frustrated....(vicious cycle endlessly). Anyway, good luck with your boxes.
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I'm dealing with depression right now and lack of motivation that goes with it. I am going to try and get someone to come in and help me eventually. I only have 3 large boxes. I know I will feel better when I get that sorted out for sure. Thanks Debby.
 

It's taken a few years and is ongoing but I've been tossing and donating up a storm. I know with hubby's disabilities that we're looking at moving in 5-10 years. I can't be overly sentimental when it's time to move. A chuckle...I remember moving to Florida many years back. One of our friends who was helping stood up at one point and said " I am not carrying one more #$%&*#$ box of *&%$&#$$#% books, the rest can %#$%&%& stay here dangnabbit!". The books, clothes, photos, knickknacks, especially. The books I take for donation to my favorite library. There are some titles I will never part with. But then some of them...a book I just put aside today...the history of Lynyrd Skynyrd...bless them, so much of their music on my MP3. But I know the whole story and yup Ronnie is still dead. So time to pass it on to someone else to enjoy ya know?
 
I had way too much stuff for way too many years. Stuff that I knew I needed to get rid of but just couldn't. When I met the Spousal Equivalent and moved into his house, I sold mine. His house was much smaller than mine and there just wasn't any room for me to bring all that "dearly beloved" junk, so I had a giant 3-day garage sale and sold almost everything I owned except my clothes, a couple articles of furniture and several packers of photos. What didn't sell got donated. I felt so liberated, it felt like I had lost 600 pounds. I almost floated away. I couldn't believe that all those years I had carried that junk from state to state and house to house because I thought it was important. It wasn't. It wasn't junk...it just wasn't anything I actually needed.

I will never let myself get that bogged down again.
 
I'm in the process of getting rid of stuff. Not so much real "junk," but things I really don't need or will realistically never use again., like giant pans I used to use when I cooked for a mob of a family. I'm making good progress. I first started out thinking I'd just go through like a whirlwind and do it all at once. That didn't work out well and I got all bogged down. So now I set reasonable goals, either time-wise or project-wise (I'll go through that cabinet out in the utility room) and I'm doing much better.

Funny how hard it is to let some things go -- maybe part of it is looking at our own mortality and realizing we'll never use that thing, whatever it is, again, when we used to use it all the time.
 
'Funny how hard it is to let some things go -- maybe part of it is looking at our own mortality and realizing we'll never use that thing, whatever it is, again, when we used to use it all the time.

How profound, Butterfly, and so very true - even though it hurts us to accept it.
 
A lot of my stuff wasn't so much junk, more a load of redundant tech! When I retired from video production, the industry was just transistioning from analogue over to digital. One piece of kit, an audio/video mixer, cost me around £1500, I recently saw one on ebay sell for £26.00! So like some others here. I put a whole load of gear out for the 'pixies' in the front garden. they didn't disappoint! I even put a £1000 camcorder that had 'ceased to function' in the trashcan!
 
We did the same kind of thing this last move! My husband said if it wasn't so outdated, he could have stocked a small electronics store! And like you, we gave two 'used once' camcorders to the recycler! Now that was a pain, thinking about the money wasted in our youth so that we could supply a recycler with free 'junk'.
 
One of the things that I tried to get rid of when clearing my loft was an Apple G4 computer and monitor. Could I get anyone to take it? Nope, not a one! I don't want to dump it so it is still in the loft. The number of computer games, videos, DVDs, small TVs etc that I dumped was criminal. I did give a load of stuff to charity shops, such as books and clothes. But other stuff is just not wanted.

We waste too much on this planet. :(
 
Weeding through clothes is a job in itself. Outdated, out of fashion, too big, too small, stained, stretched out. The last time I donated clothes I needed a leaf bag. How do we gather so much stuff? Do clothes hide in the closet somehow reproducing?
 
fureverywhere said:
Weeding through clothes is a job in itself. Outdated, out of fashion, too big, too small, stained, stretched out. The last time I donated clothes I needed a leaf bag. How do we gather so much stuff? Do clothes hide in the closet somehow reproducing?
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Why, yes they do! That green blouse that you bought because you were sure you'd be able to find a pair of slacks to go with it (which you didn't) has had it's eye on the mauve skirt you bought because you were sure you'd be able to find a sweater to wear with it (again, which you didn't) for three years. Finally, they have managed to relocate next to each other. One thing leads to another and voila! a litter of checked shorts you wouldn't wear to take the garbage out, a lilac sweater that's just a hair too small and three pairs of jeans that make you look like your grandmother have been born. That's how it happens.
 
I admit it. I'm one of those hoarder people, but with paper. You don't know how hard it was to shred my 1972 New York City phone bills. I shredded them in 1994, when I lived in PA. You never know, there may be a 22 year old New York number I might need.
 
I admit it. I'm one of those hoarder people, but with paper. You don't know how hard it was to shred my 1972 New York City phone bills. I shredded them in 1994, when I lived in PA. You never know, there may be a 22 year old New York number I might need.

Oy my mother in law too. There are drawers in the basement I haven't even gotten to and the poor soul has been gone more than a decade. Public service bills for 1966-1969? Yup I've got them...Water bills from when they lived in Newark? Check, Prayer cards for hundreds of people only she knew? All of it is down there.
 
Given that we moved 2000 miles a year and a half ago, I am appalled at the "stuff" that we don't have a place for. Stuff is a 5 letter word.
 
Back to clothes spontaneously reproducing...that explains it perfectly. If you have a drawer with six three quarter sleeve t shirts...it's easy to understand that after a year or so you open the same drawer and there are fifteen shirts and a few nests of mismatched socks that migrated from other drawers, possibly other rooms...I'm getting frightened now
 
When my husband died in September of 2010 I moved in December into an apartment in town. I only took what I needed since the apartment was small. I put the house and everything left in it up for auction in October of 2011. Two and a half years later I bought a house. Packing up my apartment I could not believe how much stuff I had accumulated over the years. I decided that I was going to be better at getting rid of things I don't need. If something happened to me I want my children to not have to worry about getting rid of any junk.
 
If something happened to me I want my children to not have to worry about getting rid of any junk.

Well yes and no...I'll point out things to younger son. I'm sure him and his brother will weed through my personal effects, mostly books and knick knacks...for things that have meaning to them. Then donate the rest. My Mom passed on many years ago. My Dad took a year then donated clothes and much else. For me...the memories of her are summed up in two handfuls of pictures. There is a tiny orange tabbie statue, several Erma Bombeck books she inscribed to me, a Shalimar perfume filled cat statue. That's it...we don't have to keep everything, our kids won't.
 

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