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How Much Junk Do You Have?


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For me, this is a space and "do I want to pay to have someone move this?" thing. I'm not much of a hoarder-I like clean space and keeping my things organized. I've only moved 5 times in my life and this is the 2nd time in this situation-a temporary apartment between houses. I don't want to get rid of things I could use in my next home but since the next home is unknown-I don't know what I'll need or what will fit. If I end up going to Florida, I can leave almost all the furnishings behind because they'd look ridiculous in a sub-tropical place.

 

But when I saw things being moved into this apartment that I haven't done much with since the LAST move-it's inspired me to do a major purge again. Like, I loved my grandmother's dishes, but they likely weren't decent china and I never used them at my Tacoma house so they dot donated.

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If things hold no sentimental and/or practical value, by all means, toss.

 

The attachment to the carpet and the light fixtures (ok, a really nice chandelier is one thing) is a little concerning, but I think we've talked about that in another thread. But I may not have normal "nesting" instincts, either. My mother-in-law got way more worked up about the aesthetic appeal of my window treatments than I did (and then I thought what she did was horribly impractical). I do understand being upset about having invested so much (energy and money) in what you thought would be your forever home. I think you've chosen to grieve for that instead of the relationship, which I think you realized was unhealthy long ago.

 

I hope you can get your own space, soon. And Tami, I love you and I would miss you even though we don't get together often, but you need to get the hell out of Seattle. It's not you, it's Seattle. This place is getting ridiculously expensive, and I think you'd be happier somewhere else where the cost of living was less and the lifestyle was a little more laid back. It would be so much less stress and I think you'd be happy getting to "nest" again.

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I think you're correct on all counts, though some of them make me sad.

 

YES, I AM grieving the loss of my home. I LOVED that home. I never thought I'd ever be able to live somewhere that nice and now I live in a smeely dorm and I did nothing to get myself here.

 

I don't mourn the relationship because it was so awful at the end.

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I purge with every move and love it. My current place has about the same amount of living space as the last, but a fraction of the storage.

 

I got an entire garage down to 6 totes.

 

I'm not going to lie-- I equate the amount of stuff one keeps to their ability to deal with life. Streamlined space, streamlined life. My rule for the last few years has been to let the space dictate how much stuff I have.

 

No more clothes than what fits in my dresser. No more books than what fits on the shelf. No more bluerays than what fits under the TV. If something comes in, something has to go out.

 

The digitalizing of everything helps. I don't need 300 DVDs when I can have it on demand for $3. I only have movies that are collectables, unavailable streaming or stuff I know I'll watch over and over.

I like this. The only thing I do "collect" is books, and this not entirely rationally. I read way more online than I do on paper.

 

My wife on the other hand is a compulsive pack rat, and even has some tendencies of a full-on hoarder - any surface area will soon be home to stacks of papers. Sentimental attachment to insignificant things. Always losing and misplacing things. Becoming obsessed over misplaced stuff. She's nothing like what you'd see on "Hoarders" but it's still a nuisance.

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Do you even fathom how much other STUFF you could have bought with $600?!?! This is just insane, and I know our values don't mesh on this. But I'm the type that would just as soon have a bare light bulb sticking out of the ceiling than spend even $100 on some "fixture" whose only purpose is ornament.


And as Pong points out, you could have bought a lot of XP with that much gold.

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Yeah, I know exactly how much I spent on it. Again, I thought that was going to be the last dining room light fixture I ever bought. I LOVE that light. I spent my best money on my home and garden because they brought me the most pleasure.

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Whether we spend on these things or those things, whether we spend little on lots or lots on little, we all spend on something.

I think my wife paying $6 for a 12pack of soda a week is a waste. I see that $6 as the $24 dollars a month it is. I know that's more than Netflix, could be applied to a bill or to [insert other item]. Soda is gross. However I spend $4 a week on candy bar flavored coffee creamer and $20 once monthly on coffee, so...

Bi-Monthly I buy at least two geeky t-shirts, usually $15 a pop. Every five years I buy a new game console, easily $500. During those five years I easily spend $500 on games. I've been gaming, off my dime, for 20 years. From 16yo to 21yo I bought every 3 3/4in Star Wars Figure I could find, no multiples. They ranged from $5 to $25 and I had hundreds. In the last 7 years I've spent $30k on three vacations. Within 3 years I am planning another $10k at least vacation. It's not just stupid things we buy either. A yearly bus pass is like a hundred bucks or so. In gas alone I spend that on our car in two months, often just in a month depending on what we did.

It all adds up, whether saved for big stuff or spent like erosion. We all spend money and it all could be spent "better", but what is better?

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If you go by Ev's plan, you spend your money very simply so you can save for retirement and spend the rest on drugs.

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So I have a story about this concerning my Dad and Step-mom you guys may have heard.

 

My parents own 2 acres of land. It's sloped down to the back and there is a little creek that runs down to a lake in a greenbelt behind there house. When it rains hard the land around my parents house turns kind of river-ee and a lot of stuff gets washed away. So in the course of 25+ years my Step-mom has done a lot to the yard. She's had thousands of tons of dirt trucked in and has been reshaping the yard to create run off spots away from the house and areas that people hang out. They put up some nice retaining walls and there's tons of plantings. She's even decided she didn't like the grass they had so they got a permit to control burn and then planted new grass of a different type. On two acres of land. My parents house is a shining example of the "HOA YARD OF THE MONTH".

 

One time my Dad's old projection teevee - one from back when they first were popular died. So my Dad went to Best Buy and bought 3600 dollars worth of tee vee and surround sound Bose quality speakers and a juke box sized CD player so he could put ALL his cds in and using the teevee to play them in playlists like a regular jukebox. It held over 1000 cds. This was back before iPods and such were all the rage. He came home and my Dad started setting up his deaf man's man cave in the family room. He was all excited because he was thinking of the movies and spending time on their huge deck dancing outside the family room which has four french doors that open up to the outside to expand living areas.

 

My Step-mom lost her **** on my Dad. She screamed and yelled and stomped her feet and pouted and refused to make dinner for my Dad that night because he didn't ask her first and she thought it was a huge waste of money. She wanted him to take it all back.

 

My Dad promptly went to his office and pulled out the receipts for EVERYTHING they've ever spent on that godforsaken lawn and yard he's had to mow and prune and take care of every Saturday and every Saturday for the rest of his life. He got an adding machine and went to the dining room where my Step-Mom was and started adding up the receipts for all of it. New lawn grass, soil, Chem-lawn treatments to come out and feed the grass so it would grow, trees that my Mom had planted, expensive bushes, the berms built to help prevent soil erosion, the fancy retaining wall to replace the rail-road ties. ALL OF IT. 250K

 

Then he told her he gets to keep his teevee stuff. And asked for his dinner.

 

Torch's story reminded me of the things that married couples buy which is why I thought of that story. I mean what does a man say when his wife spends money on pedi and manicures but bitches when he goes out to eat for lunch at work?

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I never used to be a pack rat, but I've recently realized I have too much stuff that I need to sell or donate. I have a whole bookshelf of DVDs and CDs, that I need to just sell. Speaking of bookshelves, I also need to make a trip to a second-hand book store and thin that book collection out, too. I also need to go through a 5X10 storage locker I've been paying $70/month for 2 years now. I've got so many random things in there, that I know at least half if not 3/4 could just be sold or donated. Like old PCs, printers, and parts, various collectables, old military gear, and other sentimental stuff. I am thinking if I can't remember I even have it, it needs to go. I'd be happy if I could sell enough stuff to get it down to a 5X5 locker. Maybe we ought to open a thread for selling stuff?

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laugh out loud.

 

I don't even know what my Step-dad has in his garage. I know that he couldn't pass up a yard sale. I also know that once he tried to pass off a 5 gallon bucket of that yellow road stripe paint. I want to fix up his 56 convertible Mercedes. It's powder blue and has a hard top. My brother Matt said he was renting a construction dumpster. Not hoarders level but pretty bad.

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