Chucking 'stuff' out

[Mr Ree]

Unbelievably difficult this.

I've got a load of trophies here going back up to 30 years of my motorclub and motor sport competing days, some of them actually quite nice, pewter mugs, wooden plaques and loads of half pint cut glass tankards.

Trouble is, as nice as it was to proudly receive them on the days of my achievements, they are actually now....lets be honest... just dust gathering tat that no one actually gives a single jot about.

Qusetion is then, do I simply smash them all up and chuck them in the skip, or lovingly wrap them up in tissue paper and store them in the loft in a carboard box for eternity, and leave them for someone else to lob away in decades to come?

Same could be said for much other stuff that lies around unused and never or rarely looked at too....photo's for instance. :'(

This is one horrible dilema, but it can't constantly be brushed under the carpet.

How do you lot deal with it?

Edited 9 December, 2010 by Mr Ree

[mikey vrs]

I to have some motor club trophys etc & whilst i dont have them on show anymore it was still a part of my life i enjoyed so mine are boxed up & in the loft. i personally wouldnt throw them away.

['daiking']

I posted a similar thread earlier in the year (in the Freedom section) but I didn't get much help either. I think I was hoping that someone would put me in the direction of buddhism but asking on a forum largely inhabited by car-proud, obsessive, compulsive, techno-geeks was probably doomed to failure. Contrary to what people think, they don't own a lot of their possessions, their possessions own them instead.

In your case, I would suggest you keep a few that mean the most to you and then get rid of the rest now if you're not going to display them. Are there any that could be re-used? Passed to some organisation that could benefit from them? Although its easy to say, it's not so easy to do :(

Shame it was trophies, if you had collected something like comics/books/magazines for years and stored them in the attic they would have contributed to your household insulation and you could argue that you should leave them there indefinitely.

found it, are you 'here' yet?

It's easy enough to say that if you don't use something for 12 months then you don't need it and I agree, you don't need it but that doesn't make it any easier to throw it away, does it?

You wonder about the media you own. I don't read books again but I've kept them for years, should I just get rid of them as they are no longer useful to me? What about the books you bought but never read? Just a burden to be packed, transported, stored and dusted for evermore? Ditto, music. If I haven't listened to a CD for years, should I get rid of it? But if you have been forced to store them in a box, hidden away, is it really your fault you haven't listened to it? Out of sight, out of mind and all that. Tapes, yes audio cassette tapes and I can't remember the last time I played a tape but I have a shoe box full of them. Videos? I still have my VCR, tucked away. No good now because of the digital switchover but still in a box along with a few VHS tapes. Stick or Bin? I can see where my wife is coming from, it does look like loads and loads of stuff but its not like its just rubbish.

You'll know what I mean, you've got your main toolbox and then you've got your plumbing kit, your decorating stuff, your multiple power tools, the little 'house' toolkit (to save you digging the big one out). The various "spare" bits of wood, flooring and off-cuts she may have a point about but there's nothing worse than needing a little bit of something to do a job and having to buy 10x the amount you need at 5x the amount it should cost because that is all you can find. So it can be worth hoarding those bits...

No one has just a TV and maybe a video like when you were a child, there's the massive TV and the DVD player, the video, the PVR, the xbox, the playstation, all the controllers, discs, accessories, bloody remotes, plugs and cables you need. Computers are a massive space-consuming, life-sapping con too, there's the PC, the monitor, the wireless router, the speakers (with subwoofer to waste more space), the external storage because, ironically, you don't have enough space inside you computer so you have to waste your physical space outside it, multi-function printer, the laptop, the camera, the camcorder and the tens of leads and other ****y little bits you need to make it all work. Then the kitchen, in which you have the kettle, the toaster, the steamer, the juicer, the (2) coffee machines, sandwich toastie-er, the food processor, the hand blender, the microwave. That's before you get into all that duplicate crockery, utensils, saucepans, baking trays, oven dishes, plastic boxes and other things and yet frequently you don't have the right size pan/plate/dish/box that you actually want. How... the... frig... can that happen?!?! You've got millions of the buggers but they're all wrong, just how?

I can skip the bathroom because I could happily fit all my toiletries requirements in one of those sandwich bags you get for your liquids at the airport. Good job really with the amount of stuff the wife has, you'd think she was a witch by the number of strange smelling, fancy coloured potions left lying around and I don't nag her about that, me? I'm easy come, easy go when it comes to stuff. And last but not least, the biggest culprit, inversely proportional to actual size at consuming space, the small child. Time and time again, you and your wife remark to each other that there's no need for toys as he would happy with an empty box play with. Funnily enough about every time he's playing with the empty box from yet another Chinese originating assault on your increasingly highly strung mental condition that masquerades as a child's toy but no one ever, ever, ever listens.

I am choking on a fog of debt-fuelled, narcissistic consumerism, drowning in a hot tub of resource wasting, exploitative consumption. Stop the ride I want to get off.

I just knew it would be a mistake to watch Fight Club again last night, schoolboy error. I am so not going to watch V for Vendetta tonight. Ironic to think it was written during Thatcher's reign but it has been a socialist administration that has brought it closer to reality than anyone could ever have imagined. I think I'll watch the Matrix instead, doh.

Also, I told a lie, I can remember the last time I played a tape, My wife got me a car CD player in 2005 so I've not played a tape in 5 years. It was an Alpine unit, nice one, used it for 18 months, took it out when I traded the car, saving it for when my wife gets a runaround, still in the box in the storage cupboard...

Edited 9 December, 2010 by 'daiking'

[PastyBoy]

I have been on both ends of this dilema.

When I was involved in the clearance of my Gran's house after she had passsed away we quickly discovered that over decades & decades she had filled almost an entire room religiously "collecting" every weekly issue of the local newspaper.

It wasn't just just the ones where people she knew or family or things that affected her were published it was EVERY single issue.

The solution? - One very large and very long burning bonfire!

However it may be a genetic thing as during a recent house move i refused point blank to throw away my "collection" of Evo magazines stretching back almost 10 years and numbering probably 130 issues (and weighing an absolute ton!)

Why am i keeping them?

Do i want to be able to dig one out and read how the original Clio 172 compared against the then new bug-eyed Impreza?

Do need to know again that the Leon Cupra is due to decrown the 306 GTI-6 as king of the hot hatch?

I have no idea - however i was damn sure i wasn't throwing them away!

[Jabbasport]

Mine is boxes.

I get new stuff, and have to keep the box.. I have a cupboard full of empty boxes for things i own. Drives the missus crazy, but i cant bring myself to throw a box out in case i ever sell something..

Kev

[Mr Ree]

AGGGHHHHHH! You lot are supposed to be helping me, not making me laugh and also making me feel more confused and frustrated.

I just need someone to honestly tell me to bin the lot, NOT tell me how you can't bare to do it either. :'(

[Simon Cobb]

I posted a similar thread earlier in the year (in the Freedom section) but I didn't get much help either. I think I was hoping that someone would put me in the direction of buddhism but asking on a forum largely inhabited by car-proud, obsessive, compulsive, techno-geeks was probably doomed to failure. Contrary to what people think, they don't own a lot of their possessions, their possessions own them instead.

In your case, I would suggest you keep a few that mean the most to you and then get rid of the rest now if you're not going to display them. Are there any that could be re-used? Passed to some organisation that could benefit from them? Although its easy to say, it's not so easy to do :(

Shame it was trophies, if you had collected something like comics/books/magazines for years and stored them in the attic they would have contributed to your household insulation and you could argue that you should leave them there indefinitely.

found it, are you 'here' yet?

Wonderful :yes: sums up perfectly where I'm at with my life and possessions. I read this just after I'd looked round our reasonably large 4-bedroomed house, where every flat surface in it seems covered in various detritus that just needs to be biffed. That's because every cupboard, the garage, the lost are all full to overflowing already. It's a nightmare and I have to do something about it. Try googling "How to Live with Just 100 Things" and you (I) might be inspired to make a start.

[Kandy]

You will feel remarkably good after chucking out a load of stuff! All that stuff is holding you back, cluttering up your life, just let it go.

Edited 9 December, 2010 by Kandy

[Paul007]

BIN IT

[The Ors]

In your case, I would suggest you keep a few that mean the most to you and then get rid of the rest...

I agree (kind of). Choose one. Just one. Keep it & display it. Throw the rest away.

I have to admit it though; I just can't throw stuff away either but when I do I feel really good.

HTH

[Rhoobarb]

If the stuff was that important to you, you wouldn't be asking the question

Saying that though I am one for 'you never know when you might need it', especially cables and wires. I recently cleared out 2 large bin bags of computer cables and still had enough 'keepers' to fill a jumbo size toy box type container

But as these don't really have much use other than cluttering, personally I'd keep a couple of the good 'uns and throw the rest..

Perhaps any children who might appreciate them?