Do you hang on to stuff?

boogieman

I was over at my mum's this weekend and asked if I could have a sift through her old family photos to scan them. We ended up going through the cupboards and I was amazed at the amount of things she's kept. Not only things you might reasonably expect, like my old school reports, but things like a couple of Boots photo gear catalogues from 1968 and 1970 and even odd newspapers from the 50's and 60's. Some things have significance, like newspaper articles with my family members in, but other things seem just randomly kept. My mum doesn't see this as odd...she says everyone accumulates things and she's been in the house for 50 odd years so stuff builds up.

This got me thinking...is my mum weird or does everyone do it? I'm guilty of hanging on to things that have good memories for me, like old gig tickets, but not just random shit.

On a positive note, we did find my dad's medal ribbons from WW2, completely unworn and still in their original box from the MoD.

Phil_aka_Pip

Reasons for hanging on to stuff: you might need it, or you've some sentimental reason for not chucking it. In the former case, I believe your financial status affects these decisions. If something breaks and you're rich, you chuck it because you can always afford a new one. If you're skint you'll keep it in the fond hope of repairing it or being able to use its parts for something else. The skinter you are the more junk you will accumulate.

CabbageCat

I'm a pretty bad hoarder but I'm becoming less sentimental about stuff as I get older. I could happily skip most of my junk now.

bertie

yes,  tins of paint and bits of old timber mainly.

boogieman

Garages are different. You're allowed to hoard old tut in them. Broke my heart when I moved out of my old marital home and into a flat, my collection of stuff that could be useful one day had to be left behind. The ex skipped if all shortly afterwards, obviously the bitch had no soul. :x

VimFuego

I'm not too bad, but mrs f is from a family of chronic hoarders. It was a nightmare clearing out her dad's place when he died, he didn't only hoard his stuff, he used to take stuff out of skips to hoard.

Col_Decker

Kind of on the flip side of that: after my nan died a few years back we were sorting through her stuff and found a pic of her and her 5 sisters when they were in their 20s. My nan was the only to get married and have kids, all the others died young or were spinsters. In the end nobody wanted the photo and it got binned (I guess we were all looking to move on, not hold on).

Later it struck me that that non of the sisters had any living family, and there was no real record of any of their lifes, like they'd never exisited. Not keeping that picture I think is the only real regret I have in life.

JAYJO

I hang on to stuff but never get to use it. Left over paint! No she wants fresh, so i hoard it for years and then bin it. We moved house and she refused to hang any pictures/mirrors from the other house, rugs infact 80% of what i paid the removal men to bring she /  I renewed!. I tripped over all this tat for 18 months doing the house up and then are fck it, it just annoys me. 

ESBlonde

I have been bad in the past but am coming to terms slowly.

Summer 2012 I had to empty the loft of my hoardings to redo the insulation and provide access to solar panel chaps. It was hot as all hell in the loft and I determined to not repeat the excesses. There are christmas decs, camping gear and suitcases plus a small quantity of memerables, everything else went in the skip. I realised that if anything happened to me nothing else would have any value to my teenage children and so hoarding was pointless.

This summer I attacked the garage too, I disposed of two car trailer loads of timber (saved just in case) and still had about 40% of the total retained! Lots of other junk too. I do have lots of tools and stuff as well as well which I kept but it's unlikely my children would quite fear going into the garage like they once might.

Last winter it looked like this.

boogieman

ESBlonde;62614" said:

This summer I attacked the garage too,
Last winter it looked like this.

That's pretty much what my g/f's garage looked like when I moved in with her. She had her father's stuff & her husband's stuff in there (she's a widow) plus a crapload of her son's gear too. We binned some of it but a lot was worth keeping, like decent tools, so we put up loads of shelving and also reused some old kitchen units. At least the floor's clear now & I can fit my motorbike in easily.

Tex Mexico

When I broke up with my horrible fucking ex three years ago, the bitch flat locked me out and pretended to be scared of me so she had the cops called who politely told me to fuck off elsewhere as they were completely unprepared to help me despite me not having done anything wrong and been made homeless (I love cops, when they're around it's like you can actually watch your taxes get pissed down a drain). I lost everything except the clothes I had on and the gear I had in the rehearsal space. Eventually got some of it back (only cos her vicious little bitch of a sister started briefly knocking boots with a friend of mine, long story), but lost the rest.

You'd expect there to be some back end about no longer having as many possessions and so on, but I actually own more things now, the difference being that my wife isn't a maniac. If anything having a good relationship with a normal woman encourages me to enjoy life and the things in it a lot more.

stickyfiddle

I tend to have a big clearout whenever we move house (twice in the last 4 years). It's a good feeling, and means you know that the tat you have kept is good stuff and being kept for a reason.  I still have a bunch of old toys at my folks house that need going through but that'll have to wait (and probably turfing out mostly).

ddlooping

Quite a lot of the stuff I have should go on sale but I can't be bothered to take photos, research pricing... :-S 

Ex: Marshall JMP1, Line6 Spider III, Yamaha APX-8A, Fender Roland-Ready Strat, Roland VG-99 (flight cased with Roland XV5050), Roland FC-500, Yamaha AES620, M&K home cinema speakers, Zoom A2.1u, Takamine EG512CFG electro-acoustic bass, 3 WD-Music necks, Fernandes MIJ gold Strat...
  

bertie

dust

Phil_aka_Pip

When I left my 1 bed ground floor flat (+ 2 rented lockup garages) I disposed of 1/3 of my life, and moved to a 3bed semi. When I left that some 2 years later I disposed of another 1/3 of my life to come to the place I'm in now. Now that i am considering moving again, I find that there's virtually nothing I wish to dispose of, a lot of my stuff is musical gear I acquired while living here.

dafuzz

It was only a couple of months ago I recycled a bunch of Guitarist mags from 1990 - 95. I've still got every comic I ever bought, including such treasures as Beano, Dandy, Whizzer & Chips, Hoot, Eagle, 2000AD, the list goes on. At least I think I have. My mum probably chucked them all after I left. I bloody hope not. I prefer not to think about it. Shit I'm really worried now. I'm just off to wash my hands

ICBM

These days I really try not to hang on to junk - it's quite hard though, as a fixer-type person it's difficult to throw out stuff when you know you might need it one day, for something you haven't yet thought of...

JookyChap

I get rid of everything, don't own any fotos, books, music, nothing. Until I was thirty I  could move house with a carrier bag.

My missus on the other hand can't get rid of anything, ever. We've got sets of golf clubs (she has never played) every item of clothing or toy the brats have had over the last decade... Worst of it is that she watches those hoarder programmes and doesn't see what is staring her in the fucking face. She is a fruitloop I tell you, barking. Arrghh

Spider

I hang on to all sorts of stuff, but don't you find that within two weeks of getting rid of or binning something that you hadn't even looked at in years, you NEED it?  :x

monquixote

I hate stuff and clutter. 

Unfortunately now I have a wife and kid and a small house I'm drowning in it! 

viz

My sister's friend's granny died and when sorting out her stuff they found a jamjar labelled "bits of string too short to be of any use". It's the only thing of hers they didn't throw away.