Preventing the Accumulation of Crap

[Borodog]

Every time I move I throw out 80% of my stuff. Back around 1998 I moved 4 times over the space of about a year and a half, and by the end of it I had a bed, a dresser, a dog and a drum kit. <font color="red"> </font>

[mason55]

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Every time I move I throw out 80% of my stuff. Back around 1998 I moved 4 times over the space of about a year and a half, and by the end of it I had a bed, a dresser, a dog and a drum kit. <font color="red"> </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

oh yeah i totally forgot about this. i've moved ~every 2 months for the last year and i've lived in 11 places since 2002, so that really helps keep crap from accumulating.

[RedBean]

I lost my home in Hurricane Katrina, and years worth of useless crap I had accumulated along with it.

Then the insurance man cut me a check for everything at replacement value, to be used however I wish.

Imagine getting exactly what you originally paid for all the crap you wasted money on over the years and just had sitting around the house collecting dust.

It was great. Thanks NFIP and US taxpayers!

[z28dreams]

My parents are terrible pack rats, and I wanted to help them declutter the house a little.

I ran across an article somewhere that talked about this problem - and they had a pretty clever solution:

Take pictures of any items that you no longer use, but can't bear to part with because of sentimental value.

This way you can keep a photo album of your old memories without keeping the house cluttered with crap.

Another good rule of thumb is that if you upgrade something, you should try to sell the old item while it still has some value. For example, if you currently have a 2ghz computer, and upgrade to a 3ghz one, you'll probably never use that 2ghz one anymore. Right now you might get a couple hundred dollars for it, but in a year or two it will be worth pretty much nothing.

Of course in some cases it makes sense to just keep an item if the value you'd get from selling it is basically nothing.

[DonkeyKongSr]

I've been moving about every year or 2 since college, so I implemented a rule...if something is going to be moved a second time without being used, I probably don't need it. So far it's worked pretty good at getting rid of tons of crap, especially boxes of clothes that I keep figuring I'd wear again. I just took 2 large bags of clothes to Goodwill last week.

[bdk3clash]

Unclutterer is a cool blog dedicated to (duh) ridding one's life of clutter. Lots of good tips and ideas.

[DonkeyKongSr]

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I lost my home in Hurricane Katrina...It was great. Thanks NFIP and US taxpayers!

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds awesome!

[Squattage]

I moved in with my dad recently in his mobile home after getting kicked out of my moms house. I am pretty sure my dads house defines useless crap. Its just a bunch of stuff. Stuff and more stuff, piled.

His table:


Our living room 3 pictures right to left:






Kitchen counter:



It used to be worse, with the bathroom, kitchen floor, and my room but me and my brother since cleaned.
My dad refuses to go through the stuff in the living room and if we do will get mad and say I'll have it all out of here by Sunday and of course never get touched.

[adsman]

Holy crap. I don't know what else to say really.

[Blarg]

I accumulate stuff like crazy, but don't go through many versions of anything. I always buy like it's something I'm going to need for the next 50 years, and then take really good care of it. But I'm always interested in buying kind of odd things, like a high-powered clothes steamer or a cuisinart or breadmaker, that seem very practical in the long run but wind up taking up a lot of space regardless.

If I don't use it anymore, I don't throw it out. Often I'll read a book more than once, sometimes years later -- heck, maybe half a dozen times. Or I'll get back into using a breadmaker or whatever. And old clothes, unless they're really formal or something, I'll just wear around the house. I don't care if a shirt is stained or missing a button or has a torn collar if I'm just sitting around at home and nobody's gonna see it. Seems crazy to buy something new just to hang around at home in when there's stuff already sitting there in the closet that works just fine. If I have to go out, I change.

I do tend to keep old computers forever, and that ca take up space really fast. But a back-up is useful!