Preventing the Accumulation of Crap

[neuroman]

Everyone has useless crap they don't need--a box of fair condition Topps baseball cards from 1988, old clothes that are never worn anymore, high school trophies that no longer have any meaning, board games that don't get played, etc.

How much useless crap do you guys have?

Do you ever make any active efforts to get rid of it, like going through your closet to throw out old clothes? Or when you're out shopping, do you ever see a cool looking widget and think to yourself "that would be fun, but after a few weeks it'll just sit around as clutter?"

I think it's pretty amazing how much stuff people have that they don't need (or even use) at all.

[mntbikr15]

Oh dear god do I have a lot of [censored].

Problem is I am awful about getting rid of it. Mainly because much of it cost a decent chunk upon purchase but would fetch nothing now.

Im activley working on thinking over purchases before I buy them these days.

[solids]

I tend to keep all of my useless but sentimental crap in my old bedroom at my parent's home.

[RacersEdge]

Yeah, I'm trying to get ready for a Salvation Army pick-up soon.

[ZenMusician]

What's even funnier is I actually pay a monthly fee for a company to store a room full of accumulated crap that I frankly haven't seen in probably 3 years.

-ZEN

[diddyeinstein]

About once a year I go through my closet, desk, bottom drawer of my dresser, and the rest of the places where I accumulate [censored].

I just throw it away. Every time I try to get stuff together to give to Goodwill or what not it just sits around until the next time I go through stuff.

[J-Mac]

I've got limited space since I live in Manhattan. I'm pretty good about taking old clothes to the Salvation army every year, but there are a lot of other things (textbooks, old computer stuff) that I know I have to get rid of but I have some mental block that prevents me from putting them on ebay or half.com or craigslist. I keep telling myself, "this coming weekend..."

[neuroman]

[ QUOTE ]
but there are a lot of other things (textbooks, old computer stuff) that I know I have to get rid of but I have some mental block that prevents me from putting them on ebay or half.com or craigslist.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah I don't know what this is but it happens to me too. Maybe it's related to the sunken cost of the item. Throwing away a textbook you paid $125 for but is now worth almost nothing perhaps makes you feel like you wasted money. If you don't throw the textbook away though, you can remain happily in denial?

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I just went through this process. I've been living in the same apartment for 6 years, and I have a huge place with lots of storage, which is the perfect storm for 'accumulating crap'.

I'm about 90% done jettisoning stuff from my bedroom, and I've filled about 9 trash bags (medium kitchen size) worth of stuff I'll be throwing out or donating.

about half of this is clothes, some of it nice stuff, but I just haven't worn in a year or 2 or more.

other stuff was random old electronics (a walkman wtf!), a bunch of Cd's/bulky cases (I have burned them all), old sheets/towels, and other stuff too random to categorize.

anyways I feel much better now.

[mason55]

Clothes aer the one thing I tend to keep. A bunch of my stuff is at my parent's but they just went through everythign and cleaned their house. i told them to throw away all my old trophies and crap from my room. of course i ended needing like 5 different things that they had thrown away within a month [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] which taught me never to throw away anything again