Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Retirement
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 03-30-2015, 02:46 PM
 
12,823 posts, read 24,342,669 times
Reputation: 11041

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by tjasse View Post
I'm gen X but I can relate to this. I helped my parents move to a new house last year and they had so much JUNK it was insane. A 3400 sq foot house filled with knick knacks and 2 storage units filled with more junk. I can't believe how many boxes of christmas ornaments and other holiday decorations they had...and KEPT. Weird decorative fabric things you're supposed to put on a table, or something? I have no idea what those are even called, but my mom has a closet filled with those. My mom has like 5 sets of "heirloom" china she got from... somewhere? She doesn't really even have regular plates to eat off of. They just get take out or go out to eat every day.

What's kind of sad is they literally have nothing anyone would want. Not just me, or my siblings... but anyone. It's just all going to get junked. Seems so wasteful.
Of course this tends to be more of an American / Anglo-Saxon thing.

You know the Chinese people down the street from your folks? Instead of buying all that crap they put the money into income properties.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 03-30-2015, 02:47 PM
 
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
8,854 posts, read 10,430,759 times
Reputation: 6670
Quote:
Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly View Post
They don't want your stuff because they are 6 people to a two bedroom apartment.
Either that or they're still living with their parents, so they already have the stuff anyway!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 02:50 PM
 
13,979 posts, read 25,889,429 times
Reputation: 39902
Quote:
Originally Posted by HomeIsWhere... View Post
Sure they can and some of them will and some of them won't.

"To make matters worse, young adults don’t seem to want their own college textbooks, sports trophies or T-shirt collections, still entombed in plastic containers at their parents’ homes."

I am a 'boomer' merely by the time frame I was born in. I have never been a collector of anything, or a hoarder. Not necessarily because I am above it but simply because I have always lived efficiently and in smaller apartments or homes.

I will say this though, I'm still in possession of some of my children's things because they have not found the time (nor have the space themselves) to retrieve their belongings.

Oh well, those things will be the things they will have to come to terms with when I leave this earthly plane, and they will probably dump them (as I have wanted to do all these many years).
Ah yes, this! They don't even want their own stuff. One of these days each of my three will get a deadline. We've been storing childhood treasures for far too long.

I have a lot of jewelry, I used to work in the trade. I have three sons, and no daughters to pass it on to. Perhaps there will be a granddaughter someday, but I'm not waiting. I will sell off the jewelry and use it to fund a fabulous trip. All three boys have expressed some interest in their father's Rolex. Dad is still wearing it, but that one item, more than anything, will require the wisdom of Solomon to pas on.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 02:51 PM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,761,037 times
Reputation: 14116
Default The Millenials don't want our stuff!

Nobody wants their parent's stuff! You boomers didn't load up on stylin' 40's and 50's kitsch, their parents had no interest in collecting Arts and Crafts or depression era stuff and their parents had no desire to fill their homes with Victorian era fussiness.

It's just the natural order of things.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 02:51 PM
 
Location: Sinkholeville
1,509 posts, read 1,789,310 times
Reputation: 2354
Put together a photo album of reasonable size and give it to them. Leave a few blank pages in the back...
They can't sell it, they can't throw it away, they are stuck with it until they have adult children.

I inherited many boxes of loose photos, but only the small album my mom put together earned a space on my small bookshelf.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 04:13 PM
 
3,205 posts, read 2,612,796 times
Reputation: 8570
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultrarunner View Post
Cycles... trends... what's old is new... all very normal.

It wasn't all that long ago that every stitch of hardwood had to be covered over with wall to wall carpet.

Not that long ago and dark kitchen cabinets were trashed or painted white... now at least in my area cherry cabinets are very much in again...

Bought my second home from the original owner that bought it new in 1922... they never had children and her husband was quite a bit older... anyway... that home was like going back in time... all the fixtures, stove, everything was from 1922.

My friends couldn't wait for the demolition party to rip out the blue and yellow kitchen tiles, trash the high leg stove and plumbing fixtures... etc.

I chose a different path... I went room by room cleaning and restoring... even took apart and polished all the door lock hardware, refinished the matchstick hardwood floors and built in cabinets and kept the push button light switches.

Spent very little money... mostly time.

When I was done the home really looked like a brand new 1922 Craftsman Bungalow right down to the double hung windows.

Here's the kicker... when it came time to sell... I also got the highest price at that time and much higher than similar homes that had been "Updated"

It taught me that chasing the trends is folly because today's trend is already on the way out.

It also taught me to appreciate simplicity and good design and just how much can be done on a shoestring budget...

If a person can afford to buy a home and rip everything down to the studs and it makes them happy then who am I to say no... just don't kid yourself that everything new is an improvement...
Thank you so much for preserving a bit of history!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 04:15 PM
 
Location: Ashburn, VA
2,794 posts, read 2,925,301 times
Reputation: 4914
Not sure why this would be considered a "big deal"? Unless the intent was to make it another "Us vs. Them" generation arguments? Did boomers want their parents junk when they passed? It's one thing to want to keep any family heirlooms or things meaningful to you but who really has all that extra room to take on all that extra stuff?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 04:19 PM
 
37,495 posts, read 45,798,776 times
Reputation: 57001
Quote:
Originally Posted by BATCAT View Post
To me, this seems to be the thing that keeps getting left out of the conversation. Many young people in 2015 are more accustomed to the idea of living in smaller spaces where it's just not practical to accumulate a lot of things.
I don't know why people think this is a "millennial" thing. Hell I am a boomer...and my house is way smaller than my parents. All 3 of us kids have more stuff than we need, of our own. No way can we absorb our parents possessions!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 04:22 PM
 
37,495 posts, read 45,798,776 times
Reputation: 57001
Quote:
Originally Posted by psurangers11 View Post
Not sure why this would be considered a "big deal"? Unless the intent was to make it another "Us vs. Them" generation arguments? Did boomers want their parents junk when they passed? It's one thing to want to keep any family heirlooms or things meaningful to you but who really has all that extra room to take on all that extra stuff?
Words out of my mouth.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2015, 04:42 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
45,114 posts, read 60,214,676 times
Reputation: 60714
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChessieMom View Post
I don't know why people think this is a "millennial" thing. Hell I am a boomer...and my house is way smaller than my parents. All 3 of us kids have more stuff than we need, of our own. No way can we absorb our parents possessions!
Millennials may be living in smaller spaces. Now, in their 20s and just starting out. Most people do at that point. But at some point that will begin to change just as it did for their parents and grandparents. Kids come along, toys and bicycles get bought. The dishes you use for dinner with the chips along the edges aren't really suitable for company, etc.

Everyone seems to approach things as if what you do and how you live in your 20s is immutable and frozen in place.

Like Ultrarunner we also have a house which was new in 1915. I'm now in the process, finally, of ripping out the trendy carpet over linoleum over tarpaper to refinish the oak floors. Original wooden double hung four light windows. At some point the counter weights were taken out and the original storm window/screen system replaced by the even trendier aluminum storm windows and screen overlay.

My four millennial kids have solved the issue of what to do with my stuff. They now buy me Christmas and birthday gifts they want (of course they say I can use them until "later).
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Retirement

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:17 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top