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.
Kathryn I am glad to see this post now . I wish I could ANONYMOUSLY forward it to someone I have known since 1972 .
She was an only child , her mom was my GS leader in 1973, raised in a very well to do neighborhood by adoring parents .
As a BITTER ,divorced adult, she has made fun of and has just been plain mean to those of us who struggle , try again, start over , move out of Texas , dress differently , we are all lazy if we could not afford insurance before or after the ACA ,in other words we all s*^k . She had all sorts of little insults just waiting for the right person and the right time. The last I heard from her was in March when she cursed me in public over a problem I had with a Texas lawmaker affecting my ability to reasonably consider ever going home again..MMMkay
She is now in a PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL and has been since Sunday over her father having an estate sale .
Mom was a great lady but has been dead nearly 10 years and dad is 85 now and remarried someone in January who looks older than 85 - let him have a companion my goodness. His bride looks like she can barely walk .
She's FREAKING out over lost ( sold) coffee percolators , fondue pots , dishes, some furniture ( I think he wants to sell the giant house and move into Assisted Living ),knick knacks, EMPTY JARS OF MIRACLE WHIP ?? 40 -50 year old generic paintings ( think Pinkie and Blue Boy ) 62 years of memories she wailed . We tried to tell her all would be OK , that it is just stuff , you still have all your pics and memories and in 10 years she had full access to any of her moms things she wanted .. Her dad put his foot down about it and she tripped OUT. She even helped plan the sale and now refuses to ever speak to her dad again . Threatening suicide . The works .
This is the first time she has had to really come to terms with a life on her own . Without back up parent(s).
As you may or may not know my apt burned to the ground July 4th from a bottle rocket in the neighborhood landing IN the apt above me while the tennants were out at the pool . It was just an accident . I lost everything INCLUDING my mothers ashes . Almost 30 years ago my house burned due to a severe lightning strike . So I have had to start over from NOTHING many times, plus I left home at 17 and went out and lived life wildy and gladly . I have no regrets . I have also been a minimalist for quite sometime , like in the article , I just got tired of stuff . 3-4 100+ year old fam things given to me and my photos and I am fine .
Quote:
Originally Posted by runswithscissors
Our charities and poor people are very SPOILED in America!
.
Yeah right , due to declining decent donations when my apt burned the red cross gave me $600 and wished me luck. As well as a sister (nun) at school told us to only donate our best . It's bad enough to be in a disaster or broke, sick , laid off but to wear someone elses rags is an insult. She was right
Last edited by DutchessCottonPuff; 07-19-2017 at 10:15 AM..
Most folks think their stuff has a lot of value, but truth is unless you own something exceptionally rare, collectible, or valuable, many times it's easier to get rid of it than to try and sell it for a nominal amount or leaving your descendants to figure out what to do with it.
My grandmother has a record player in a wooden cabinet similar to the one below. She swears it is an "antique." I don't remember the make and model now, but looked it up at some point and it's worth around $200. It's all original and while the cabinet could be "gutted" and outfitted with modern stereo components, it would be a project. It's also too large to move around much and I honestly doubt anyone would want it.
She has a very plain bedroom suite from the 50s in the master bedroom. It is solid white and a small four post bed. She think it's valuable, but most people will find it dated and it's like it's elaborate craftsmanship or something. Someone may use it to fill out an extra bedroom but it is not something that would get a lot of attention.
She's also hoarded up a downstairs den that my grandfather had with a couch, TV, movies, etc. There is now so much junk in there you cannot see the couch or even access the window. She's patently said she is leaving that for us to clean out when she is gone.
My aunt has told her if she doesn't make arrangements for the stuff, that a Waste Management dumpster will be brought out and that anything that people don't explicitly claim gets trashed. It's sad, but that will happen to most of us.
If it looks like that, it is a nice looking piece. There actually are people who repurpose. That cabinet could be repurposed into a bar by gutting the insides and painting it. Someone just has to see the vision.
Also, if furniture is in good condition, there are many places that deal with women and children who are abused and find them apartments but they need furniture. Great place to donate anything descendants don't want. Mattresses and the like, I would just dump. Most people don't want used mattresses.
Every time we move, we dump stuff. DH made me get rid of half my Christmas stuff but I did giving it to Goodwill.
My mom had about 100 slide carousels. My sister bought a slide scanner and scanned everyone of those slides. She put them on a Kindle for mom to look at (of course she could never figure out how to use the Kindle!). We all have copies of the photos on disk.
My sister just had a whole bunch of old reels of home movies and old slides digitized. Boy oh boy did those turn out nice!
An especially poignant one was my maternal grandmother, as a young women, float around, flirt and kiss at the camera being silly. She's been dead 50 years. It made me cry...
That's the kind of "stuff" I cherish and has real value!
I have around five generations of "stuff" that nobody wants. Much of it is my late wife's family heirlooms but they are too lazy or careless to want it and I'm not hauling it to them so they can stick it on Craigslist. I can do that. I am probably the only one who knows the back story on the stuff...who, what, where. I think almost every room in my house has something...table, chair, blanket chest...that is three or four generations old. I finally got rid of a few things in boxes in the garage. My house is a "revival" style so some of it fits in OK and it is functional. The old stuff was built to last. I have a daughter who says she isn't interested in any of it so watch for the "estate sale" sign in my yard when I kick the bucket.
When I was financially struggling in my 20s, relatives and friends of the family would basically offload their stuff they wanted to get rid of to me and I would take it to the flea market in my little pickup truck. Even just selling items for a dollar would bring me extra grocery money and the social time at the flea market was pretty awesome. I met very interesting people (ok, not always a good thing, lol) and just got some useful lessons in reality.
If you've got extra stuff from elderly relatives, think about your younger relatives and friends who are having a hard time getting by and see if they want to sell it at the flea market.
I got nicknamed "Sanford" by one of our family friends, and he'd hum the theme song to the TV show every time I drove off with a load, LOL. But it WAS helpful to me.
If it looks like that, it is a nice looking piece. There actually are people who repurpose. That cabinet could be repurposed into a bar by gutting the insides and painting it. Someone just has to see the vision.
Also, if furniture is in good condition, there are many places that deal with women and children who are abused and find them apartments but they need furniture. Great place to donate anything descendants don't want. Mattresses and the like, I would just dump. Most people don't want used mattresses.
Every time we move, we dump stuff. DH made me get rid of half my Christmas stuff but I did giving it to Goodwill.
Very, very similar. The one she has doesn't have the lines on the doors and its legs are slightly bowed, not straight. A little bit lighter in color too.
It would have value for a repurposer or someone who wants to take on a project. It doesn't have a lot of value as-is.
If something is in good condition, it may very well be possible to give away, but if something is visibly worn or damaged, just get rid of it.
My wife family came down form a once wealthy Boston publishing family (but one to the brothers a few generations back gambled nearly everything away). Before her Grandmother died, she put notes on every item she had stating where and whom it came from and who she wanted to have it. Some of it goes back into the 1700s. OUr kids are very interested in everything with a story like that and much of it was high quality so it is holding up well or it is just really cool (like a sword cane from the early 1800s). Our kids want that stuff. The framed photos, more recent things they do nto really want except things like afgahns my MIL made.
My family came from a series of poor farmers and odd jobbers. My dad's family home burned down two or three times, so there really are no family heirlooms and most of what they had that survived was junk anyway. There is a cool chair and a hall tree that belonged to my Mom's parents and I would like because of memories of Grandpa sitting in that chair rocking and telling jokes. My mom bought some antiques because she liked antiques, and she has a huge collection of cheap QVC jewlry, plates with scenery to famous art painted on them, tea cups, etc. No one wants any of that, it has not family history and is just junk, or something to try to sell. Same with the furniture from the 1950s - 1990s. Unless someone happens to need a couch or dining set and is local at the time, it is not worth shipping it and no one has any attachment or interest in it. Even antiques Mom bought, have no appeal if someone wants antiques with no family history, they will just pick out what they want at an antique store. Keeping something with no family history, just because it is an antique does not make any sense to me. If you want antiques, sell those itmes and use the money to buy something that is exactly what you want, rather than hanging on to someone somone else chose just becuase you happen to have it already.
So what would you do with original oil paintings that no one wants? I must have 20 or so that my mother painted. I'm keeping 3 mostly because she painted them, but they don't go with my decor and I'll just store them. They all are in those gold gawdy frames (my mom calls them "museum quality)! I've contacted local places and no one is interested. Feel badly since it's her original work, but I don't want to be burdened with all of them.
Everything But The House (EBTH) is a really great website dedicated to getting rid of your stuff. I've purchased from there and they provide a wonderful service.
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.
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.
but I did giving it to Goodwill.
