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My Wife and I are just beginnng to downsize. We went through our books and gave away about 2/3 of them. We wondered why we had ever bought many of them. The paperbacks are easy to figure out, but some of the others that cost a lot more were not. Some had not been opened since the day we brought them home.
It is astonishing the amount of stuff you accumulate, most of which has never been used and is collecting dust.
Now, due to a shortage of storage space, I'm taking a long, hard look at my "stuff".
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Originally Posted by GLS
I would be the first to admit that my wife has too much stuff.
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Originally Posted by MN2CO
Many on this board say get rid of all of it and buy second hand at the new location. Can't quite buy this - get rid of your own good stuff and buy someone else's questionable stuff?
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Originally Posted by brightdoglover
I've never had a lot of stuff...
George Carlin's classic stand-up routine on "stuff."
Just goes to show that George Carlin was right on the money with his "stuff" monologue.
Fifteen years ago we moved to Texas from Liverpool, NY. Until then we had a lot of antique furnishings which I decided it was time to thin out... loved them but was finally moving past my "country" phase. We also donated what seemed like tons of clothes and other household items to The Salvation Army, etc.
We were definitely leaner when we arrived in Austin where we had much less storage space, but it didn't take long to accumulate more 'stuff'. Nine years later we ended up back in NY (loved Austin, but the downturn in semi-conductors forced us back). We gave away some of the accumulated 'stuff' but we still had to caravan two 26 foot trucks to carry all of it back to the Hudson Valley where we moved into a larger, older home with way too much storage. Even though it is just the two of us at home now, the 'stuff' has continued to act like rabbits and multiplied again.
We are in the thinning out stage once again. This time, however, we are also on the brink of retirement with plans to move South to a new home that's at most two thirds the size of this one. Since we are not expecting to live at the same level we've enjoyed in our working years (a disadvantage of moving frequently), 'reduce', 'simplify', 'practical', and 'functional' are the key words in this new thinning out phase.
My wife decided she was going to read her way through the piles of books and then donate them to the library before I retired. That plan did not work and many of the books have already gone to the library. I think it is a genetic thing. My father also had a great interest in keeping books. He seemed to feel that if you had the book he had the knowledge in the book. Now we just need the internet.
My wife decided she was going to read her way through the piles of books and then donate them to the library before I retired. That plan did not work and many of the books have already gone to the library. I think it is a genetic thing. My father also had a great interest in keeping books. He seemed to feel that if you had the book he had the knowledge in the book. Now we just need the internet.
I feel a strange comfort being surrounded by full bookcases.
Have you watched the TV show "The Hoarders"...boy, that is scary stuff!
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