We all get behind sometimes. My closets and cabinets have coughed up a lot in the last few months and I haven't coughed up enough Reckonings to match. So if you don't mind, I'm going to play a quick game of catch-up. Here's the silly stuff I've collected and (finally!) sent to the thrift shop.
Item 79: A dish rack.
Why bother with one of these when you can lay a dishcloth on the countertop? $5 wasted.
Items 80, 81, 82, and 83: An extra tupperware ($4), two cake pans (free from Grandmom),
and an over-the-door rack (my husband did use this when he lived alone, so it wasn't a waste.)
Item 81: This wasn't a piece of rolling luggage,
it was a piece of constantly-falling-over luggage.
$20 wasted.
Item 82: A shot glass.
The previous owners of our condo apparently felt we needed to drink a few shots to calm our nerves after getting a six-figure mortgage. Found it in our kitchen cabinet after we moved in. $0.
The previous owners of our condo apparently felt we needed to drink a few shots to calm our nerves after getting a six-figure mortgage. Found it in our kitchen cabinet after we moved in. $0.
Item 83: The shower curtain from the husband's old apartment.
Yeah, I think he needed those. We don't need two now. Nothing wasted.
Yeah, I think he needed those. We don't need two now. Nothing wasted.
Item 84: An owl lamp.
I went to a college that had an owl as its mascot.
Therefore, my mother decided that I needed an owl lamp. (free)
Item 85: A contraption for hanging stuff in the kitchen.
We hung stuff. Then we got rid of the stuff we hung. ($15)
Item 86: My fake Christmas tree.
Nothing says Christmas like a small fire. I had this tree when I lived alone. When I moved to Nashville, I plugged it in at Christmastime and blew the circuit, creating quite a bit of smoke and ending with half of the Nashville fire department visiting me in my living room. I'm going to use real trees from now on. (It cost money but I did get a few good years' use out of it.)
Item 87: A bicycle trainer.
Even the thought of competing in a triathalon in October
couldn't motivate me to use this thing. $150 wasted.
Total wasted on the junk on this page: $194.
Total money I frittered away on crap so far: $1,141.00.
I could've gone to Hawaii for five nights with that kind of money. And the trip would've meant a lot more to me than any of this stuff. Sigh.
I left a job in a craft supply store after four years because I realized that I wasn't taking much money home with me, instead I was taking bags of unnecessary junk that would stay in said bags, usually in the car, until I cleaned it out months later. Then I'd think "Oh great! Something to do!" or "I needed this!" only to lose it again somewhere in the house.
ReplyDeleteThe job was good while it lasted, but the day I left it, I noticed that most of the clutter and wasted money stopped too. I might follow your form and post a "found junk" list of my own.
Congrats on coming out of the closet, alive, and with a bag for donations :)
That's awesome that you figured out the source of a big clutter problem. Figuring out how everything got there seems like more of the battle than getting rid of the stuff. But I'm starting to think that addressing the cause matters more than digging out.
DeleteI've enjoyed reading your blog so far and I'm looking forward to more posts. Love your blog name, btw.
College with an owl mascot...Rice?
ReplyDeleteBryn Mawr :o)
DeleteOH hey stumbled upon your blog from another hoarder child blog!
ReplyDeleteI feel like the path to a healthy level of 'stuff' depends on a couple things:
-know which are good things to spend money on (not buying something simply because it is a 'good deal', etc)
-knowing which things are okay to get rid of
-making the time periodically to go through and get rid of broken or unused items
With practice I've gotten better at all of those things, but I still feel worried that I have the seeds of a hoarder in me and it will get out of control if I don't keep it in check. UGH.
amen. I can stilll covet stuff for weeks or months before I can finally say that I'm not going to benefit from having the item.
DeleteYou're absolutely right. Practice will make it better. But practice takes so much time, it's easy to get down on ourselves!