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I have a tendency to hoard things. It’s a bad trait I have and I’m constantly fighting the urge to keep things because they are:

1. Perfectly good
2. Hard to replace
3. Can be used for something else
4. Can be fixed

It struck me I still have a problem when I was finally opening boxes that have been sealed for about 2 years. They are from when I first moved into my home and I just never got around to opening them and unpacking the contents. That should be the first clue that most of what was in those boxes I don’t need. If I have done without what was in them after all this time I can probably throw the box out unopened.

But, open them I did. Remember, that this is crap I actually boxed and moved with me.

A desk lamp. I liked that lamp. It’s the kind of lamp you see at the beginning of the Pixar films. The switch is broken. I had planned to replace the switch, but I just discovered the switch isn’t sold separate from the bulb socket it is connected to and I would need to do some soldering. The lamp cost me $25 originally. The replacement part is almost $20 and I’d spend an hour doing the soldering and reassembly job.

In the garbage.

A box of chargers and adapters for cell phones and unknown electronics. The trouble with all of them is in the last 5 years the male-female connectors that are used in the industry have changed, making them all useless. Checking on ebay to see if they are worth anything, people aren’t getting $1 for crap nobody uses any longer.

In the garbage.

3.5″ floppy discs. Hundreds of them. Seriously. I kept them because at one time I had a lot of programs and information on them that I planned on transferring to a flash drive. Now, the programs are so antiquated they are useless. I’m not even sure what is on most of them and I haven’t used a floppy disc in about 10 years. These are those things I look at and ask myself, “WTF were you thinking?”

Paper. Mostly old bills. I’m notorious for paying my bills, writing notes on what remains of the statement and throwing that statement in a box. That’s in case the company says I didn’t pay. Then other paper started being thrown into the box. Stuff I intended to open, but never did because I’m paying almost all of my bills online now.

I spent almost a full day using my paper shredder.

Computer parts. This stuff really bugs me because I knew at the time I was saving it that it was unlikely I would ever need it. Computer ribbons that they don’t even make any more. Motherboards that aren’t compatible with RAM sticks they make today. RAM sticks that aren’t compatible with motherboards they make today. Old power modules, faceplates. About the only computers I fix these days are my own and just about every part I kept is useless to me.

I’m also getting rid of things I thought I might actually need in an emergency. A fax machine, old printers, old cordless phones, to name a few. None of which are needed and if I do need any of it, like a printer, I’ll buy a new one.

Then there is:

Linen for bed sizes that I no longer own.

Too many winter coats.

Pots, pans, storage containers.

Old kitchen appliances.

Most of that will be going to The Salvation Army.

I blame my parents. They were both children of the depression and there wasn’t a lot of money in my house. Some of my most vivid memories as a kid was my mother opening a huge cake tin (I’m talking a HUGE tin) filled with buttons. If we ever lost a button on a shirt or coat, that tin had a match and no article of clothing went into the trash without the buttons being removed for a tin donation.

My old man was a nail puller. When one of the never ending house projects was going on and he was bringing  home someone’s scrap wood for our use, the boys would be assigned to pull the nails from the wood. Then they would be straightened with a hammer on a rock and thrown into one of many nail cans. A useless and time consuming task that rarely provided decent nails for reuse, but it saved the old man 50 cents worth of nails each year. This was my estimate of savings before he would finally buy new ones after attempting to use the ones from his salvage cans, where we would hear, “Damn it!” each time they bent when being struck.

I’ve decided that I’m going to stop collecting crap, though I’ll make an exception for the following items:

– Waterproof towels
– Solar-powered flashlights
– Submarine screen-doors
– Books on how to read
– Inflatable dart-boards
– Powdered water
– Pedal powered wheel-chairs
– Water-proof teabags