A couple years ago, we went through our storage room in our condo, and for people that don’t love stuff, we STILL managed to get rid of quite a bit! LOL!!

I used to love stuff more… and it reflected on my credit card bill. We now have a light at the end of the tunnel with a consolidation loan being paid off at the end of this year, and it’s feelin’ mighty good to not love stuff like we used to!

I saw Toy Story 3 recently, how much do you think our love of stuff has influenced that movie?

The idea that our toys live when we’re not in the room, that they love us and want us to keep them always….are the people who made the movie trying to instil in children a need to keep their stuff always as it has ‘feelings’?

Just a thought I had while reading this blog.
S

I have the weirdest kind of animist belief when it comes to stuff. Deep down I feel that it is sentinent and needs to be respected, used as intended, taken care of, and given away only into good hands — never in the trash. Which means that I often keep stuff around that I do not use anymore because I have not found a good home for it yet. The up side is that I feel that getting more stuff is a little like adopting a puppy: It means taking on responsibility, and that is not done lightly. Also, I keep stuff functional long past its normal life expectancy (most of my kitchen gear is nearing its silver anniversary, and some of the electronics and most of the towels are well past it). Losing something, or accidentally breaking something is really bad. With the cats prone to scratching or smashing things, I have become very tidy and well-organised.

@ ioana: I have occasionally resolved a similar situation by explaining that I had set my eyes on a really expensive high-end device (I do that, I want it to last forever, after all), and would feel very bad to accept something that extravagant as a gift. It usually ends with us agreeing that when I finally buy it, my parents will put in some money, too.

I seem to have the hardest time with items that were given to us as presents, even if we don’t need them, or want them. I feel guilty just giving them away. When I come across an item like this (or anything for that matter), I have to stop and reevaluate by asking “Is this item useful for US, not just is it useful or does it have use left”…. it has to have a use for us specifically. It seems like such a small distinction, but I realized as we started to ask this question that the answer for many items was different when this yardstick was used.

We battle on, but everytime we have a successful purging/donating session, it is so liberating.

I am a huge fan of scrapbooking and keeping our memories alive in photos and journalling rather than things, so we have been much better at not bringing new things into the house since the girls arrived, but still have the need to clear out the old.

though it took me quite a while to learn it, that’s for certain. i’ve had to overcome the clothes-horse attitude and when i donated about 75% of my closet i felt marvellously liberated. now i am really truly happy, deep down. a good lesson learned.

part of what i’ve learned too has been that i wasted way too much money on these “possessions”. and yes, on credit cards. so gail, lesson learned & heard loud and clear. i’m getting closer to dff and blogs like today’s just help reinforce my belief that i can and will do it! thanks gail.