What are the things you have trouble throwing away or recycling when the contents are used up?
Growing up it was the Prairie Farms sherbet containers, those things were perfect for storing leftovers or taking things to bbqs, family dinners, etc.
Now as an adult, I have a pantry with Costco mixed nuts containers being used as canisters. Those things are fantastic with the screw caps.
I also save boxes and packing material to reuse to send gifts to friends for birthdays or Christmas. I’m not buying that stuff if I don’t have to!
In summary, I am an old.
umm none?
the biggest problem i have is figuring out what bin to put it in
mostly coz the missus bugs me
i dont have the heart to tell her all the different coloured garbage trucks go to same fucking garbage pile
Nice of you to have so much faith in the system.
faith in the system?
oh fuck no
i just figure ill be dead before it really gets out of hand
Unfortunately, he’s right. There have been a few reports over the course of the past year about it. Seems that once China stopped taking our trash and recycling, the entire system has broken down.
Also companies push on the recycle component because that keeps us endlessly buying shit vs reducing and reusing.
ooo that borders on smart stuff
you ever buy a tv in the 90s that got updated and became less usefull?
coz i fucking havent
i used to be able to stream to my smart tv (much to the annoyance of anyone watching when i decide to rickroll them)
now i cant…tv works just fine as a tv tho
Yep! Earth Day was started by the plastic companies. Sucks.
Grudges. Runs in the family.
This comment is beautiful and I keep trying to think of a great pithy response because it deserves one, but I can’t figure out what to say.
Lord, yes. I’ve got grudges that are over 40 years old. I’ve got grudges with dead people. No, I do not let shit go.
Clothes. In my own defense, I morph every couple years so it’s better to have a stash of the next size up/down at any given time. And also I developed the habit as a wee poor of never tossing anything until it was well and truly wrecked.
You know what I was wishing I had lately, though? Some of those old metal cracker tins. They were so good for storing miscellany.
Yes those tins are fantastic for that sort of stuff!
I’m bad about this, too. My weight goes up and down every couple of years (I’m up right now), and I think, no, I’m gonna need that.
I get rid of the alternate sizes only when things are really unfashionable or when it’s something I just hated the last time around and it was just something that worked but I never liked.
Otherwise they live in plastic totes in the basement until I need that size again.
Ye gods, my life would be so much easier if I had a basement.
Yeah I love using mine for storage. Half of it is technically finished off but it’s cold down there most of the year and like what am I gonna do in a cold basement when I have a living room and live alone?
Also the unfinished side has french drains to account for the water leaking situation so the knock-kneed cricket, wolf spider, and house centipede can be a little unsettling sometimes.
…dungeon? Just a suggestion.
And then you do. OR, you stabilize for a whole year and then you’re like, it’s gonna stick so I can throw these out and then WHAMMO!
Books, even books I didn’t like.
I have a whole three-shelfer of stuff I bought at library sales and the dollar store and have never read. Managed to cull one of the shelves a couple months ago by finding ebook equivalents on the library website. Buuuuuut there’s still another shelf or two’s worth in the front room.
The only books I’ve thrown away are Ayn Rand shit.
I’ve thrown away some romance novels. The ones pre-2000 are often questionable with regards to consent to sexual activities.
Normally I donate books to the library, but I didn’t want someone else to be reading that bullshit.
you repeat yourself
Any sort of glass jar. I repurpose all my candle jars and hold onto glass food jars until I find something to do with them or have so many that I have to throw them out. I also have a hard time getting rid of art and craft supplies even if I know I’m not going to use them.
For some reason I can’t edit my comment but I wanted to add that my dad uses those large Costco nut jars to store bird food and cat food to feed all the birds and cats that come to the yard. The front porch alone has 6 nut jars filled with different types of bird seed.
I feel like Bilbo Baggins debating getting rid of the One Ring when I have a glass jar
“Whyyyy shouldn’t I keep it????”
Anything that falls into that usage stage of “too old/has holes/raggedy/stained/etc to donate but still has some life in it”. I’ve gotten better about it after a couple of read throughs of Marie Kondo’s books, but it’s something I struggle with (due to having to make due with what I had as a kid). But it feels wrong to spend money on a new one when I’ve got this one here and it’s still okayish…
WordPress, y u no let me reply?!
WP is a smartass. -_-
Being a Cheap Bastard, I don’t so much have trouble throwing things out as I have trouble using things way beyond their useful life. Clothes, cars…food.
You’ve already paid for it! Might as well get as much use as possible!
That’s what I say! Of course, Mrs. Butcher is worse than me–but the difference for her is that she doesn’t actually use any of the shit she hoards. It just sits around waiting for the mythical time when she “gets to it.”
I have some things from my mother’s side of the family that are old, from the 1800’s. Darling cabriolet legged chairs that are really too fragile to sit on; old china and flatware and vases and tea sets that are not dishwasher safe; metal-clasped books of heavy civil war era photographs…No one wants them and they are not useful. I display the “decor”, giving the home a cluttered old fashioned look. I store the chairs. I save the photograph books. There are other things, old hand embroidered tea linens and tatted doilies…I could go on, but won’t further bore you. I suspect that my son will just throw it all out when I die. I just can’t bring myself to get rid of something that was used by a great grandfather’s grandmother.
@elliecoo this is a thing in my family, too. My maternal grandfather’s family were packrats, and we have family antiques that go back more than 200 years. Some things, my mom has sold, which is ok, but she never, ever throws anything out and I shudder to think what I’m going to do with it all when she’s gone.
That’s what auction companies are for.
If you want to give this stuff a new life outside your home, have you asked–institutions isn’t quite the right word–whether a very local historical society or even a B&B with a historical theme would be interested? That way others could see it and it would spark joy. New York and New England are filled to the brim with historical societies where it’s an old house, and inside is stuff not even native to the town, but old and period-appropriate. “This rocking chair was hand-carved in the late 1830s in [town not in the state.]” So why is it here in Stepford, Connecticut? No matter; stuff like this fascinates me to no end.
If your family has lived in the area for generations so much the better; a lot of these historical societies are basically attics run by hoarders which is part of their charm. If you have an immigrant past that’s also good: there could be a room devoted to “the [country of origin] community in [place they lived in, yours or maybe theirs if they lived somewhere else.]”
A good box.
Pre-pandemic when I would shop more, I also hoard good sturdy bags. A former manager and I used to joke about reusing a good sturdy bag.
I save a lot of stuff… I just try not to let it get out of hand! I have my mother’s example to look at and not emulate. She says she’s not a hoarder… but if the shoe fits, she has it in every colour, and 3 in black.
Containers with good lids, especially if it’s microwave safe, I pounce on and stash away for sending food home with others. That saves on the nagging reminders to “bring back my tupperware!” Jars that canning lids/rings fit on get put away for canning season. Wide mouth jars with lids (salsa jars are great) are drinking glasses here because the cats are assholes with an open cup.
Clothes I save as long as they’re wearable. My weight goes up and down regularly, so I have a lot of clothes, but I go through them regularly to reevaluate and get rid of any overflow. I do have a boxful of jeans that are too torn up to wear that will someday become a braided rug. Yarn and books are probably the 2 hardest things for me to get rid of, honestly!
Cardboard boxes. Having to move suddenly twice in 2 yrs made me paranoid it would happen again and I would need All The Boxes. Mostly I just use them as recycle bins, but they still stack up faster than I use them. Plus, sometimes it’s like… a really good box.
I have a big bag of all the little snippets of yarn left over from projects – my delusion is that I will someday buy a drum carder, turn the snippets into roving and spin it all into a dreamy art yarn. Hahahahahahahahaha
The other thing I save are nuts, bolts and hardware odds and ends. After 40 something years in this house I can usually save a trip to the hardware store by rummaging around the basement. Case in point, I needed something to space my birdfeeders on a cable, enter dog chain collar, my last dog died over 10 years ago!