So many "advice givers" want us to declutter.

[LS Tractor Owner]

The wifey is definitely not a hoarder. Everything that is still usable / good shape, goes to the local charities.

Me? Well when it comes to clothes, I wear them until there is more 'open space' than there is cloth.... then they either get cut up as rags for the shop or tossed.
Now if we're talking any type of hardware, metal or wood scraps, or any type of usable clear containers, well, that's a whole different ball game. They get organized and stored in the shop.

My 2 sons (when they were teenagers) would always tell me to throw that stuff away.... until they ask me to fix something or make something.... I would go out in the shop, find what they needed, and hand it to them. Then they would say "leave it to dad--- he has parts for anything". Over the years, one has become the same way. The other tosses anything that he is tired of, wether it's still good or not.

 

[CalG]

Mine started when I was four or five. My grandfather was a dust bowl survivor and had me straightening bent nails that then got organized into his coffee cans. I don’t think any metallic object left his property and he truly could and did fix everything. Wish I was half the man he was.

I heard...

In the early days, When a family was moving west, They would pull all the window glass (if there was any) and then burn the house to reclaim the nails.

Fear of want is a driving force.

Perhaps we could become human beings instead of human doings, we could cherish song and poetry as we do our rusty bent nails.

(NB
I sorted though a few cans of salvaged nails and screws today. I'm redoing the bathroom and shower. All those piles of lumber are going to get turned and picked through . Blocking , studs and such like ;-)

 

[jaxs]

Some would have called me a fool for removing 1x12x8' boards from walls of a home to be destroyed. I'll admit having secound thoughts before selling all of them for $80 each to a buyer who drove 200 miles one way. Clear Heart Redwood isn't easy to find these days.

 

[goeduck]

My wife is a hoarder, I am maybe a 25% hoarder. The difference is I use what I keep. My wife simply stashes it away, knick knacks mostly boxed up that never get looked at. Drives me nuts.

 

[Jstpssng]

My wife is a hoarder, I am maybe a 25% hoarder. The difference is I use what I keep. My wife simply stashes it away, knick knacks mostly boxed up that never get looked at. Drives me nuts.

This is the difference. My grandparents raised families during the Depression, they didn't throw anything away. When they were all gone, my parents had to go through their houses and clean them out.
The family property has a small 3 story barn (35x35) which accumulated a lot in the 80 years since it was built. There was old horse drawn equipment, all manner of supplies for the greenhouse, old car parts and radiators... my father added a lot to it over the years, including items picked up from my uncle's plumbing business. There were a lot of things utilized over the years, that's where my first hot water heater came from when I built my place here. As they got older and closed the greenhouse my parents started to purge. They rented a big dumpster to clean the barn out. Father wasn't looking forward to it so I took a couple of days off from work and went down to help. It was a lot of fun. There were things there which hadn't seen daylight in years. Some things got tossed, some he gave away. Some things it seemed a shame to toss yet what are you going to do with them? There were rolls of heavy wool blankets
which we used to roll out onto the cold frame sash if it was going to get extremely cold that night. I grabbed one and set it aside then realized I had no use for it; a move I came to regret when I poured my concrete slab, as it would have been perfect to lay on top and keep watered to slow the curing.

Some things he wanted to donate to a local living history center, but never had time before the Alzheimer's took over. When he died I did it for him, and we filled a pickup with items for them.

 

[mikester]

One benefit to being a hoarder is your beneficiaries get the joy of loading your stuff into dumpsters after the auction and garage sales don't make enough money to pay for the tipping fees.

 

[scaredychicken]

Now would be a good time to post a picture. One can never look at too many pictures of old classics.

El Caminos --- the orange '64 is the keeper, the red '79 is the one that i'm selling

I’m doing this selfless service to help you get rid of your junk

Long story but my mom who won’t speak with me has three or four large boxes of trains I haven’t seen in ~30 years since I left. She probably threw them out. Ohh well.

As a child I spent a lot of time in the hospital for dozens of corrective surgeries - my mom brought HWs each day, to ease the goodbyes. I had / have about 300 then, about 1200 now. When I turned 10, my parents bought me my first model railroad, I never looked back... photo from Salmon Arm Model Railroaders' Club (I'm a long term member)

 

[Snobdds]

Not one of the posters prior to you described themselves as "hoarders".
Those of us that save good material for reuse or repurposing are vital to the planet.
As long as it is kept in good condition it should retain its value.

Decluttering is important. But it takes time. Often I've it found it takes less time if I let the "clutter" build up over the course of several projects before I sort, file and store it all. Rather than spend 15 minutes putting everything away four or five times I save it until the end. But until I wrap up it may look like a mess.

And as the supply shortages due to just-in-time supply chain problems keep piling up those of us with stock on hand just keep putting along.

No, that is my term given to them. A hoarder is someone that has no use for an obscure item at the time and only hopes to use it in the future.

I have no issue collecting fasteners nor tools. The problem I see is people collecting stuff to the point of displacing the collector. How many times have we driving by a house with tons of crap hanging around and the guy lives in like a 10x10 space. That 8 inch piece of 2x4 I'm sure will come in handy for something, but the space and time required for it to become useful makes no sense.

If I don't use something in 6 months, it's gone. To date, I have never looked back and said, I should not have thrown that out. The odds of using something later on, and knowing where it is and finding it in a reasonable time frame...is very low.

 

[scaredychicken]

If I don't use something in 6 months, it's gone.

I have lots of things that I haven't used in 6 months or even a year. But it doesn't mean that I'm getting rid of it.

Hoarding is actually on the mental health spectrum

 

[Jstpssng]

If I don't use something in 6 months, it's gone. To date, I have never looked back and said, I should not have thrown that out.

I sure wish that I could say that. I could make a long list of things discarded, sold, or given away which I wished that I had later.