Are you a saver or a tosser?

I must be a card hoarder since I save all the birthday and holiday cards I get from my family and friends.

Small apartments FTW. I hate stuff. And clutter. My mother is going to be on a hoarding tv show or something. I used to clean and de-clutter only to have the house cluttered back up with the new crap she bought a month later. My rule for buying items is a) do I love it it, b) is it worth the time it took me to make the money to purchase it, c) do I have a place for it, and most importantly d) is it fulfilling a previously identified need or want. There are exceptions to those rules, but they make it easier to live by.

Right now the apartment is cluttered because it needs a couple loads of laundry done, some craft projects finished, and I need to ban my mother from my apartment. She has a key and just drops by with piles of things she thought I'd like. It's SO sweet and I feel very loved, but am tired of explaining I don't need useless things I don't have room for.

I can't read the title without giggling. :rofl1:

Add me to the saver camp. I do toss things such as birthday cards, and such. But I save many many things. You never know when you might need a box or something. LOL

ok--I'm missing something here, clearly!


I am still cleaning through stuff--but, it's all the letters I wrote to my (now) husband--and his letters to me. It occurred to me that many people now wouldn't even have letters--clearing email is easier! :lol-sign:

I also think being a parent, you tend to save those childhood items--memories yes, and fun to revisit with your grown child. I found a hysterical set of notes from my son--seriously had us all rolling and laughing. Glad I saved those, I will pull them out again sometime and get another good laugh. It is especially funny now that he is grown, and seeing those traits from childhood still exist in him--but what was challenging as a child, has given him strength in his job as an adult.

I moved quite a few times in our early marriage years--but have been in this house now for 20 years. I do get rid of 'stuff"--but these cards and artwork, etc. are more challenging to let go of. I think I might frame some of the artwork and hang it up next to their photo.

I too, am a tosser, who married a saver.

The good news is, he doesn't 'collect' anything, so stuff just accumulates. If I point out to him that we don't need it, most of the time, he's willing to toss. I also don't ask him to throw away anything sentimental, so he's cool with that.

I will save a few things and try to repurpose them. I save our movie and event tickets throughout the year and try to make a piece of art with them.

The other plus for us is that we live in a small rent house. Not a lot of room to stash items that we want to save.

TOsser without a doubt. THere is no room here for anything to be stored. Art supplies is the only thing I do hang on to..that and high quaility toys for the grans. Books are down to reference..and children's high quality..but that's it.

I'm mostly a tosser. Most of our banking is done online so that right there eliminates a paper trail. The few paper bills we get I toss as soon as they're paid. My husband is bad about letting paper and strange clutter pile up (like receipts he didn't even realize he kept) but I toss all that. I have a bill box and a couple of drawers in our built-in cabinet that I keep important documents in, and I still go through that from time to time.

As far as the rest of the house goes, I'm always throwing stuff away. I can't stand clutter and like things as streamlined as possible. We also live in a small, craftsman style house with very little closet space. In the smallest closet in the house, I've allowed some old stuff/junk to remain because of sentimental value. But it's all packaged up and stacked neatly in storage containers with the closet door shut. That's all I'll allow lol.

I'm a mix of both, depending on what it is. I can't bring myself to throw away things like books, old dog stuff, certain ticket stubs/playbills etc. There's a small collection of random items stashed away throughout my room as well. Just small things have a sentimental value and don't take up much space, I could probably fit all of them in a kid's shoebox. The books do take up a considerable amount of space, but the majority of them are books that I love and will read over and over again. I have a small collection that I don't really need to hold on to, so I'll probably find some place/one to donate them to.

Every now and then I clean out all of the closets/drawers in the house and throw away any papers/trinkets that I didn't remember I had. If it was in the drawer long enough for me to forget about it/not remember where it came from, it doesn't need to stick around.

My mom is big on keeping things though. She moved out a year ago and we still have piles throughout the house of things that she needs to sort through so she can either take them with her or throw them away.

I throw out most things, because I hate clutter and it especially sucks when you have to move and there is a ton of random stuff to pack. I used to keep everything and moving twice is what changed that!

But I do keep things here and there that just feel too important to throw out. I'm just not over the top about it anymore like I used to be.

My mom, OTOH, keeps everything. And somehow she's figured out a way to keep it all relatively organized, too.

This thread is very pertinent to what's going on in my life right now. I'm moving about 1100km away and I'm only taking my small car initially, but sending the rest eventually by truck.

I started out wanting to take everything. Especially books. I love my books. I ended up taking my reference and texts books, about 10 dog related books (some that I've read and am always referring back to, and others that I haven't read yet), about 10 novels that I intend to read in the very, very near future, a handful of stationery that I am using at the moment (I horde stationery... love it!), about a dozen dvds (mostly TV series). I still have CD's, but I've ripped them to my laptop and they will get packed away.

Now I just have to pack my important electrical stuff (external hard drive, camera, video camera, kindle, random USBs, cords etc), toiletries (makeup, hair stuff, minimal jewellery because I don't wear it), my clothes, shoes etc, and kitchen stuff (including about 15 cookbooks which I had to be extremely ruthless with lol). Oh - and linen, towels, sheets, tea towels etc.

Wow, I'm sure you guys didn't really want to know every minute detail, but truth be told, it has helped me get my head around everything!

I'm so proud I have managed to cull what I am taking now down by 2/3. That's an achievement lol. I have let go four huge bags of clothes which will go to Vinnies.

I went through my numerous boxes of sentimental stuff and decided that a lot of it could go. Unless they are photos or really, really special... if I haven't looked at them or thought about them for 12 months, then I can live without them.

I have a whole stack of documents to shred and about four crate loads of recycling. Two large bags of regular rubbish.

Goodness it feels good to be ruthless with your stuff - especially if some of it you've held on to for far too long!

I have a box of stuff (mostly books, surprise, surprise) that I will take only if I have room. I definitely have a hierarchy going on.

- I went through the stuff that I had packed away last time I moved and ditched most of it. It's amazing what you consider important at different stages of your life. I have gotten rid of stuff that I thought I'd never get rid of. But I'll never get rid of my Fat Cat pillow case that mum made me when I was tiny. Never. Ever.

I'm generally a saver, but then I watch an episode of hoarders and I magically become a throw-away addict!

I am a very clean, organized person, so a lot of stuff gets tossed/gave away.

Right now, I have a gallon zip lock bag about half full of cards from my great grand daddy, papa, & uncle jim who have all passed, also have some thoughtful/handmade cards from my grandma, dad, and other various relatives. Plus some pictures of the family and friends, but other than that (which is all in that zip lock bag), nothing. Right now I have 2 pictures framed; my dad's basic training picture and a picture I took of my grandma almost 2 years ago.

I don't keep nick-nacks either.

Other than clothes, I have 5 Auburn Tigers pieces, maybe 15 Christmas/Birthday cards, probably 20-25 pictures that are not hung up and probably never will be, and a small decorative box that has a small filing box with important documents and some pens, pencils, calculator, and a deck of UNO cards and Phase-10 cards. Thats it. Sounds like a lot, but its really not. I don't really own a lot of personal stuff since I move around so much. I like to keep things simple and neat.

A saver, big time.

Books, cards, and bags are my big downfalls. I still keep every card I get, but I did finally bring myself to donate some bags (tote bags mostly, I have a serious tote problem) and books to the garage sale a friend does yearly to benefit her rescue.

This thread has been so good for me. It made me feel all inspired.

I just threw away a ridiculous amount of stuff tonight. Like... completely filled one of those large black 30+ gallon trash bags. It probably weighed more than I do lol, had a hard time dragging it out into the garage, and then I can't even put it in our garbage bin because it's going to take up nearly the entire thing lol.

I went through all my storage bins and really tried to think... DO I NEED THIS... and threw out a bunch of junk in them. Which freed up space so that all the random clutter I had sitting out could go into the bins. Kind of a vicious circle lol. But I don't mind having bins of stuff, they all fit under my bed - I just don't like having stuff sitting out everywhere and not having a place to put it.

If I could grow up and get rid of my stuffed animals that would be amazing. I have a bin full of them + a couple garbage bags full in a closet. And then I have a bunch of beanie babies on one of those wooden vertical holder things for them, which would be nice to get rid of because I never know where to put. But I can't!

Every time I read "I am a tosser" I giggle wildly.

I'm a tosser, but my mom is the ultimate saver, so instead of throwing things out, they usually get redirected along the way into our garage where they aid in forming our mini mountain range of keepsakes and memorabilia.

:lol-sign: glad to be of help! I did end up throwing out quite a bit of stuff--but I also ended up reading all of the letters my husband and I had written to each other over the course of 4-5 years before we got married--was so fun to look back at it and see where we are now. Plenty to laugh at, and plenty to feel good about --needless to say I kept those.