Discussion
I hate throwing things away, but am slowly improving.
As we are moving house I need to condense a double garage into a singe, so as a result am now making tough decisions at what to keep.
This one was easy though..
Knackered w222 steering wheel button. Why I kept them I have no idea.
Anyone else prepared to make an admission or two?
As we are moving house I need to condense a double garage into a singe, so as a result am now making tough decisions at what to keep.
This one was easy though..
Knackered w222 steering wheel button. Why I kept them I have no idea.
Anyone else prepared to make an admission or two?
Sheepshanks said:
I was as aggressive as I could be (which is not very) clearing my late FILs garage of his lifetime of bit and bobs, but in the couple of months since I've needed several things I chucked out. So my advice is to keep everything, just in case.
Good advice.From another perspective, when you are old and have boxes and boxes of tools and many jamjars filled with screws, bolts and many other things you reach the point of thinking, I have no one who wants these things when I am gone.
Having a very strong acquiring and hoarding gene, I can empathise with the OP. My girlfriend tells me 'Ye cannae see sh*t go by'. Having said that, I do wonder how people cope without what I consider bare essentials such as car battery chargers, multimeters and basic tools. The simple answer must be they pay through the nose or rely on people like us.
Knowing how hard it is to part from stuff 'that you might use one day', the best approach is to make sure they are readily available on EBay, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree, then dispose of the bulky things that when you do need them you can get in advance of the job. i.e. not emergency 'get out of trouble' stuff.
Having the hoarder gene, I know that the most stressful part is just seeing something go to waste. I got rid of some old furniture on Freecycle recently and it saved me the aggro of going to the tip (booking & queuing, and loading in the car), so it was well worth letting someone take it for nothing.
If you are into maths, one approach to seeing whether you should keep something is to work out the full value of the space something occupies in the hose/garage/garden and see how that compares to its value to you.
This stuff is easy to write, but less easy to carry through!
Knowing how hard it is to part from stuff 'that you might use one day', the best approach is to make sure they are readily available on EBay, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree, then dispose of the bulky things that when you do need them you can get in advance of the job. i.e. not emergency 'get out of trouble' stuff.
Having the hoarder gene, I know that the most stressful part is just seeing something go to waste. I got rid of some old furniture on Freecycle recently and it saved me the aggro of going to the tip (booking & queuing, and loading in the car), so it was well worth letting someone take it for nothing.
If you are into maths, one approach to seeing whether you should keep something is to work out the full value of the space something occupies in the hose/garage/garden and see how that compares to its value to you.
This stuff is easy to write, but less easy to carry through!
Swedish death cleaning, or döstädning to you, is my future 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gentle-Art-Swedish-Death-...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gentle-Art-Swedish-Death-...
I am a bit horder-ish, and have to force myself to get rid of stuff, I found paper was relatively easy, as you can just scan it in and then in my little brain..., the true value is now stored as a file on my hard drive however this can be time consuming; especially if you have a few degrees and want to keep the notes you made decades ago... then just recycle the paper and brain is comfortable.
Although, in my garage a large number of tools (most of which inherited), I have a few Escort MK2 bits (indicator stalks etc; no idea if they work), some VW bits from one of the cars owned by someone in the family, they probably handed me the car and told me "broken, fixy, fixy" so I fixed it and gave it back, but I kept the old bits... I have a healthy (or is that unhealthy?) collection of Haynes manuals for cars I don't own anymore, (some going back to the 70s! including the MK2 Escort...).
Loads of magazines, I keep getting delusions I might be able to sell them (I am not under the delusion the antiques roadshow will tell me they are worth £100 billion) I just don't want to see them going in the bin!), so loads of car and aircraft magazines (any one remember "take-off", I probably have most of them...). I scanned in some of the car magazines in a brutal attempt to get rid of things out of the house a few years ago (it worked to a large extent).
Thankfully, the net flow of things is out of the house so the problem is largely solved, by the time I die (this might sound really morbid to some, but my mates won't even have noticed this), hopefully there will just a be a minimal amount for the family to bin.
I think in the back of my head I think this might be handy, or that might be really useful if I know someone restoring a [insert name of car here]. In reality I know that is rubbish, and I just don't want to see things go to waste.
however this can be time consuming; especially if you have a few degrees and want to keep the notes you made decades ago... then just recycle the paper and brain is comfortable.Although, in my garage a large number of tools (most of which inherited), I have a few Escort MK2 bits (indicator stalks etc; no idea if they work), some VW bits from one of the cars owned by someone in the family, they probably handed me the car and told me "broken, fixy, fixy" so I fixed it and gave it back, but I kept the old bits... I have a healthy (or is that unhealthy?) collection of Haynes manuals for cars I don't own anymore, (some going back to the 70s! including the MK2 Escort...).
Loads of magazines, I keep getting delusions I might be able to sell them (I am not under the delusion the antiques roadshow will tell me they are worth £100 billion) I just don't want to see them going in the bin!), so loads of car and aircraft magazines (any one remember "take-off", I probably have most of them...). I scanned in some of the car magazines in a brutal attempt to get rid of things out of the house a few years ago (it worked to a large extent).
Thankfully, the net flow of things is out of the house so the problem is largely solved, by the time I die (this might sound really morbid to some, but my mates won't even have noticed this), hopefully there will just a be a minimal amount for the family to bin.
I think in the back of my head I think this might be handy, or that might be really useful if I know someone restoring a [insert name of car here]. In reality I know that is rubbish, and I just don't want to see things go to waste.
Ari said:
I have probably 20 years worth of old Car Magazine, mostly in the loft but also in my study.
Am I ever going to read them? No.
Can I bring myself to stop hoarding more? No.
Am I going to throw them all out..?
I had the same, probably more of the same. I got rid earlier this year and cleared space in a cupboard. I’ve survived.Am I ever going to read them? No.
Can I bring myself to stop hoarding more? No.
Am I going to throw them all out..?
BT Summers said:
From another perspective, when you are old and have boxes and boxes of tools and many jamjars filled with screws, bolts and many other things you reach the point of thinking, I have no one who wants these things when I am gone.
This suggests a mentality of 'If I can't use them, nobody else is going to'. At least offer them to Autojumblers,Repair Cafes and such like, free, if needs be.Stick 'em on Ebay, Gumtree, Freecycle or whatever. My Dad had loads of BA screws and aircraft bits & pieces he had gathered over the last 75 years. A friend of mine, who maintains several De Havilland Chipmunks and other aircraft, was over the moon to be able to go through and get what could be used on them.
I had many years’ worth of Cars and Car Conversions, Fast Lane, Performance Car, other UK Classic car mags too, as well as some American stuff like Car Craft, Mopar Muscle, and the piles just grew. I was buying binders to keep them in as well… 
I scanned the magazines to find an article for a mate and it took me hours- I realised that it was mostly advertising. After that I ripped out the articles that were useful, punched holes in them, and stored them in 2 lever arch binders. The rest was binned – most therapeutic.
Tools and stuff- let’s not go there….
I scanned the magazines to find an article for a mate and it took me hours- I realised that it was mostly advertising. After that I ripped out the articles that were useful, punched holes in them, and stored them in 2 lever arch binders. The rest was binned – most therapeutic.
Tools and stuff- let’s not go there….
GliderRider said:
BT Summers said:
From another perspective, when you are old and have boxes and boxes of tools and many jamjars filled with screws, bolts and many other things you reach the point of thinking, I have no one who wants these things when I am gone.
This suggests a mentality of 'If I can't use them, nobody else is going to'. At least offer them to Autojumblers,Repair Cafes and such like, free, if needs be.Stick 'em on Ebay, Gumtree, Freecycle or whatever. My Dad had loads of BA screws and aircraft bits & pieces he had gathered over the last 75 years. A friend of mine, who maintains several De Havilland Chipmunks and other aircraft, was over the moon to be able to go through and get what could be used on them.
BT Summers said:
GliderRider said:
BT Summers said:
From another perspective, when you are old and have boxes and boxes of tools and many jamjars filled with screws, bolts and many other things you reach the point of thinking, I have no one who wants these things when I am gone.
This suggests a mentality of 'If I can't use them, nobody else is going to'. At least offer them to Autojumblers,Repair Cafes and such like, free, if needs be.Stick 'em on Ebay, Gumtree, Freecycle or whatever. My Dad had loads of BA screws and aircraft bits & pieces he had gathered over the last 75 years. A friend of mine, who maintains several De Havilland Chipmunks and other aircraft, was over the moon to be able to go through and get what could be used on them.
A chap where I worked built very detailed working model trams about four feet long. He was in a group of similar enthusiasts for these. They had a mutual arrangement that if any of them were to die, the remaining members would arrange the disposal of their collection (and, I assume, their tools). This was to ensure their spouses did not have to deal with dealers and that their families would receive a fair price.
Years ago I did a Six Sigma Black Belt Project in a factory, and the aim was to reduce the amount of excess and obsolete stock.
So, once we'd worked out why our purchasing department kept agreeing to minimum order quantities, which were stupidly large, I got on with trying to get rid of the obsolete stock.
What I should have done is to box it all up and hide it on the top empty shelf of the stores, and get finance to write the value down to zero. But I was encouraged to skip it.
A week later I saw the director of production, in the skip, looking for something which cost about £3, but which was needed that week in order to complete an order worth £45k.
Oh how I laughed. Apparently obsolete, means we haven't had an order for a year. It was an MOD order and they ordered 2 years worth in one order, every 2 years.
Moral? No idea. But I keep finding things I intended to fix about 5 years ago.
So, once we'd worked out why our purchasing department kept agreeing to minimum order quantities, which were stupidly large, I got on with trying to get rid of the obsolete stock.
What I should have done is to box it all up and hide it on the top empty shelf of the stores, and get finance to write the value down to zero. But I was encouraged to skip it.
A week later I saw the director of production, in the skip, looking for something which cost about £3, but which was needed that week in order to complete an order worth £45k.
Oh how I laughed. Apparently obsolete, means we haven't had an order for a year. It was an MOD order and they ordered 2 years worth in one order, every 2 years.
Moral? No idea. But I keep finding things I intended to fix about 5 years ago.
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff