What are some of the things difficult to throw away even though eventually, they will be discarded? I have so many boxes of stuff and I know I should go through them to throw away but I have hard time doing so thinking I might need that someday. I find old photographs from decades ago and I simply can't throw them away. Also, I have so many different screws from various things and I can't seem to throw them away. What about you?

 

When we moved into our prior house I had a couple of boxes of "stuff" that stayed in the garage and never got unpacked.
Ten years later when we moved the boxes went into the dumpster.

 

When we moved to our new home I threw boxes of stuff in the dumpster. We down sized to a smaller home and stuff either went to Catholic Charity, our kids, the dumpster and our buyer bought some of our furniture. We kept our photos, too many memories.

 

We have some pics that no one will want (as discussed in photo thread) but I haven't tossed them. We don't have a lot of extra stuff, but we have some, like most everyone does. There is stuff in the basement in Rick's work area that will likely never get used. My attic is empty of "stuff" and I purge closets and drawers on a regular basis. I still have a few story books from when the grandkids were little. When I gave away the toys they no longer played with, both Ally and Ryan wanted me to keep certain books we used to read together.

If I decide to do some organizing and run across something that hasn't been used in a long while, it generally will get tossed or donated. I don't like clutter.

 

Going through that too as we are going to downsize and move to a smaller house with a bigger piece of land soon hopefully (well actually, my wife is all for a "Garage House" aka a nice shop with a 2nd story living area ) . It is very hard, but basically I am going by the "I have not opened this box in 3 + years so I do not need it" approach Pictures and keepsakes we will keep of course. Hard to let that stuff go since really one day most of what you have left are memories! Parts, screws, etc are also hard for me to let go of since I do all my own car work, house work, woodwork, etc (I have not called a repair person of any type more than about 10 times in my life) so I end up using that kind of stuff.

 

I pretty much keep it to the basics. If it hasn't been used, looked at or needed for anything, it gets donated. The only things that we keep are pictures and some souvenirs that remind us of favorite events and places.

 

Once you start tossing out printed photographs it gets much easier. In the past few days I have scanned approximately 400 pictures and slides from the early 40s to the mid 60s into the computer. Everything I've scanned in I toss out! The only exception to that is the very large professional photos. Anything else goes. It has been fun going down memory lane looking at my childhood and the wife's. It's also impressive how tweaking the bad and fadded pictures can bring them back to life in the computer.

I've never been a pack rat. Every year or two I do a mental walk through of stuff and toss stuff that I see no future in keeping.

 

As soon as I throw anything away I need it within a month. Got rid of a SUV load of books when we moved 3 years ago. I'm still looking for many of them...

-- Chuck

 

^^That has been my experience!

 

Same here too.