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Post by JohnV on Oct 20, 2016 9:24:12 GMT
"Stuff" is an emotive subject and on our boat the cause of occasional strife. I'm firmly in the "if I haven't used it in a year I don't need it" (except tools) camp, whereas Chris is a hoarder, she still has childhood books and stuff, convinced it is worth something. She sticks to this even though I show her prices on eBay Phil Whilst reading this post I glanced up at my bookshelf to see "Nobby" "Tangled Trails" "Rags and Tatters" all published around 1912 to 1914 ....... my fathers childhood books ........ and ........ "In The Heart of the Rockies" published in 1895 ...... which belonged to my grandfather. Oddly, I don't seem to have kept many of my own childhood books although ......... "Cruise of the Conrad" by Alan Villiers and "The Epic Voyage of The Seven Little Sisters" by William Willis made the transfer from "Keepsakes" to "Boating reference" shelves quite easily
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Post by patty on Oct 20, 2016 11:46:10 GMT
"Stuff" is an emotive subject and on our boat the cause of occasional strife. I'm firmly in the "if I haven't used it in a year I don't need it" (except tools) camp, whereas Chris is a hoarder, she still has childhood books and stuff, convinced it is worth something. She sticks to this even though I show her prices on eBay Phil Gotta smile at this...I did one of my clear outs and then daughter having noticed certain missing items took me round a retro antiques place to show me what I deemed rubbish had value in some eyes..
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Post by phil70 on Oct 20, 2016 12:07:12 GMT
"Stuff" is an emotive subject and on our boat the cause of occasional strife. I'm firmly in the "if I haven't used it in a year I don't need it" (except tools) camp, whereas Chris is a hoarder, she still has childhood books and stuff, convinced it is worth something. She sticks to this even though I show her prices on eBay Phil Gotta smile at this...I did one of my clear outs and then daughter having noticed certain missing items took me round a retro antiques place to show me what I deemed rubbish had value in some eyes.. Have seen this myself and though some stuff carries a hefty price tag it seems that to command a big bit of wedge requires you to put the tag "Retro" on it. I remember seeing some crockery on sale for stupid price and had at one time owned some, it was a cheap as chips budget range from Woolies, nothing remarkable about it and of questionable quality. A quick scan over eBay will throw up all sorts, I've even seen veggie boxes made from the cheapest of wood as they were one use only, offered for sale at stupid money because they were described as RETRO. Phil
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 12:44:30 GMT
I'm now a firm believer of keeping possessions to a minimum. Ok, I do need my basic music stuff which I keep in our studio and my amateur radio. Other than that, not a lot else. I find if you only have a few things, you tend to appreciate them more. When you have lots of stuff, it's too easy to get distracted from what you are doing. To give you an example. I used to be more creative when I started out on piano. When I got into synthesizers I'd spend more time twiddling with my knobs (!) rather than writing a tune. I'm only just beggining to appreciate how nice it is to just sit beside our boat staring at nature and talking to passers by. I guess it's also getting over the self importance thing too. When you are younger it's easy to think possessions define your worth and status (marketing forces again!). I was shocked to discover that the world will carry on after I pop my cloggs...
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Post by larkboy on Oct 20, 2016 19:47:48 GMT
I can relate to much on this thread having ended up on a boat 11 years ago after mentally going bang. In the run up to getting the boat I had to get rid of 95% of all my possessions, most of which were such that I skipped them! I have to say I found the process very cathartic and helpful. I think my only regret about the clear out was having to get rid of a TVR 3000M which I'd bought to restore and had made a start on. I have to say, the whole process made me much less susceptible to becoming attached to 'stuff'......which I think is a good thing.π
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Post by pΗΚΙΉΗΚuΔ± on Oct 22, 2016 11:17:25 GMT
We're in the process of sorting out too, although we wont have a boat for a couple of years yet. I recently went into the garage to start a clear out and found stuff in boxes that we brought from the last move (5 years ago) which are full of stuff 'that might come in useful one day'.
We have now adopted the 'have I used it in the last year' approach and the amount of crap we are getting rid of is amazing. I am a hoarder and keep old gadgets, audio and pc equipment for future projects, which never really come to fruition. If I include the various hobbies I have had over the years I am beginning to see how we have a full 3 bed house when only two of us live in it!
It has, as others have said been quite liberating getting rid of stuff, it's just hard work. What brought it home to me was finding bank statements going back to when I was 16!
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Post by JohnV on Oct 22, 2016 14:25:21 GMT
It has, as others have said been quite liberating getting rid of stuff, it's just hard work. What brought it home to me was finding bank statements going back to when I was 16! Ha ! when I was clearing out paperwork last year I found the receipt for my motorcycle insurance (fully comp) for a Triumph Tiger Cub ......... 17s and 6d
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Post by marni on Oct 22, 2016 14:48:40 GMT
We gave all the household stuff away.Anything of use went to PDSA.We had our clothes and paper work we needed.When we sold the boat we had to hire a van to move the crap we had gathered over 12 years.
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Post by smileypete on Oct 22, 2016 21:58:16 GMT
Hi forumidiot, I wish you good luck with your ability to reduce your possesions. Myself I have a mental illness, I'm a hoarder, which wasn't so much of a problem when I had 2 38m barges of which I used one to store loads of stuff. More then 25 years ago, I was selling the barge with all the stuff, but I had to empty her for the sale, so I rented a lock up garage, where I manage to store quite a lot of the stuff, the rest went everywhere I could find space on my other barge. But at the very last moment the sale didn't happen, as the bank that had promissed a loan to the buyer pulled out, and that way I could empty the surplus that I'd put everywhere on my other barge back on the one that I was supposed to have sold. 10 years ago, I really sold her in the end (almost gave her away to someone that I thought was a good friend at the time) and had to find space, but as I'd sold the other barge a couple of years before, to replace her with a much smaller (14m75 trawler-yacht), I couldn't use that to store the useless stuff of which I couldn't separate myself (Madness !), and I had to rent a second lock up. So now I'm paying a lot of money to store loads of stuff that I haven't touched for ages, and because of this complete Madness (which go's much further than just the rent of the 2 lock ups), my monthly expenses are more than my retirement, and the tiny little bit of savings I had are melting like snow in the hot sunshine. Of course I know that I urgently have to do something about it, but for the time being I just don't seem to manage, I have been changing to date on my lists of what I want to do the next year for several years already. Some people have offered to help me, but this is really something I have to do for myself, I would love to be able to have all my possesions in a backpack and be free, but without being overly pessimistic, I can't see that ever happening. You are already in a bit better position than I am, as you've got all the stuff in your big house, you don't have to rent lock ups (yet) to store your (maybe) useless possesions. Anyway, I wish you success. Peter. I'm a borderline hoarder too, more of a 'collector' of too many things, I love 'the stuff'. The way I've now come to look at it, if there's an average 10% chance I need something, then I need 10 boxes of random stuff to have one box of useful stuff! Something else that helps, is having whittled down to the 'good stuff', rather asking myself 'do I need this or not', I ask 'do I need this more than I need THAT'? In other words, it's much easier to make a relative decision than an absolute decision. I'd be quite happy to go cold turkey now and live a spartan life, but there's still all the stuff to deal with. Paradoxically, proper hoarders are quite minimalist in a way; because almost everything gets literally buried, they end living with a small subset of everything, far less than the average person. Some good tips already on ways to pass stuff on, Freecycle/Freegle can be another good outlet, though being free you may sometimes get 'no shows'.
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Post by zigspider on Oct 24, 2016 21:38:16 GMT
We've just moved back from Canada after 10 years. We moved with a 20' container with all of our furniture and belongings. We returned with 40 boxes ( and our bed frame ) which we will receive in up to 6 weeks time. Currently we have about 6 boxes of donated items from my Mother, and 4 suitcases of essential clothes, and are moving into a 2 bedroom house next week. I'm hoping that the 'stuff' can be kept to a bare minimum for our eventual move onto a boat.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2016 9:57:14 GMT
Paradoxically, proper hoarders are quite minimalist in a way; because almost everything gets literally buried, they end living with a small subset of everything, far less than the average person. Now I understand myself so much better! Time to change...
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Post by toekneep on Nov 2, 2016 17:38:37 GMT
We gave up our rented house to do a five month cycle touring trip around Britain. We rented a 50 sq foot storage unit and anything we weren't taking on the trip had to fit in the unit. Two memories come to mind: We went through a book case and got rid of half the books. Several weeks later we went through it again and got rid of half the books. Moral; just keep doing it until all the books are gone. Same with wardrobes and clothes.
We also used Freecycle web site to 'give' stuff away. What a nightmare!! For example the first response to an ad offering a working spin dryer was; "What colour is it?". Giving stuff away was by far the hardest part of the whole process.
Good luck forumidiot, it's worth it in the end and changes your outlook on life. We currently live in a small park home and have more than enough space for our stuff. We don't anticipate a problem when we finally get our boat.
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Post by naughtyfox on Nov 2, 2016 22:22:02 GMT
I moved to Himanka 5 years ago from Helsinki, bringing my stuff gradually by car during the course of a year - 13 car trips, one with a trailer with bed & washing machine in it. We're still using that washing machine and bed. The boat came up on its own trailer (and from Lahti to JyvΓ€skylΓ€ by water on Lake PΓ€ijΓ€nne), and my pushbike I rode here (6 days, overnights at: Tammela, Tampere, Parkano, PerΓ€seinΓ€joki, Uusikaarlepyy).
In Finland it's easy to buy 'storage boxes', these are about 3 times bigger than a shoebox, and I have about 73 of these in the storeroom - numbered, and a list so I can find things if need be. I'd guess a good third are books. There are also larger boxes full of stone specimens in the garage, mostly of Finnish commercial stones which are (or have been) quarried and used round the world.
I like to be neat & tidy and tend to shuffle things into boxes, and am always trying to keep my 'things to do' list to a minimum. I'm currently trying to get down to what I had planned for this year, 2016, sorting out and labelling all my photos, and writing my memoirs, and re-starting to study Geology. My family tree project is finished, Thunderboat has distracted me too much. Finally looking like the road ahead is clear...
I can see how boring I am! Poke me in the eyes with scissors!!
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