i save EVERYTHING! way WAY too much stuff like, i keep magazine just to have tham, and i have just tons of them. i have so many OC Weeklys, and rolling stone, and vegetarian times, and they just keep stackin up. along with the clothing i have, and jewelry... i have a bunch of just pontless crap. but i dont want to throw it away. i just keep thinking how materialistic i am being.
People tell me I have too much stuff all the time. I use almost everything, and the things I don't use I have plans for. I think the major thing keeping me from getting yet another hobby and accumulating more stuff is lack of space.
i use to have too much crap and then one day I was just like, screw it and threw about everything away...had like a dozen trashbags filled with crap... and now my apartment is clean and organized as hell... and it actually makes me feel better...
Most hippies I know have some pack rat genes. Whether they're living out of a back pack, a vehicle, an apartment, or have several acres, they'll have as much stuff as they have room for.
so only hippies are pack rats? Im not a hippy, I keep stuff cause I have never had anything growing up, and so when i get things for myself and so forth, its hard to toss out...
my parents have always been pack rats, drives me nuts, but it has also been beneficial. Now when I start feeling like I am hanging on to to much useless junk it is easier for me to get rid of it all. My last room mate was a pack rat too. He would have so much useless crap laying around that it would trail out of his room into the living room. When I cleaned the house I would pile everything in a pile in front of his bedroom door so that he had to do something with it. I only hang on to stuff that I know I am going to have a use for in the near future. I hate hearing the whole, "I might be able to use that some day". My dad has been planning on fixing this lawn mower that has been sitting outside for 10 years now. There are two of them sitting out there, and one of my friends offered to fix which ever one he wanted, and take the other one for payment. I was thinking win win situation, get one mower fixed and get the other piece of shit out of here. He just couldn't let either one go.
I have a very difficult time throwing things away because I can always come up with many other uses for them...old magazines can be used for craft projects with the kids, plastic or glass containers can be cleaned out, labels removed, and used for homemade gifts (pancake mixes, cookie mixes, bath salts, hot cocoa powder) andto store an endless variety of things. Old clothing can be hoarded and later donated to those in need, or, you can cut them up and use the fabric for all kinds of things. Many times, I hold onto things that would make fun art projects to do with the kids. My house is clean and orderly, everything has it's own place, so it's not as though we live in a cluttered environment. Sure, my cabinets are packed, drawers are stuffed to the max, boxes take space in the basement, but everything, and I do mean everything, that I save, ALWAYS gets used eventually. My husband likes to tease me because I have such a hard time parting with things that others might view as garbage. For me, it has nothing to do with materialism, it has to do with reusing and recycling in my own home. Let me tell you, although he (my hubby) likes to tease me at times, he has been quite impressed with most of the things I've reused items for. I'm proud that I'm a so-called "pack-rat", because I'm proud of the creative ways that I have found to recycle items destined for the trash that are perfectly suitable for other uses.
I save magazines and comics for my future kids to go through. My dad gave me all his Mad magizines and Marvel comics, and I'm better for it.
It's not called "saving" it's called "hoarding" You are a "hoarder"... hehe i dont like to hold onto much because i know i want to travel alot, so i dont like shit to accumulate....i probs have too much as it is...