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For me being frugal means spending money wisely, not hoarding stuff in case I might need it some day. I admit I am not terribly frugal. But I try not to stockpile goods in normal times. I have restocked some paper goods, in case we get locked down this winter. But normally this is not something I think too hard about.
Keeping used electronics equipment is something I’d never do. That stuff has to be stored, and it becomes obsolete fast. So you’ve got bulky, aging stuff taking up room in your house or garage, getting in your way. No thanks.
I do own a few sentimental pieces of decorative glassware that I do not need, but can’t bear to part with. I tell myself that my dead grandmother will never know that I got rid of her pink Fostoria console set, but it is hard to let it go. And people do not generally want old glassware now anyway. That’s the kind of stuff I have to decide to keep or let go.
We send things to Goodwill fairly frequently though.
I disassembled a few TVs and found useful parts. Big projection TVs have big mirrors. A fresnel lens can light a fire with sunlight. The rest is a few dollars of scrap metal and some plastic. Some people make holiday decorations with bright shiny wire.
Has anyone ever had issues with being too frugal, perhaps to the point of being a pack rat?
After a recent death in my family, I realize I need to be getting rid of stuff I don't use and never will use. I am feeling so overwhelmed. I realize that part of my issue is that I have OCD and have sentimental value tied to many things. So that's something I'm working on.
But then there are things that I acquired for free and am storing for when I need them later. A few examples are LCD computer monitors, TVs, headphones, and printer paper. Those things take up space, especially the monitors and TVs as they need to be stored on the floor. I figure I have between $700-$1200 worth of spare computer monitors and TVs. I'd be pretty stupid to throw those out.
So how do you deal with having stuff like that? I'm certainly not a hoarder, but I do have a lot of stuff. I prefer to donate things rather than trash them, but so many places are restricting what they take, even before COVID. I'm too shy to use something like Craigslist, and I refuse to use eBay to sell things.
Guess I'm a wealthy person with some frugal in my heart, I keep coming back here. In brief, my dad was a boy during the Great Depression and was working class poor..."but didn't know it" as he phrased it since most Irish in Charlestown were not well-off back then anyway. My gramps was a city architect and inspector for the City of Boston, who worked when he could in those dark years.
Those habits stuck. He passed away with a good nut, who knows why. I've since doubled it, thank you MBA and decent investments. My dad was a bit too frugal his whole life, to point of the thread, and could not spot value as well as he should. No "dumb" investments but his suits had shiny seats and were from Sears Roebuck, I buried him in his favorite. Quality costs several times as much, sometimes, but is worth every cent in comfort and longevity. His home was not super-cluttered when I cleaned it out, he did believe that everything had a place and clearly had been reducing the clutter across two decades since my mom passed.
I didn't have tons in my 20s, or rather was car and motorcycle-rich and life-poor. Poor-ish, as a young professional and 90% of humanity would kill for my kind of poor back then. But I learned how to spot value, and be frugal. That continues to this day, though I spend more than the old man in proportional terms to both drive up the asset values in markets and to live with more style, frankly.
All that said, yes my house still has too much stuff but does appear tidy at-least. There's a kid on a local (social media) Group who hauls away everything he can fit in a truck bed for $100/load. I've retained him for two loads this year and last. More are coming, probably in the spring. About a year ago, I carefully packed and gave away a good wardrobe of clean but obsolete clothes that served me well from about 2005-2010. Their time had come, it was a tax write-off for charity. Lot of stuff, bins of it, that day.
More to go, still. Started to used FreeCycle equivalents on another Group. I sell electronics at some marginal fraction of original cost on various media sites we all know, just sold a fitness watch yesterday due to an upgrade (a non-frugal update, but the watch is spectacular at monitoring fitness level and navigating/hiking). People who stack up expensive but utterly obsolete electronics are not using the long-view. Residual value on most of that after ten years is zero, it costs more to dispose-of properly. Get while the getting is good.
The bulk of what remains in my home must go c. next seven years, "If" I split this place and flee for far more compact quarters for retirement. Or I'll buy two places and do the snowbird thing, and split the furnishings. Haven't decided quite yet on the true timetable, might be nine more years. It will take 7-9 years to unwind all of this, at my modest pace anyway.
Just did the same a couple of months ago; books I knew I wouldn't re-read or refer to in future. It was liberating. Took a car load of boxes to a funky used bookstore. Ironically, while standing there sweating from the work, the store owner offered me an open-ended store credit in exchange for his fresh inventory. The last thing on my mind was buying more books to fill the space I'd just created. Maybe that logic made sense to him, but then he owns a funky used bookstore! Had to wonder how many of those books ended up in his car instead of the sale shelf.
I am a little packratish.......but once it becomes obvious I am most likely not going to be needing an item in my possession, I have no problem tossing or donating said item.
Well, now I am motivated to put the forum away and file some papers.
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