5 ms·

You should throw away all items you haven't used for a year.

Chris2048 4y ago
There are lots of things that you might not use for years. Jump starter, plumbing tools, special-occasion alcohol etc.
jackvalentine 4y ago
A few years ago I had to clean all my crap out of my parents house. I put them in boxes unlabelled and waited a year - I couldn’t even remember what was in them so went straight to the dump and heaved them in. Absolutely great bit of advice.
- npteljes 4y ago
  Second hand markets are also great for these. I recently sold all of my electronics online. I offered them for cheap so that I can get rid of them faster, and even the most worthless piece of junk, an 12+ yrs old, beaten up cheapo laptop with a 32 bit CPU found its new owner for some pocket change. Not all junk can be sold though, of course. But I think it's worth considering, maybe someone else will find them useful and then they can live on a bit longer.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Selling stuff is an absolute PITA. There used to be people who would sell for you on eBay for a cut. AFAIK, that's all gone. I could never be bothered to sell the huge amount of mostly fairly low dollar stuff I don't want. Friends I know who have moved say even yard sales aren't worth the bother. I have stuff like a big pile of laserdiscs that someone would probably like but just not worth the effort to sell.
    - npteljes 4y ago
      I agree, it's a lot of extra effort. Can you elaborate a bit on how even the yard sales weren't worth the bother? I imagine that I'd basically sell everything for the first person who wants it, for whatever price.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Pretty much going by what a friend who was moving across the country told me. I imagine I'd still give it a shot if I were going to otherwise just chuck a bunch of stuff in a dumpster. And I have had some luck leaving basically crap for free at the edge of the road. I'm on a fairly busy road but in a semi-rural location so I'm not going to get that much traffic.
    - Anthony-G 4y ago
      Selling is definitely a pain. I usually donate unwanted items to local charity shops. For more specialist or other items they won’t take, I prefer to give them away on freecycle.org (or a local equivalent). Friends tell me that my ridiculously large vinyl record collection (that I only really listen to a small sub-set of) would be worth a lot on Discogs but I find it hard to motivate myself to actually do it.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        In my case, one of the things I have is a big stack of laserdiscs. Someone would probably pay OK money for them. But no way am I going to sell them one by one on eBay and even boxing them all up as a take it or leave it sale is almost certainly more trouble than what I would get for it all. And out where I live something like freecycle is very thin. Many things are worth something--maybe even a bit more than something--to the right person but making the connection to that person is often more trouble than it's worth.
YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
Even ignoring facetious examples like "your passport" or "the deed to your house", this is terrible advice. Just in the last month I used some sandpaper that had sat in a box for several years, pulled a ten year old DVD off a shelf and watched it, re-read a book from my childhood and connected an obscure audio adaptor that had been untouched for at least five years. Earlier this year I played games on two different games consoles from previous decades and reactivated a Raspberry Pi from a previous project into a new one. I pruned a tree and dug a flower bed with some tools that were recovered from a grandparent's house after sitting untouched for well over a year. If everything in your house that's more than a year old is worthless, maybe you're just buying things which are worthless from the beginning.
- npteljes 4y ago
  Who knows what else you would have used, or watched otherwise. This is really personal though. I have a hard time parting with things, but I also don't care about them as long as I have them, so I end up being a collector of suboptimal items. This doesn't mean that others are in the same situation.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  The advise was worded too general, but I think it's a valid starting point for evaluating how important something really is. One slightly more nuanced method I've used when cleaning out is the question "how likely am I to need this again, and is storing it until then easier than selling it now and buying it again if I ever need it". The answers to this shift, for example it justifies getting rid of more possessions as you get more income, and increasingly only keeping things that you actively use or that would be inconvenient or time-sensitive to get again.
- mgaunard 4y ago
  you could have easily purchased new sandpaper, rented the movie on netflix or bought new games. The cost is keeping unused stuff around is higher than acquiring it again were you to need it again. And why do you even have a passport if you don't travel? The deed of your house? Why would you keep a piece of paper you could so easily lose, especially since it's on the land registry anyway?

Chris2048 4y ago

There are lots of things that you might not use for years. Jump starter, plumbing tools, special-occasion alcohol etc.

A few years ago I had to clean all my crap out of my parents house. I put them in boxes unlabelled and waited a year - I couldn’t even remember what was in them so went straight to the dump and heaved them in. Absolutely great bit of advice.

npteljes 4y ago
Second hand markets are also great for these. I recently sold all of my electronics online. I offered them for cheap so that I can get rid of them faster, and even the most worthless piece of junk, an 12+ yrs old, beaten up cheapo laptop with a 32 bit CPU found its new owner for some pocket change. Not all junk can be sold though, of course. But I think it's worth considering, maybe someone else will find them useful and then they can live on a bit longer.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Selling stuff is an absolute PITA. There used to be people who would sell for you on eBay for a cut. AFAIK, that's all gone. I could never be bothered to sell the huge amount of mostly fairly low dollar stuff I don't want. Friends I know who have moved say even yard sales aren't worth the bother. I have stuff like a big pile of laserdiscs that someone would probably like but just not worth the effort to sell.
  - npteljes 4y ago
    I agree, it's a lot of extra effort. Can you elaborate a bit on how even the yard sales weren't worth the bother? I imagine that I'd basically sell everything for the first person who wants it, for whatever price.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Pretty much going by what a friend who was moving across the country told me. I imagine I'd still give it a shot if I were going to otherwise just chuck a bunch of stuff in a dumpster. And I have had some luck leaving basically crap for free at the edge of the road. I'm on a fairly busy road but in a semi-rural location so I'm not going to get that much traffic.
  - Anthony-G 4y ago
    Selling is definitely a pain. I usually donate unwanted items to local charity shops. For more specialist or other items they won’t take, I prefer to give them away on freecycle.org (or a local equivalent). Friends tell me that my ridiculously large vinyl record collection (that I only really listen to a small sub-set of) would be worth a lot on Discogs but I find it hard to motivate myself to actually do it.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      In my case, one of the things I have is a big stack of laserdiscs. Someone would probably pay OK money for them. But no way am I going to sell them one by one on eBay and even boxing them all up as a take it or leave it sale is almost certainly more trouble than what I would get for it all. And out where I live something like freecycle is very thin. Many things are worth something--maybe even a bit more than something--to the right person but making the connection to that person is often more trouble than it's worth.

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago

Even ignoring facetious examples like "your passport" or "the deed to your house", this is terrible advice. Just in the last month I used some sandpaper that had sat in a box for several years, pulled a ten year old DVD off a shelf and watched it, re-read a book from my childhood and connected an obscure audio adaptor that had been untouched for at least five years. Earlier this year I played games on two different games consoles from previous decades and reactivated a Raspberry Pi from a previous project into a new one. I pruned a tree and dug a flower bed with some tools that were recovered from a grandparent's house after sitting untouched for well over a year. If everything in your house that's more than a year old is worthless, maybe you're just buying things which are worthless from the beginning.

npteljes 4y ago
Who knows what else you would have used, or watched otherwise. This is really personal though. I have a hard time parting with things, but I also don't care about them as long as I have them, so I end up being a collector of suboptimal items. This doesn't mean that others are in the same situation.
wongarsu 4y ago
The advise was worded too general, but I think it's a valid starting point for evaluating how important something really is. One slightly more nuanced method I've used when cleaning out is the question "how likely am I to need this again, and is storing it until then easier than selling it now and buying it again if I ever need it". The answers to this shift, for example it justifies getting rid of more possessions as you get more income, and increasingly only keeping things that you actively use or that would be inconvenient or time-sensitive to get again.
mgaunard 4y ago
you could have easily purchased new sandpaper, rented the movie on netflix or bought new games. The cost is keeping unused stuff around is higher than acquiring it again were you to need it again. And why do you even have a passport if you don't travel? The deed of your house? Why would you keep a piece of paper you could so easily lose, especially since it's on the land registry anyway?