Getting rid of stuff

joop

So I'm on the move and moving into a smaller house. From a family down to just two. Have been through the attic and brought out all the old records, school books, wedding dress etc!

I've been pretty ruthless with odd bits of old dinner services and paperbacks, have put lots of stuff on recycle but can I reall discard my old 45s from the 70's? I was ready to until I started looking through them and the feel and smell and the memories!

Will charity shops even want them?

Plus, old excercise books and 'works of art' from three children who are now in their 20s! Ridiculous to feel so attached!

poppysarah

Decide on a size of box you're happy to store again.Fill that and throw the rest away.

Freecycle is a better bet than charity shops as they do tend to throw a vast amount of stuff out that they think they can't sell.

G_M

How can anyone else quantify the emotional attachment these objects have for you. Some people will consider hm unimportant junk, to others they represent your life!

ps - some 45s will have considerable 'collectors' value!

theGrinch

consider ebay or other source to sell unwanted items as some will have value to the next man.

James_N

G_M wrote: »

How can anyone else quantify the emotional attachment these objects have for you. Some people will consider hm unimportant junk, to others they represent your life!

ps - some 45s will have considerable 'collectors' value!

I cannot understand the ultra-trendy advice to delete everything from your house until it looks like an un-lived-in photograph. These items represent your life and your memories. If they are not too massive or totally useless, keep them without shame.

Contessa

Joop, I'm in a similar situation. I am a hoarder. I don't have any 45's but do have lots of LP's. They hold so many memories. I know I'll have to downsize when I move but I don't want to throw away my "treasures".

dopester

joop wrote: »

Plus, old excercise books and 'works of art' from three children who are now in their 20s! Ridiculous to feel so attached!

Get a digital camera.

Then take pics of any treasured paperwork, old school reports, kids' paintings and drawings.

Digitalise stuff you'd like to keep but need to get rid of for space reasons. Might not as good as original.. but good backups nevertheless. I've got loads of my stuff digitalised and binned the original documents.

You can stick a load of digital photos on computer, DVD or an 8 GIG+ USB key. That way got loads to look back on... much more conveniently than the original bulky form. However if you digitalise important stuff, like copies of passports, bank records ect.. also consider using a good encrypting program on all digitalised folders.

Yorkie1

Just make sure you do a back-up of anything stored electronically - and kept somewhere other than your home, preferably or at least in a different location from the master copy ... )

joop

And the thing is these things have been sleeping in the attic for 16 years and I hardly gave them a thought but to actually Throw Them Away...???

I will go through the records and anything that doesn't mean anything I will freecycle. At least they will be looked through. I will hang on to David(Cassidy), Gladys and Mud - but I'm sorry Tammy and Desidarada- you've got to go!

I've told the kids to go through the art work and excercise books and while we had a good laugh, one was astonished that I would want to keep any of it, the eldest has squirrelled his lot away! In 30 years time he'll be going through the same quandry!

nearlyrich

When my mum died we had to go through 50 years worth of kid's art work ours and grandchildren's every card we ever sent her, bits cut from papers about anyone she knew etc etc etc I have boxes of pictures and family papers that still need to be culled, some of the pictures are of people I can only guess at, my mum's cousins and siblings identified some of them.

It has made me determined not to be such a hoarder, but it is really hard to throw things away I feel your pain.
My 70's record collection is in the loft in two LP boxes and a singles box, mostly replaced the albums onto CD and now have all my music digitised on my computer and iPod so much easier than the masses of CD's which I keep in CD folders just the disks and the inserts all the cases are gone.

MrsManda

Get your kids to go through all their school work and throw out everything they don't want. That way you don't feel so guilty about putting a value on their work and anything they want to keep can be put in a box for them to put in their own attic

If you want to give rid of your records, a lot of large charities accept vinyl to sell in their shops. Oxfam definitely do:
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/shops/index.html
Or you can ebay to get some money, or freecycle