# non bike question - how long to keep stuff



## roadkill401 (Mar 14, 2017)

i know as we get older we can remissness about the old days and turn it to a bit of a pack rat. I know my father who bless my luck is still around is getting close to converting from a pack rat to a hoarder with the cornucopia of stuff inside their house. I am dreading the day that i will need to deal with cleaning it up. I guess ive got the issue of growing up we didn't have an awful lot and appreciated what we had and things didn't get replaced until they were broken beyond the point of ever getting fixed. 

Just wondering how long you keep your old memory stuff that you've kept over the years more of sentimental value over actual need? I'm thinking of even old electronics like computers and game consoles that still work but have been replaced with newer models or the realization that ive got more stuff than time to appreciate it.

I can go into my backyard shed and likely pull out enough bike parts to almost make up a new bike if I had a spare frame and wheels. Why do i need two spare handlebars? or some of the relic shifters, hydrolic break parts that i know don't fit my current bike. All working condition, but reality is that i will never use them again.

When do you purge? and where? l get the feeling that most kids of today don't have the fascination and feeling we have from our bikes. or maybe even attachment to stuff.


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## gonzo (Feb 18, 2004)

roadkill401 said:


> i know as we get older we can remissness about the old days and turn it to a bit of a pack rat. I know my father who bless my luck is still around is getting close to converting from a pack rat to a hoarder with the cornucopia of stuff inside their house. I am dreading the day that i will need to deal with cleaning it up. I guess ive got the issue of growing up we didn't have an awful lot and appreciated what we had and things didn't get replaced until they were broken beyond the point of ever getting fixed.
> 
> Just wondering how long you keep your old memory stuff that you've kept over the years more of sentimental value over actual need? I'm thinking of even old electronics like computers and game consoles that still work but have been replaced with newer models or the realization that ive got more stuff than time to appreciate it.
> 
> ...


 DONATE to bike charities! 
That is how I get rid of good stuff I will never use. Here in Santa Cruz we have the Bike Church.....


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## Dkayak (12 mo ago)

Once you've cleaned out a deceased hoarder's home, you're immunized from keeping things you don't need or use. We've been through two of those huge dumpster cleanouts, each taking many days to sift thru the junk so you're sure you're not pitching hidden cash or valuables. The first thing you when done is to do is go home and start pitching or donating to avoid inflicting it on your kids. Or do it the hard way by moving to another house. The moving process will amaze you. Why did I keep this? Or what IS this? It feels better to live with a lighter footprint and it's easier to find the things you really need.


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## DennisT (Dec 29, 2019)

gonzo said:


> DONATE to bike charities!
> That is how I get rid of good stuff I will never use. Here in Santa Cruz we have the Bike Church.....


Not just bike charities. Re-Use-It sites of all kinds. It's easier somehow to donate than to toss, seems like less of a waste.

I'm finding that the best way of psyching myself up to get rid of stuff is to run out of room. At some point you have to implement the policy of "One in, one out."


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## Wheelspeed (Jan 12, 2006)

I keep everything. I don't know why. I finally got rid of my old 20" BMX stuff when I was about 40. I had so many left over 26" parts that wouldn't sell that I bought another frame. I built it up with a horrible old fork but all the other parts were pretty good. Rode it but didn't love it. So I put the frame up for sale once but not a single bite on an old 26'er frame that can't fit wide tires. I didn't have a decent fork so I just bought a $300 rigid fork to put on this bike that I'll probably never hardly ride. Since no one would buy the frame, what can I do but mess around with it and do weird things like go back to full rigid (like I started in 1990) and maybe try some weird bars to make it kind of a gravel bike or a flow bike... I don't know but I can't just leave a bunch of extra parts lying around.


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## Wrongturn (Jul 17, 2016)

It’s a 3 step process. 
1) Garage Sale
2) Try to give away unsold items
3) To the dump with what remains


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## stripes (Sep 6, 2016)

What I can't sell, I give away to friends.

What I can't give away, I donate. 

What I can't donate, I trash. 

Unfortunately, I have a lot of stuff, and I have a job, so it makes it difficult to get the time to do a proper purge. But I'm working on doing it the best I can.


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## milehi (Nov 2, 1997)

I have what I call an imaginary house fire, often. Lost everything.


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

Salvation Army.


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## Catmandoo (Dec 20, 2018)

My wife, as well as her family, keep everything for the "garage sale" that has not yet happened. Thus my over reaction to a minor bit of hoarding is to toss crap I know I will never need or use. My wife actually surprised the crap out of me a few years ago when we cleaned out a basement that had 15 years of crap accumulated. I would show her something and she was like "garbage", I'd show her something else and another "garbage". I was like "wheres my wife ?, you're not my wife !".


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

Purging is a state of mind, it’s just stuff, use or get rid of it. Reminiscing about the past does not require stuff.

I don’t have extra stuff, if it sits around long enough, it goes away. I don’t have extra clothes, same thing with any “stuff”: don’t use it in a year, it’s gone!

Tools are a little bit different, I rarely use some tools (tile saw, MIG)), but I do use all my tools.

My wife often gets frustrated with how quick I get rid of stuff … she’s warned me about getting rid of certain things 🙄

I even go through my files and purge stuff 👍

Moving is a great way to get rid of stuff; no one wants to pack and move extra stuff.

On a side note: cleaning out a relatives house when they go to an assisted living or they pass. 

I don’t know about you all, but I did one of these when my girlfriend’s mother passed, and it sucked!

So when my parents pass or when my wife’s parents pass, don’t call me, cuz I’m gonna “pass” on those good times 🤣


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## Darth Lefty (Sep 29, 2014)

How much space do you have? My parents had an acre. My mom spent fifteen years getting rid of stuff and just died with half a single garage full. Didn’t quite get down to nothing.

Be doing it all the time. “It’s still good” is a reason to give it away, not save it to sell. You won’t make time for a sale. Do a box a week. Free on Craigslist or see if you have a local Buy Nothing group on Facebook.


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## jannmayer (10 mo ago)

My wife has been on a purging kick for a while, and mostly I'm onboard to. I've been able to move a lot on ebay (smaller things at least) and a few things have gone on Craigslist or Offerup, but those can be headaches. Most stuff seems up being donated. It's been pretty easy to get rid of excess bike parts lately. 

We're doing pretty good at keeping the stuff in check. We're one of the few families in the neighborhood with both cars in the garage and we're a lot less cluttered inside too. A big motivation is that we want to move around more after the kids are grown, so thinning out our stuff is working towards that. 

I also find myself getting less sentimental about old things now that I'm getting older. I think that's related to my realization that there isn't a much time left to do what I want to do as there used to be, so I tend to look forward more these days. 

As a kid, I found myself saving a lot of things because they could be useful. But then I realized that instead of asking "COULD I use this for something?", the correct question is "WILL I use this for something?" That forces me to be a little more realistic about things (Random screws, bolts, and other small hardware trends to be exempt from this.) I'm trying to get my kids to think like this too but I'm not pushing it because I don't want them to rebel and turn into hoarders. 

I am staying having to clean my parents' house when that time comes. My dad's parents got rid of their stuff before they moved to a home, and that made things so much easier when they passed. I know my parents want to do that as well....


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## eri (Sep 4, 2012)

Ive got about 12 cubic feet (3x2x2) of drawers with old bike stuff. Nuts, bolts, washers, spokes, quick releases, derailleurs, brake pads, etc, etc. stuff i strip before throwjng away a dead bike. Cant count how many times its been useful for friends and family. So that little area stays and its organized.

tires and wheels and big stuff all get donated.


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## Cary (Dec 29, 2003)

Dkayak said:


> Once you've cleaned out a deceased hoarder's home, you're immunized from keeping things you don't need or use. We've been through two of those huge dumpster cleanouts, each taking many days to sift thru the junk so you're sure you're not pitching hidden cash or valuables. The first thing you when done is to do is go home and start pitching or donating to avoid inflicting it on your kids. Or do it the hard way by moving to another house. The moving process will amaze you. Why did I keep this? Or what IS this? It feels better to live with a lighter footprint and it's easier to find the things you really need.


Just helped my neighbor of 30+ years clear out stuff from her deceased husband. 500 cubic yards and 120 tons to the dump. We still have to go the property where he stored stuff!!!


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## rdawson808 (Oct 19, 2015)

Another good way to shake yourself up is to write up your will and try to figure out first, who the executor will be and second, who gets what. Are you going to burden someone with dealing with all of your crap? We now have a living trust and have assigned executor duties to a Professional Fiduciary. 

My wife and I are early 50s. No kids. Niece and nephews are early 20s so don't really know if they want old family stuff. Someone needs to hold on to it. So my sisters can keep it. 

As for our stuff, we just decided a lot of it is just that: stuff. It takes space. It sits unused. The stuff we use and/or truly love (even just to look at) stays. We both were vicious with our closets. Why have 5 winter jackets when one or two is fine. 6 suits I never wear any more? Nope. One for work one for funerals. 

For bike stuff, see if you have a local bike coo/kitchen that runs on donations.

Otherwise, I give it away in the following order
1. Family and friends
2. Freecycle/Trash Nothing mailing list -- people WILL take your stuff
3. Thrift shop
4. trash -- I loathe putting stuff in the trash. 

I don't even bother trying to sell stuff unless it's very expensive.

I had to add this: I used to keep all the little train tickets, receipts, visitors guides, etc from holidays. I love that ****. It all went into a box. One day I realized I never looked at it. So I gathered up stuff from trips into piles--one for the Italy trip, one for Austria, etc.-- arranged all the stuff, took a picture, then threw all the physical stuff in the recycling. Been a couple years and guess what. I haven't gone back to look at the photos either.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

It can be hard shedding old stuff. I'm a sucker for memories which makes it that much harder to clean out old shizz.

We had to clean out my parents house some 10 yrs ago after my dad died, and that was a massive undertaking. She had a dump truck brought in so we could just toss whatever right into the bed. We moved into that house in 1971 as did my grandmother, so all kinds of stuff collected over those years.

Somehow we stuffed down our emotions in order to cut through the chafe and kept the most valued of things amongst us.


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## LanceWeaklegs (Dec 24, 2019)

I too, with my wife’s help, just helped a neighbor whose husband had died. They were/are in their late 70s. Wouldn’t call them hoarders, maybe just “savers”. As in, save everything. And buy 5 or 6 of everything, either because you want spares or can’t find or forgot you already had 5 lanterns, meat thermometers, propane canisters, jugs of windshield wash, packs of batteries, you get it. All those clothes from when he worked, military stuff from back in the day, you get it. This went on for weeks. Do your family and neighbors a big favor and start getting rid of stuff you haven’t used in years, now. It’ll take you a while so start soon. I’m much younger than them, and I am constantly getting rid of stuff. when my father died, being a Depression era youth, he had pounds of screws, nuts, bolts, in jars. In case he needed a number 8 wood screw he could spend a hour looking for one. He had cords taken off of broken appliances, in case he needed a cord. Think streamlined, not minimalist. And give those bike parts you stripped to the local bike co-op. Offer stuff to your kids, if they don’t want it you don’t need to keep it.


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## RatBikeRod (Jun 27, 2019)

This might be one of the best threads I have read in a while. I am really into simplifying life. Clutter, in my mind, weighs a person down. I am a minimalist at heart, but I am also a hobbyist. So I tend to hoard stuff around my hobbies. However, I am now thinking about downsizing my hobbies as well to just, primarily, this biking thing. 

I will say though that I am a bit of a handlebar junkie....


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## Cary (Dec 29, 2003)

LanceWeaklegs said:


> I too, with my wife’s help, just helped a neighbor whose husband had died. They were/are in their late 70s. Wouldn’t call them hoarders, maybe just “savers”. As in, save everything. And buy 5 or 6 of everything, either because you want spares or can’t find or forgot you already had 5 lanterns, meat thermometers, propane canisters, jugs of windshield wash, packs of batteries, you get it. All those clothes from when he worked, military stuff from back in the day, you get it. This went on for weeks. Do your family and neighbors a big favor and start getting rid of stuff you haven’t used in years, now. It’ll take you a while so start soon. I’m much younger than them, and I am constantly getting rid of stuff. when my father died, being a Depression era youth, he had pounds of screws, nuts, bolts, in jars. In case he needed a number 8 wood screw he could spend a hour looking for one. He had cords taken off of broken appliances, in case he needed a cord. Think streamlined, not minimalist. And give those bike parts you stripped to the local bike co-op. Offer stuff to your kids, if they don’t want it you don’t need to keep it.


That was my neighbor. Piles of wood for future projects. Old compressors, outboard engines. You name it, he had it x10.


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## dietz31684 (Mar 30, 2010)

My dad had a stroke at 60 and ended up severely disabled. He kept the house for a few years and during this time I was able to get what I wanted. When the time came to sell, I told the realtor to find a junk hauling company that will clean out the place and get paid at closing. Worked out great and I avoided taking more junk home for sentimental reasons.


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## kpdemello (May 3, 2010)

Yard sale and ebay. Sometimes those old electronics can be worth something. And you'd be surprised at the junk people will pay a dollar or two for at a yard sale. Get a dumpster and after the yard sale toss anything that's left into it and call it a day.


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## woodway (Dec 27, 2005)

My wife and I downsized when we sold our house and built a new house half the size. We sold/donated/dumped a lot of stuff but had to put most everything else in storage for a year while the new house was under construction (we rented a small apartment). When it came time to move in and we cracked open the storage unit, our first reaction was "why the hell did we keep all this c&*p?". Moving into a smaller house with limited storage forces us to not be pac rats.


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## LanceWeaklegs (Dec 24, 2019)

woodway said:


> My wife and I downsized when we sold our house and built a new house half the size. We sold/donated/dumped a lot of stuff but had to put most everything else in storage for a year while the new house was under construction (we rented a small apartment). When it came time to move in and we cracked open the storage unit, our first reaction was "why the hell did we keep all this c&*p?". Moving into a smaller house with limited storage forces us to not be pac rats.


Dude, not to single you out but the whole storage unit thing always gets me. People pay good money to store stuff that they don’t need because if they needed it it wouldn’t be in storage. Where I live there are storage places everywhere and they are cash cows. One of my wife’s friends was paying over $100 a month to store her beanie baby collection, in case they came back into vogue. I had moved more than a few times in my career, and when I got to my final (I think) home, I realized we had many moving boxes with three or four movers stIckers on them that had never been opened since that first move. if you don’t want to bother with selling stuff and having strangers come into your place, try giving stuff away, it feels pretty good to give a bike to a kid from the neighbors church or a set of good pots and pans to a local college student.


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## DennisT (Dec 29, 2019)

LanceWeaklegs said:


> Dude, not to single you out but the whole storage unit thing always gets me. People pay good money to store stuff that they don’t need because if they needed it it wouldn’t be in storage. Where I live there are storage places everywhere and they are cash cows. One of my wife’s friends was paying over $100 a month to store her beanie baby collection, in case they came back into vogue. I had moved more than a few times in my career, and when I got to my final (I think) home, I realized we had many moving boxes with three or four movers stIckers on them that had never been opened since that first move. if you don’t want to bother with selling stuff and having strangers come into your place, try giving stuff away, it feels pretty good to give a bike to a kid from the neighbors church or a set of good pots and pans to a local college student.


One exception to this might be seasonal stuff. Don't have anywhere to keep all the xmas decs and snowboarding stuff in the summer, and the same with all the bike and summer stuff in the winter. Plus there's the special occasion decs like for halloween, Easter, St Patrick's Day, and Oscar night (Don't blame me, this is all my wife's idea).

In earlier homes we had crawlspaces and such. Now, not so much.


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## RLTW (5 mo ago)

My childhood involved a lot of movement and some occasional homelessness, so our “family” didn’t accumulate a lot of material things. A life on the road and single life in the Army didn’t give me the time or space for accumulating “stuff.” When I left America at 40 years old and moved to Japan, all of my material possessions fit inside a suitcase and carry-on bag.

Some 15 years later, after marriage, kids, and running a growing business, I still haven’t accumulated a lot of “stuff.” Education for our kids has been our main priority, with private schools and college tuition funds to take care of we haven’t bothered much with buying stuff.

Our kids don’t seem to care overly much about toys or material things, probably because we can afford them. One of the ironies of life is that we usually seem to want the most are the things which are out of our reach.

As a kid I wanted everything because my family couldn’t afford anything. But now that I can finally afford many things, I can’t think of anything I really want.


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## RM Rilke (5 mo ago)

The more sentimental things you keep, the less each of them mean. We end up clinging to the act of clinging. Always clutching, your arms aren’t open to embrace new things. When I start to think It’s difficult to let things go, I try to remember that in reality there is nothing you get to keep. Dry your eyes on the wind.


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## _CJ (May 1, 2014)

The wife and I have spent that past year or so getting our house ready to sell, then selling it and moving to a smaller house. We initially sorted through what we had, decided what we really wanted to keep, what could be sold or donated, and what needed to go to the dump. Now on the other end, unpacking and moving into a smaller house, we're kind of doing it again because there just isn't as much room, and we're asking ourselves why we even held onto some of this stuff and moved it.

As far as what I keep? It's mostly sentimental stuff. T-shirts from concerts and car/bike races from years ago. Trophies, pictures, etc. I display some, others I just take out a box once a year or so and look at. I got rid of my outdated bike parts and crap like that years ago, and haven't missed them a bit. I'm down to two bikes, and I only buy parts for them when the old ones wear out or break. That holds true with most of my stuff these days. My days of restoring old things, or collecting things are _over_. I may only have 10-20 years left to really enjoy my life, and I'm going to spend that time out in the world _doing things_, not sitting at home with my stuff.

What's funny is that in the process of relocating, we lived out of our suitcases for about a month between the sale of the old house and moving into the new one, and I grew accustomed to living with almost nothing very quickly. I could totally pitch it all and live out of a van tomorrow. The wife, not so much.


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