Money, and Emotional Attachment to Things

I totally agree with you Phoenix! I use to be like your husband and I was a terrible pack rat. I was attached to everything I bought. Figured I worked hard for it, so it was worth what I paid for it as long as I kept it in good condition.
I can't really pinpoint when that changed, but I've come to live and see things your way on this.

I think alot has to do with what circumstances you were raised in. Someone I shared finances with was raised in poverty - I wasn't. When he became successful, he wanted the best house he could afford...he wasn't an ostentatious person - he'd just never experienced that before and he wanted to experience it.

I had experienced possessions, etc. and they didn't mean that much to me. I can't even tell you what relief it felt like to me to sell the last house I owned. I haven't owned a house in over five years - and I don't care if I never do again- in fact, although I know it's the more prudent financial thing to do - I can't make myself buy one.
As long as I provide a warm, safe place to live, I feel like I'm doing well by my kids.
However, I am very attached to things like the dishes and quilts my mother and grandmothers gave me.

aidan- Interesting. Mr. P was raised in a poor household. I was raised modestly, but comfortably. I have always said that I would love to get rid of 90% of what I own.

On the other hand, Mr. P. keeps EVERYTHING. I recently indulged in a new jewelry box. The one that I had was from my childhood. When I was moving my stuff from one box to the other, Mr. P. told me that he could use my old jewelry box for his resistors!

aidan,
You gave me some food for thought and what you said make so much sense to me. We were what a lot of people would have considered poor when I was growing up. We had food and shelter at all times, but we didn't have a lot of things.
Our furnature was old as the hills, our cloths were given to us by family and friends, and our toy boxes weren't even close to full.

When I became old enough to work, I bought myself some very nice things and treasured them. I did this for years until I looked around one day to see all the clutter of stuff, with no place left to put it.

I was crazy busy being single mom and running a business, so no time for going through my years and years of gathered treasure, until we decided to move here. Moving companies charge by weight, so I went through everything (took weeks) and finally cleared my cluttered life.

I knew I was a pack rat and now I know why :-D

Why doesn't this surprise me

I generally will sell things for more than I paid for them. I might buy a paint-covered walnut dresser, circa 1910, for example, at a flea market, restore it, use it for a few years until something more appealing comes along, then sell it for five hundred. Never, under any circumstance, sell something for less than you paid for it.

I must be lacking in marketing skills and am wondering if I could send you some stuff to sell for me, Gus?

Mr Wolf's father Peter, was like this...

But oddly enough it only started after he had his heart attack.

His wife says that Peter would spend most of his day collecting things. Sometimes he would attach the ever , over used statement of " I can fix this..this..this..and this.. and it will ( work, stand, close, open..etc)"

Once they bought their home, and he was about 51, he began with the furniture. Buying old broken pieces that he could fix, or alter in some way so that they would work in their home. His idea was that people did not know what they had, and that was why they were throwing it away.

She once told me a story of a garage sale they had...( she never had one again)
He was beginning this pack rat behavior , so she fixed a time and place to have a garage sale.

Everything was over priced and by him.

He was outright arguing with people when they would ask to buy something cheaper then he priced it.

Broken glasses, just because he had them for YEARS, meant that they were 'antique' and worth more. No matter what.
Objects that were interesting and part of his idea of decoration ( which was horrrrrid) were priced at what you would expect to find them priced at in an odd shop...

And so on the sale went until they finally closed their doors to the amount of 3 dollars.

After I heard this story, I realized that Peter must have been feeling really MORTAL after that heart attack and was buying things to sort of create a false sense of permanence.. ( Look at all this stuff I have. I am real. I am here. I collect, fix, own..etc)
And that permanence was shown in his price tag

he has been dead almost 4 years and she is still living in piles of clutter.
When I say piles I mean, you have to step over, around and balance on one foot, to get through some rooms of her home.

So, I guess this is a long winded way of saying " I agree" but that kind of behavior can stem from many things and not just childhood.. tough I would think the way you were raised probably has JUST as much to do with it.

Up north, we had a huge basement. Mr. P. could indulge himself as he pleased, saving and collecting things at will. It WAS true, that the stuff that he kept could be useful, as long as there was room to keep the stuff out of sight.

Here, everything goes in the garage........................except my car. I know that there are a lot of things that I buy in duplicate, 'cause I refuse to root under the piles of stuff to find the original item that I bought.

And then came Amazon, with all those handy little boxes that in which they shipped things. According to Mr. P, why should I have to go out and buy a box to ship something, when I already have one that I have gotten for free?????

So every time we get something from Amazon, another box goes into the vast maw that once was supposed to be a garage. To his credit, Mr. P. will break down the larger boxes, but that is not much of a help in the scheme of things.

When we first moved here, I bought a couple of those large, rolling plastic
containers to keep garden chemicals, so that they don't stink up the place. That was a great idea, except that there is now so much stuff sitting on the containers, that I can't get to the chemicals. I simply buy some more when I need it.

Poor Phoenix

Yeah, I definitely think the amount of money you had as a kid has something to do with it. It's a habit I'm just starting to break myself of. For me it's not about attachment to things per se as much as thinking about how much it would conceivably cost in the future to replace whatever I'm thinking of giving up. I have this perfectly good box now -- if I get rid of it, and then need a box in the future, am I going to have to spend much-needed money for it? Why not keep it, if so? (I do keep a stash of boxes, but limited -- if I have "enough," I get rid of the excess.)

Phoenix--

Quickly because I'm on my way out the door.

You and I and Mr. P. were all raised by parents who lived through the Great Depression.

"It might be useful someday" was a survival tactic.

I have a pretty good track record of buying too cheap and selling too expensive although I think if someones is willing to pay me a certain amount then that's what it's worth to them. At worst I break even. You just need to know how to sell and stick to your guns.

I get good money for my services as well because I demand it.

Tell 'em what you want and then shut up. First one to speak loses.

Noddy- Quite true, but at what point does a practicality become an irrationality?
I think that what I am dealing with is a difficulty with adaptability. What might of been appropriate, (and possibly life saving) at one point in time is now no longer necessary, but the need to continue the behavior still lingers.

For the most part, I don't save stuff. Things are things. Need it--keep it. Don't need it, use it, wear it--get rid of it.

But there are a few exceptions. I have an emotional link to some things. Hard to explain why. I had an Encycopedia Britannica. It was a present for my 14th birthday. I had all 24 volumes and yearbooks! I started getting rid of the yearbooks--kept the five or six most recent ones. My friend was helping me clear out my apartment to make room for stuff I was taking from my mother's apartment. My friend and I argued about that encyclopedia. She won. I cried after she left. I tear up when I think about it now. The right decision from a practical point of view. Of absolutely no monetary value, but I loved it.

Roberta- I agree. There are certain things that are connected to memories that you simply don't want to destroy. But saving those things is fulfilling a particular purpose. Saving EVERYTHING (Well, maybe not everything) is a totally different scenario.

You're right, of course, Phoenix. It occurs to me that I missed the point of your thread. Sorry.

All I know is that I wasn't happy during my pack rat days. Not to say that your hubby isn't happy, but I'm so much happier without all the clutter.

bm