I am totally in, if I get $10, _and_ UPS or USPS picks up the packed box!
The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
101–110 of 120 posts
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice approach. I personally can't force myself to get rid of books that I've read, which is not very rational, because I very rarely reread books. But other stuff I try to get rid of, or not buy at all.
Never get rid of books. I got rid of a lot of mine and thoroughly regret it. Why? I now have children who want to read them.
You can get a library subscription for next to nothing.
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#103I do this all the time with Amazon's Trade-In Program. A couple of times a year, I look at my book shelf and video games. If I haven't read/played them within the last 6 months, and have no compelling reason to hold onto them for the foreseeable 6 months, into the box they go. Amazon then gives me a pre-paid shipping label. I find the whole process enjoyable. "How much will Amazon give me for this?" is an exciting ga…
Nice approach. I personally can't force myself to get rid of books that I've read, which is not very rational, because I very rarely reread books. But other stuff I try to get rid of, or not buy at all.
I do re-read books, but only some. I've set myself a target of reducing the library in size by a factor of two over the next year, simply through space constraints.
The decision making is forcing valuable reflections!
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never get rid of books. I got rid of a lot of mine and thoroughly regret it. Why? I now have children who want to read them.
It doesn't make sense to stockpile books on the chance that your children might one day want to read them when a used copy is generally a click away. (Not to mention that you may prefer to re-buy them in digital form.) Every square inch of space in your home has a carrying cost (I used to calculate $4 per net square foot per month in New York). Having one less book shelf is effectively saving enough per year that you…
I wouldn't under-estimate the value of this as an experience for kids. I discovered a copy of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" by Alan Sillitoe in a pile of old books my parent had. It was like discovering a small nugget of gold.
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#105Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#106Another getting-rid-of-shit option: http://www.freecycle.org/ Of course, it's also a getting-new-shit-for-free source which may be irresistible for some people.
> Of course, it's also a getting-new-shit-for-free source which may be irresistible for some people
I unsubscribed for this reason after I just couldn't pass up 60 free mason quart jars. Right before we moved. Want to know how many lacerations I got from cleaning them? But, I did sell them for $30 on craigslist when it was all said and done, so there's that.
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are making excuses. You need to be making a plan and executing on it. Find out where your local thrift shop is (30 seconds on Google), figure out what other errands need to get done in that part of town, put the shit you don't want near the front door or in the garage. Next time you run an errand near the thrift store, put your pile of crap in the car (loose, no need for a box). Drop it off while running your oth…
Agreed with all except that I'm making excuses. By that I mean it's great advice for most things in life that you want to do. My point is that in this instance I just don't care. Not enough anyway. I could do exactly as you describe to minimize the cost but the value gain is so minimal that it doesn't warrant the effort. Simple cost/benefit analysis with the result being that the cost is too high (even if it's really…
On the contrary, I think removing extraneous crap from your life is one of the highest value activities that you can possibly engage in.
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't make sense to stockpile books on the chance that your children might one day want to read them when a used copy is generally a click away. (Not to mention that you may prefer to re-buy them in digital form.) Every square inch of space in your home has a carrying cost (I used to calculate $4 per net square foot per month in New York). Having one less book shelf is effectively saving enough per year that you…
So do you keep the books that are part of the 90%, or do you get rid of them?
I get rid of them. My forcing function is that I won't buy any more shelves - I have two bookcases with about 4 shelves each, shared with my girlfriend, and if I want to keep a book I have to get rid of one. It's still probably 300 lbs of books but it keeps it bounded. (And a lot of those are hers, because she went to law school and still has many of her law books. Most of mine are design or cooking, since the color plates don't really have electronic equivalents yet and some are signed.)
Also, for text-only, transient stuff like business books and history books (that I'm unlikely to read twice), I buy a lot of Kindle stuff now.
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't make sense to stockpile books on the chance that your children might one day want to read them when a used copy is generally a click away. (Not to mention that you may prefer to re-buy them in digital form.) Every square inch of space in your home has a carrying cost (I used to calculate $4 per net square foot per month in New York). Having one less book shelf is effectively saving enough per year that you…
I wouldn't under-estimate the value of this as an experience for kids. I discovered a copy of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" by Alan Sillitoe in a pile of old books my parent had. It was like discovering a small nugget of gold.
My parents were a book household too. But back then, there was no Internet, no e-books. The only place to wander onto a book was your shelf or the local bookstore. Times change.
Re: The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Out of "recycle, reduce, reuse", the last two are the most important.
It's "reduce, reuse, recycle" because they're in descending order of importance. That is, reducing is better than reusing, which is better than recycling.
I just found this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy
It's pretty good, I didn't know it was this intricate.