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Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

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Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#31

Post by aaronbrethorst »

dionidium wrote: post #29
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 32 and have become less sentimental over time. I went through an aggressive cleaning spree about six months ago, and gave away about 1/3 of my belongings.

33, never been very sentimental and I don't own much stuff, but there are those weird little things. Sitting here in my office is the manual film camera I used during photography class in college. I've been meaning to put on eBay. It hasn't been used in many years and I could always get another camera, if I wanted one. And I wouldn't even want this model again, if I were starting from scratch. But once it's gone, I'l…

Camera gear is the only part of my collection of stuff that is growing, but—on the plus side of things—I actually make use of all five cameras that I own:

* Fuji medium format film rangefinder

* Leica M6 35mm film rangefinder

* Hasselblad 501CM medium format film SLR

* Fuji X-T1 SLR-style digital mirrorless

* Fuji X100s digital rangefinder

I can't imagine needing or wanting to buy another camera without paring down on my existing collection[1].

On another note, you should run a roll of film through it just for fun. I've been compiling a list of available types of film, along with darkrooms and film labs where you can have it developed here: http://www.ishootfilm.org

[1] Except for a 4x5 large format camera, which I've been drooling over for months. Still, they're sufficiently impractical that I've resisted the urge.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#32

Post by codemac »

jimmcslim wrote: post #24

If Marie Kondo can show me how to fold a king-size fitted sheet properly, I'll suggest that's a feat worthy of nomination for the Nobel Prize in Physics...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHTyH2nuFAw

Been following this method for a few years, and worked really well. I also suggest just not buying fitted sheets if you make your bed everything morning.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#33

Post by wingerlang »

archagon wrote: post #15
rtpg wrote: post #7

slightly OT, but I remember seeing the blog of some guy who got rid of everything he owned except for a laptop, a kindle, and some clothes, does anybody remember this person? I've always been fascinated at having as little junk as possible, especially since I've been moving very often recently.

Not the same guy, but figured I might as well put this here. I've been living on what can fit in a suitcase for the past... year or so? Especially now that most of our valuable possessions — photos, writing, music, video — can be digitized, it's awfully liberating to pare your physical inventory down to the bare minimum. I'm doing this for travel purposes, but the end result is mostly the same, I think. http://www.ar…

Kind of same here. The only things I really keep is my laptop, phones and iPad (all for work/dev purposes). My Credit cards and such trinkets. Some papers like visas and other seemingly important things. And a couple of pairs of clothes. And a backback to fit it all in.

In around a month or so I will discard most everything (again) due to moving (and sadly, bedbug paranoia).

Can't wait.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#34

Post by techsupporter »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #30
sithadmin wrote: post #28

>For Ms. Kondo’s instruction on sorting papers is perhaps the most liberating of all her maxims: Just throw them all away.... >“There is nothing more annoying than papers,” she says firmly. “After all, they will never spark joy, no matter how carefully you keep them.” Strongly agree with this. Scanning every document I owned, then discarding the originals (save for things like my birth certificate, social security ca…

What do you do with old tax returns?

I dunno about others, but I use TaxACT to file my taxes and it spits out a PDF of my full return. My W2s are delivered as PDFs through my employer's internal site. Everything else (student loan interest, investments, etc) is downloadable. The only tax document that doesn't come electronically is the mortgage interest statement from my (crappy) servicer so I scan it and shred it. Hopefully that gets fixed next year when I refinance.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#35

Post by aaronbrethorst »

techsupporter wrote: post #34
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do with old tax returns?

I dunno about others, but I use TaxACT to file my taxes and it spits out a PDF of my full return. My W2s are delivered as PDFs through my employer's internal site. Everything else (student loan interest, investments, etc) is downloadable. The only tax document that doesn't come electronically is the mortgage interest statement from my (crappy) servicer so I scan it and shred it. Hopefully that gets fixed next year wh…

Ah, I see. My taxes are complicated enough to require a CPA, which means I get a thick envelope full of papers back from him that I promptly stick in a box and hope never to look at again. (Until recently when I started working on thr mortgage preapproval process.)

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#36

Post by ObviousScience »

r12s wrote: post #6
wvenable wrote: post #3

My wife and I do a full clean out every year. Our key phrase is "Be ruthless". Some things are obvious tossers, some are obvious keepers, and if it comes to a discussion usually just saying "be ruthless" to the other is enough to force the decision. It's frightening how much stuff you can collect over the year but also how much stuff you kept last year that you no longer care about.

The "ruthless" spring clean is a similar tradition in our household. Now, if only we hadn't bought all the stuff we "no longer care about" in the first place.

To be fair, half of the stuff I throw out when cleaning each year is stuff that I already got my use out of: old tshirts that are getting frayed, worn socks, old underwear, old towels, inner shower curtain, clothes that no longer fit right, worn/stained bedding, stacks of papers, half filled notebooks, felt pens that have the tip worn down (I write too hard/poorly), etc.

What's amazing to me is the volume of "long term consumables" I seem to go through - eg, things that I'm not wearing out on a weekly rate, but nevertheless, and wearing out on a quarterly/yearly rate.

Couple that with things that I realize need replacing (old dishwear that's accumulated stains/damage/missing pieces), that I've lost a bunch of silverware but still have a pile of spoons, etc and you end up with a fairly sizable selection of stuff every year, even though all of it makes sense both to have bought in the past and to get rid of now.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#37

Post by sliverstorm »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #14
sliverstorm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if it's my closet or the landfill (as opposed to reselling, and the associated depreciation and opportunity costs) I'm not in a rush to toss things. Unless there are circumstances like an impending move, or I am running out of space in the closet. It's kind of a difficult line to walk. I used to keep way too much stuff. But just yesterday I pulled equipment (tools, a VGA cable, a prototyping board)…

I would advise you to not completely rule out the tax that every item you own has. Even just looking at a drawer that is full of odds and ends can be stressful. With that said I am all in favor of re-selling things, then someone can get use out of them and overall waste in the system is reduced. Now I just need to sell my $300 jambox that I only used 10 times...

I'm definitely aware of that. But I am also avoiding the other extreme. For years I was cutting "stuff", largely because I was moving constantly. Then I bought a small house and stopped living with other people, and found that a barren house is its own brand of distressing.

I'm not very good at creating a "warm" house, but one thing I do know is that empty rooms and bare walls are not it! So I am not afraid to have a little extra "stuff", for example my $10 pair of ice skates. What little annoyance they provide (Where does one KEEP ice skates!?) is easily repaid by the fun they provide pond skating each winter.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#38

Post by sliverstorm »

sithadmin wrote: post #28

>For Ms. Kondo’s instruction on sorting papers is perhaps the most liberating of all her maxims: Just throw them all away.... >“There is nothing more annoying than papers,” she says firmly. “After all, they will never spark joy, no matter how carefully you keep them.” Strongly agree with this. Scanning every document I owned, then discarding the originals (save for things like my birth certificate, social security ca…

I have had great success with a small filing box, perhaps the size of a backpack. I toss half-important documents in there (vehicle service records, key receipts, contracts) and forget about them.

Every couple of years I spend ten minutes flipping through. Documents that are laughably obsolete are promptly tossed, and the box goes back into the back of the closet.

Perhaps an important circumstance is how little paper I deal with, though. There is no temptation to file all my bank records, for example, because they are already all electronic.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#39

Post by lifeformed »

archagon wrote: post #15
rtpg wrote: post #7

slightly OT, but I remember seeing the blog of some guy who got rid of everything he owned except for a laptop, a kindle, and some clothes, does anybody remember this person? I've always been fascinated at having as little junk as possible, especially since I've been moving very often recently.

Not the same guy, but figured I might as well put this here. I've been living on what can fit in a suitcase for the past... year or so? Especially now that most of our valuable possessions — photos, writing, music, video — can be digitized, it's awfully liberating to pare your physical inventory down to the bare minimum. I'm doing this for travel purposes, but the end result is mostly the same, I think. http://www.ar…

I've been living out of a suitcase for the most part, but recently I've been developing my hobby of cooking, and now I'm anchored down by a huge pile of heavy, expensive kitchen items.

Re: Kissing Your Socks Goodbye

#40

Post by techrat »

mareofnight wrote: post #22
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 32 and have become less sentimental over time. I went through an aggressive cleaning spree about six months ago, and gave away about 1/3 of my belongings.

22, and remember being a kid and finding sentimental value in many, many more things than I do now. Part of it might be that the novelty of having things at all wears off over time.

Moving (and shipping) all of your belongings across country a few times will also kill the sentimentality, fast.
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