I try to have a very utilitarian attitude toward stuff. What I find myself wanting to buy tends to be tools, in one sense or another: supplies for this or that kind of art project, machines that do something useful for me (camera, computer, guitar), etc.

I have zero clothing lust. My wife has to prod me to buy clothes, usually, and one of my favorite things about ditching my corporate dayjob recently is no longer having any dissonance between what I want to wear and what I wear -- jeans, tshirt, thermals, sweaters, end of story.

For stuff that isn't fun or creative but that I need anyway, I usually try to find whatever is Good Enough -- something that fills the need it's built for and doesn't have anything annoying wrong with it, basically -- and don't care much for aesthetics beyond that most of the time.

I'm not sure what the why behind all this is; my family had rocky finances when I was a kid, so I've always been kind of conservative about spending, but beyond that it just seems to be how my view of discretionary spending has evolved. I'd much rather have something that I can make with than something that doesn't have that sort of utility to it; and I'd rather have Good Enough and some flexibility/liquidity/savings than have Great but be worried about money.

I have all the 'stuff' I need, although much of it is old and hopelessly technically obsolete. My stereo and TV are both at least 10 years old. Both work just fine, so why change them? My car is 12 years old, low mileage. It's just a box on wheels, so I don't feel any urge to change it for something newer that looks nicer.

Sometimes I'll buy something for myself that I really want, but it has to be a bargain. I'm rarely extravagant or make a bad buy.

I also struggle a bit with clothing lust. I'm not a fashionista at all, but I do wish I could improve myself, and I look at style sites a lot and long for things. I hate this habit, because I don't understand my motivations. I feel like the desires are driven by some ugly feelings -- stuff that clothes can't fix.

I understand this very well. I constantly wish I was taller, slimmer, prettier, younger, had nicer hair, better skin (oh, god, yes, what I wouldn't give for Toni Colette's beautiful complexion, not to mention the price I'd willingly pay if I could get rid of this damn psoriasis for EVER). I look at clothes and beauty sites online and covet things, but I have enough self-awareness now and have learned by sad and hard experiences that I can't fix the insecurities inside with nice clothes.

There's very little in my flat that I couldn't replace if there was a fire. I'd grab photos, car keys (for convenience, if nothing else), passport, external HD, the strongbox with my documents, make sure the cats were out. Everything else, whilst it'd be a massive inconvenience to lose it all, could all be replaced without too much of a qualm.

i often feel the need to downsize stuff, we're in a 1 bedroom and with respect to books, my husband and i have seven double-rowed bookshelves that i'd love to get down to three. habits of bibliophiles we have, but some books just never get touched and i'd love to toss about half of it... of course we never seem to. we are constant and consistent readers in this house.

i'm the same with clothing, i'm sure i don't have clothing amounts to rival my contemporary new yorkers but there's still a fair amount of it in sizes i'll never be again which i should just toss. i've started handing stuff off to my best friend in an effort not to waste some of the more choice and costlier pieces but despite a teaming closet i never do feel as well-dressed at my coworkers. i always long for new clothing and costly clothing, but have a hard time getting rid of old stuff. i even started quilting old suits and jeans because they're hopelessly out of size or stuck in the 1990s.

my big failing is the art clutter i accumulate. there's boxes of yarn for crochet, paints and canvas, craft boxes that i'll never throw out. video game systems and games we MUST have but have little time to play with, I have a wii fit that i really must get on the ball about using regularly.

mostly these days however, i want more room. i can live with our ikea livingroom for now and our mattress on the floor - it fits in with our bollywood-explosion style bedroom, i want the ultimate big stuff - a house, which is pretty unlikely considering the expense area prices are - even in the housing crisis.

My family is big on STUFF. We all have lots of stuff. Stuff you can't throw away. Stuff that is decided to be given the title of 'IMPORTANT STUFF'.

Pops keeps everything. Every scrap of paper that could potentially be important--filed. Or on his desk in a pile somewhere. He's not too bad about things like clothes and shoes, but the paper is OUT OF FUCKING CONTROL. He still has the original pamphlets and order forms from when he bought grass seed for the yard. From when the house was built. In 1976.

Mom buys things. I think that she buys things in order to fill some sense of love and affection that is otherwise lacking in our household. She goes shopping just about every day. At the grocery store, she'll buy things that no one eats and then make them and tell us to eat them and then cry when we tell her that we've told her before that we don't like X. She also buys a lot of knick-knacks and kitchen appliances. I can't even count how many bread boxes and trays and little drawer organizers that she has purchased and either thrown away or donated to SalVal or otherwise stored away for some rainy day when she will find it useful again.

My brother, the flat broke mofo that he is, buys things to fix his house. He decided on a whim that he wanted to rip up two of the bedrooms on the main floor of his house and make them into a bathroom and an office. Which he did. Eventually. His latest project is finishing the basement area into an office and a bathroom too. (He's also redone the electrical wiring, laundry room, and kitchen of said house.) He does all these projects, but they take time to be completed because he does them by himself. And pops and mom come by and see said projects, and whine about how he's spending money he doesn't have--which is really just their way of saying that he should be spending his time at their house, working on whatever bullshit project they've decided needs doing.

And then there's me. I have lots of issues with buying clothes, just because they're on sale or whatever. I've gotten better about buying random knick-knacks because I'm trying to work on owning less stuff because I hope that I'm going to be able to move out soon. I spend a fair amount of time looking at home decorative crap on the internet but most of that is just me fantastizing about getting the hell out of my current cotton candy machine and I haven't really purchased anything worthwhile. (My plan is to raid my mother's stash of kitchenware because I know that she has enough to furnish at least 3 houses worth.)

I find it hard to get rid of stuff. Lots of my stuff has all sorts of emotional entanglement with it and I get wrapped up in thinking about what was going on then or whatever happened to this person and it never gets thrown away. I'm trying though, but being relatively broke ass has helped a good bit. Plus, I keep telling myself that anything I buy now is something that I'm going to have to pack later.

I am not huge on having stuff. Except books. At the moment we have so much crap (who knew that one little baby would lead to such an explosion of STUFF?) and it's driving me crazy.

My husband is very big on stuff. One of our biggest arguments ever was about 8 months ago when he decided we needed a bunch of new furniture and a plasma tv. It's nice, but I could have done without any of it. A lot of my anti-stuff attitude is related to my frugality though, which itself is related to my childhood growing up poor and trying to keep my mother on a budget while she spent money we didn't have. Hence, money is the only source of tension in my relationship with my husband and it really shouldn't be because our income is more than fine.

Yeah, the thing about me and my urges is that I actually own very little, and I am always condensing and flushing. I move a lot, so this has just become natural. So even things I probably would value, like books, are very few in my home. I just learned ages ago that books are heavy and take up a lot of room and often I will never so much as crack open the cover again.

And like you, Essexjan, if there was a fire there is very little I would have to take. My cats, of course, box or two of photos, my computer... I'm really straining to think of things I would be heartbroken to lose.

Still, I dunno, I seem to want stuff.

(I mean I got used to borrowing or going to the library, not that I no longer read.)

My feelings on stuff are mixed. I'm not one of those people who needs to have every little tech-doodad or latest trendy thing. At the same time, since I was a kid, I collected stuff: baseball cards, then books and records. But I wasn't one of those nutcases who had to have the super-premium maxi-fantastic version of everything. I'd settle for a casette copy. These days, i collect diigital music, which is free and dosen't take up much space.

"Ever notice how your crap is stuff and everyone else's stuff is crap?" - George Carlin

I've got a pretty casual attitude/relationship to (some) stuff now. I've been a packrat/clutterbug most of my life. I remember being made to get rid of ALL! OF! MY! ARTWORK! (fingerpaints from kindergarten or somethign) by my parents at age 7 or something and just sobbing about it.

Now I'll pick out the best of something from one of the boys and put it in the memory box and then the rest go out with the trash.

I'm in a transition period where I'm getting rid of boxes and bags of stuff, but the general running of life gets in the way, and I get more piles of stuff...er, crap.

Books aren't much of a problem any more. I had thousands. Now I think I'm under a thousand, because I'm selling them on half.com or just donating them. However...

My Ex has called me "the woman of 1,000 projects", and it's true, I have yarn for knitting, cloth for sewing, leather straps for braiding, chalk pastels, oil pastels, paints, pencils, watercolor pencils, markers. And paper, so much paper.

It's all about priorities, I think. The old line "show me your budget and I'll show you your priorities" kinda rings true here. We're not at all attached to our stuff, except when it comes to the stuff we really are attached to.

I'm rambling. There's one more quote rattling in my head: "clutter is postponed decisions", and that's for sure been one of my big bugaboos. I still have to lecture myself when I think, "but I could use this!" "Oh, yeah? When exactly?"

Mostly for us, "stuff == books". We have thousands and thousands of books, mostly in boxes in the giant garage.

I like having nice stuff, but I don't want stuff I don't need. I'm not a fan of clutter- I love cleaning out my closet, my bookshelf, anything, get that stuff OUT. I think I get that from my mother. I'm also not overly sentimental- I don't need to keep stuff aruond- pictures, doo-dads, things that people keep to remember, I just want to remember in my mind. Soon, my fiance and I will be registering for stuff, and just the thought of it makes me break out in hives, for a number of reasons (why is this stuff so expensive, do we really need this stuff, where are we going to put this stuff). I'll try to be good about it.

Maybe it's because our flat is so tiny that you can't keep much stuff in here, but I seem to have all the things I need. Except for books, of course - one can never have too many books. I can't live without them, and I always need more. And more bookshelves (I wish we could afford to move to some place bigger, since we've run out of space for bookshelves here...).

One thing you might find odd about our place is the infestation of teapots. Me and my girlfriend both love tea and this is reflected in the number of teapots and mugs we have. We have 6 or 7 different teapots. Plus a (very cheap) Japanese tea set. And a samovar. And all sorts of different kinds of teas.

Stuff is separated from nonsense by a mere ampersand.

TPS - Re: registering for stuff. People will try to tell you that you *need* certain things. If you don't want them, DO NOT SUCCUMB. I did not want china (for example). The number of conversations I had to have with people who tried to convince us to register for china was, well, weird, frankly.

It's not people I'm worried about. It's my fiance :D

I'm just doing my part to help the stalled economy.

Whatever you say, groomzilla.

It would be difficult for me to buy less stuff than I do now... I'm actually on the opposite end of the spectrum from people who buy too much stuff; I'm slightly neurotically understuffed in some areas. It's not a pennypinching thing, it's a "I mostly hate shopping" thing. Even supermarkets make me feel oppressed. Department stores seriously tingle my claustrophobia, or enochlophobia, or agoraphobia, or somedamnphobia, and I just want to rush and grab something and pay and get the hell out. This doesn't really work if you have to actually try things on. My husband hates shopping, too (except for tech and electronics stuff), so between us we are a couple of aging ragamuffins.

I only like outdoor markets, really.

I have tons of stuff. Tons. Too much. I tend to be a packrat anyway; I always have art/craft projects going on; I'm a plant person/gardener which has its own associated clutter; I decorate for Halloween and Christmas; I read obsessively and continuously and, to top it off, I'm also sentimental, so it takes massive trauma for me to get rid of anything. Now a lot of my stuff is not "good" - more than half my furniture came off the street or from Goodwill; the majority of my books are paperbacks; my cell phone is almost 3 years old; my stereo dates from my very first Real Paycheck in 1985 or 6; my car's 10 years old and so on. But lately, I've been buying a few things: an iPod, a washer/dryer, hell, a house - and it feels kind of weird. I bought some boots yesterday. I haven't had new boots in two years or more. I'm contemplating another new vacuum cleaner - I'm trying, right now, to buy things that will last a long long time, to sort of stock up so I don't ever need anything again. That was the thinking behind the new washer and dryer. I'm tired of buying used cheap half broken crap and then having to replace it 9 months later. I want stuff that will last and now that I own my house, I'm really thinking about that, buying more expensive blinds instead of cheap so that they'll still be okay in five or ten years.

Up until recently, though, the only things I usually bought were books and clothes maybe twice a year, at the Ross Dress for Less or Old Navy. I like clothes but I don't get all lustful for them. I do tend to buy jewelry - cheap jewelry, but still - at craft fairs and so on. I like buying local art when I can and my budget could usually stretch to a pair of $14 earrings.

I'm in a stuff explosion now though. I already had a house full of stuff and then when my mother died last summer I inherited her entire houseful of stuff. Now I have so much stuff I'm swimming in it and it's complicated. I don't want to get rid of things - Mom's designer silk scarves from the 70s! The oil painting of the ancestor! Dad's discharge from the army! The article about him in WWD in 1972! A drawing of our old house! The old living room chairs that are actually nicer than my old chairs! - and so on but I really have too much stuff now. You would not believe the amount of glassware I currently own; it's completely ridiculous. And I have all my mother's paintings - whole damn family always making more stuff, argh - there must be at least 40 largeish framed watercolors and nowhere to hang them; all the family photo albums; my great aunt Claire's portfolio pieces from art school in 1926 and oh god, it just goes on and on. My garage is scary and - this is really bad - somewhere in it are my parent's ashes and the ashes of their old basset hound who died in 1998: I don't know where they are. I haven't unpacked them yet. In a way, that sums up my whole stuff dilemma: I have nowhere to put them but I can't just get rid of them.

Stuff: I have only a vague fear of how much stuff I have stored. We have tons of hand-me-downs and our 600 SF of living space was pretty well filled. When we moved, we had to put our stuff into storage until we were situated, then our home was destroyed and the stuff remained in storage. Then my hubby became critically ill and did not survive and now I’m living in one room in my Mom’s home. Stuff is still stored. It has nowhere to go till I get resituated – whenever that is…. And, I’m actually now afraid of all the stuff and the memories it holds. So much of it is his and I cannot bring myself to even think of it.

The stuff of mine that is available for use is very simple – clothes in varying sizes, lots of cheap costume jewelry, & an old computer that was his. Recently, I purchased a coffee maker for myself. All of my Mom’s stuff is available for my use – and she has lots. Her attic has stuff too, I fear.

I’ve found that I need really few things of my own to survive, but I crave the solitude of my own place with my own stuff. I know I’ll have to deal with Our stuff at some point in the future and make the decision about how much stuff I want to live with.

I used to be a more stuff person, I wanted my own library, my own CD and DVD libraries and various collections of stuff like toys and musical instruments. That all changed when I moved. I gave away almost all my books to the library and lots of stuff to goodwill. That was 2 and a half years ago and I feel like I need another de-stuffing. I have stopped buying most of my old habitual things (CD/DVD/Comics) but stuff still seems to finding it's way into my apartment.

I am Anti-Stuff, and my Stuff (mostly written, or correspondences, or reference materials) is organized. As the late child of depression babies who had Too Much Stuff, I developed an instinct to be able to Find Stuff Amid Clutter, and also a hatred of Stuff. Yet opposites attract, and my spouse and his family are Stuff People. I try to manage and control it, but Stuff sometimes comes in handy. I was able to supply marching band uniforms and an inflatable cow costume for the office Super Bowl Tailgate Competition, which we won, due to my (The Husband's) Stuff.

For me, it is no longer stuff but MASS-PRODUCED CONSUMER ITEMS. Yes, in my mind the phrase is in all caps. I sold off my CD and other collections years ago. I even sold my Magic: The Gathering card collection at its popularity peak. I came to see things as stamped out on assembly lines. Everything I own fits in the trunk of my car.

Now I only buy what I need, and let me say: this Verizon Voyager is not even close to being an iPhone, but for the initial and monthly costs compared to everything it has replaced, it has been worth every cent. Other than hauling my laptop to a free hotspot every couple weeks, I can do everything I need with this little puppy.

... except spell check.

And that's it and that's the only thing I need, is this. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.

I'm not big on stuff. I was a packrat throughout high school, and slightly kind of one through college, but moving overseas, and back again, made me really look at everything and think, "OK, what do I really NEED?" I managed to get that all down to three boxes, two suitcases, and an umbrella. I've got more stuff than that now, but I'm willing to jettison most of it if I needed to. (Like the time my ex and I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast and just took what could fit in a minivan that also had to fit us and the cat. And his two custom-made bikes.)

This tendency to jettison stuff unfortunately means that I tend to think of furniture and decor and such as place-specific, and have an irrational and only recently identified urge to buy completely new stuff whenever I change homes.

Tech stuff generally leaves me cold. I like it, but it never occurs to me to buy anything fancy, and shopping for tech stuff tends to fall into the category of "errand" rather than "fun" for me. It's been nice, though, to get a couple tech-y gifts from ikkyu2 (iPod, Palm Pilot) that I never would have bought for myself but that I end up using every day.

I do need my books, though. Though I've tried to whittle them down to the ones that I'm willing reread on almost a weekly basis. And I do reread them on almost a weekly basis.

What I do spend my money on is experiences, rather than things. Dinners out, especially, but also tickets to things or spa-type services and such.

STUFF I would like to get includes a really good electric razor. I don't mind staying clean shaven if I can use an electric every day. However, a good electric runs about $100 and a pack of disposable razors to keep the thing looking somewhat trimmed is 5 for $1.

So far, the beard has won out, however if this upcoming therapy works out, that will probably change. If it doesn't work out though, I'm saying to hell with everything and eatiing what I want, drinking what I want, smoking what I want, and just plain doing what I want. I call it 'suicide by natural causes'.

I went from a 2 bedroom flat with large kitchen and lounge / dining area, that I had filled with all my belongings, to one bedroom in my mothers cramped apartment. She's a hoarder. I am too, but I'm much better than her about tossing things out.

I collect books and DVDs though. But I'm good at going through them, I tend to have a clean out of books every time I move, and whittle them down a little more. Of course, number of ones thrown out is less than number of books bought during that period, so I can't feel too virtuous. And I do re-read. A lot. And I don't watch television, just DVDs, so I watch them a lot too.

I was too poor to buy clothes for a long time. I'm still not a huge clothes person. I tend to buy one or two expensive pieces every once in a while, and then go for a splurge at sales or the factory outlets once in a blue moon. I am getting to a stage where I have a few more outfits these days, cos there were precious few.

I do need to go through my shoe collection though. I only have about 12 pairs - which is not many for a girl! but I saw a shoe in there that I had completely forgotten all about - and when I went to put it on today I can't find the pair - so I think that's a sign I need to cull them.

I don't like having things that have no use around me. When I left my place in Armadale I threw out alot of the kitchen stuff. Most of it was junky and third or fourth hand, chipped, and the prospect of finding a place to store it left me full of hives. As it is I can't use more than a tiny portion of my cupboard as it's full of boxes - though a lot of the boxes aren't mine. It also has a chest of drawers and a TV in it.

I have a couple of memory boxes, and I try not to go through them. I collect tiny postcards, or cut outs, or photos, tickets etc, and have a couple of shoeboxes to put them in. I also have a box from when I did my deb ball which contains the flowers I wore, my shoes, and the gloves I wore, and a box from my last day at school with my ripped and destroyed uniform and the other crap memorabilia they gave us.

These don't really take up too much space.

I guess on reflection I'm half hoarder, half shedder. I do go through my hoards on a semi-regular basis, but the stuff still accumulates.

If I buy things, I tend to try to buy things that will last. I don't like having to buy things too frequently, like irons etc, and would prefer to buy one good one once, than many crap ones. A lot of my stuff is second hand, third hand, given free to me, but the rest I buy the best I can afford - which, considering how little money I have, isn't usually extravagant.

I think most stuff is crap including the stuff I own.

I don't think much about stuff. I admire stuff all of the time but realize that stuff is just stuff and like I already said, mostly crap. Even the "good" stuff is crap.

Like gaspode's husband, I wanted new furniture. I got it and nothing has changed. It's comfortable. It's nice, I suppose. Did I need it? No.

I dislike clutter. I dislike decorative accessories and too much stuff on surfaces and floors. I'm somewhat of a minimalist and have no worries about throwing crap away on a regular basis. Like TPS, I am not sentimental in the least. I keep some of my kid's artwork and other work, but I am not attached to inanimate objects.

I'm not a regular shopper. I like to window shop on the internet. I admire pretty stuff, like quilts and dishes, and other domestic things that always suck me in. The stuff I most often buy are books (desperately need to trade many in and use library more often)audio books and music on iTunes. Followed by shoes, clothes, and cosmetics (and the clothes, shoes, and cosmetics are few and far between).

I used to want more stuff. There was time when I wanted a bigger house and nicer stuff. I'm so glad that I grew up and got over that because there is nothing like financial freedom. I'm living large in my humble surroundings.

I used to admire how my friends had beautiful clothes, accessories (fashion and home), furniture, boats and god knows what else. I was insecure and maybe I thought that this crap would make me more interesting or desirable.

I heard today that 70 percent of our GDP comes from consumer spending. I'm not surprised at all because of the multiplier effect. I surprised the number is not higher. I don't think there is anything wrong with that number. We're unhappy when we can't afford to spend and still unhappy when we do. I also heard a little factoid that women spend their money on candles (yes, candles), beauty products and clothes. Men buy electronics and DVDs. I'm aware that this is a generalized statement but thought it was kind of kooky that people buy so many scented candles in this country. It's a top purchased item.

Speaking of buying too many books, you might be interested in Dan Ho's books: Rescue From House Gorgeous and Rescue from Domestic Perfection. An article on Dan Ho in the NYT: The Imperfectionist.

On the one hand, I have a 5'x15' storage unit packed within a few feet of the ceiling with boxes, furniture, decorations, and about thirty canvases varying in size and states of completion. If it all disappeared tomorrow, I would have difficulty remembering what most of it (besides the paintings) was, and so I'm slowly working on sorting a box at a time and giving things away. This after having already taken a few carloads to Goodwill during the last move. Stuff.

On the other, I live in a room that contains a bed, a desk, and a small shelving unit that contains my clothes: three pairs of pants, three shirts, stuff for sleeping in, and underwear. Two pairs of shoes sit by the door, and a few books are stacked by the computer. That's it. I can't afford much more, and I honestly don't want more. Until a few months ago, I felt as though I were drowning in a swamplike mass of things that I didn't have space to store or the organizational skills to manage.

I love my parents, but I hate the relationship with stuff that was my family's way of life. My mother is something of a collector beneath her talent for furnishing and maintaining a comfortable home, and though our houses grew steadily bigger over the years, the amount of storage available always seemed to shrink as closets and basements filled with more and more things. My father's books and papers were mostly tucked away in his home office where their piles could grow undisturbed. Cleaning never meant cleaning out, but just making it look pretty by shoving things, always at the last minute, into bags or laundry baskets and hoping they'd fit into a closed-off room while guests were around. The period before company came over or a trip or God forbid a move was always something of a nightmare as stuff was frantically rehomed. But the idea of getting rid of things or not continuing to buy them (even as gifts for those who actively requested they not be given) was generally only supported in theory.

I never minded later on when they insisted I take as much of my stuff as possible (and after I upgraded from efficiencies to a two-room apartment, all of it) because after all, it was their space I was taking up with my crap. But I did find myself becoming perhaps irrationally upset when they insisted upon loads coming over while I was still moving- that is, before I settled in to any new place and had some sort of system of storage worked out- and then would remark later how sad it was that I never had anyone over. For maybe four years, between what I didn't really know how to deal with and what I couldn't afford, there wasn't space to have anyone over. ADHD and (unrelated but certainly not helped by the situation) depression sharply increased the angle of the learning curve. I'm nowhere close to finished, but with my immediate living space as ascetic as I can make it, I at least have a place to rest on the way.

So I don't really crave things of any kind because I don't think they'd be good for me. I'm not sure if this will change.

All about stuff.

I own personally own four bookcases; two five feet or so high and two floor to ceiling. Every one of those bookcases is full of books. In addition to them there are several boxes of books sitting on my bedroom floor, as well as piles of books scattered haphazardly on the floor, on the desk, on tables, next to my computer, on top of my computer...

And this is after a pretty serious purge where I sold a bunch of books to Powells over the summer. So I have a bit of a book habit.

Other than that, I own a moderate number of video games collected over the last ten years or so, a small DVD rack full of DVDs collected over the same period of time or so, maybe a hundred CDs collected over that same time, an oft-upgraded desktop computer, an iPod classic, three last gen gaming consoles, three utilitarian coats and a sort of nifty leather jacket, a pile of clothes in various states of threadbareness, three boardgames, some plush Cthulhus, two fedoras, a bed, a desk, and a chair. Oh, and some kitchen stuff.

All in all, easily more than would fit in a pickup truck, but I could probably fit it all in the smallest available U-Haul. Considering that a lot of the books are roleplaying books, I've easily spent more money on the book collection than on any other object or collection of objects, even considering that most of the DVDs are anime DVDs bought at $25 or $30 a piece back in the days I was crazy. Easily.

So I guess my relationship with stuff is very entertainment based. I'm pretty utilitarian when it comes to useful things, but I'm a collector/packrat when it comes to media items. I used to have big piles of magazines (mostly game magazines) and I finally forced myself to recycle them, but it was really hard. I've been trying to par down my worldly possessions, since I'm expecting to move sometime between six months and a year from now, but it hasn't been super successful.

Just before Christmas we culled.

About half of everything in the house (clothes, furniture, and other shit) was tossed, recycled, sold, or boxed and put into storage (meaning it will be trashed in the future).

As for the books, we got rid of about 90% of the stuff that had accumulated. About half of them went into the recycling bin and the other half gave us an $447 credit at the neighbourhood bookstore.

I like stuff but it gets on me nerves when there is too much of it. If I have not used it in a full year then it is shit.

Arse_hat, that's a good rule. I find every time I move there are a couple of boxes that never get unpacked. Eventually I know they never will, so I can safely get rid of them. I've never had a tonne of extra storage space anywhere I've lived, so culling is both freeing and necessary.