We bought a large shredder, and placed a basket on top of it. When the basket gets full, one of us will take a minute to shred it. Buying a heavy duty shredder makes it much less of a beastly chore than the one page at a time weenie we had before.
This is probably heresy, especially since I’m a quilter myself, but I’ve always hated the Gee’s Bend quilts. And when we were all actively sewing (my mom, my sister and me) here in the same house, the scraps were saved to make doll clothes and toys and for quilts…none of which ever happened. When we got too old for toys and dolls, the scraps were supposed to be saved for repairs. We’ve gotten rid of much of the scrap collection over the years, but there’s still a bunch…and I’m just as guilty…but at least MY fabrics are attractive! 
Hers are not. And she rarely sews much these days except for nightgowns and bathrobes.
When my grandmother died, we cleaned out bags and bags full of old margarine tubs. She used them to store leftovers. Trying to find something to eat in her fridge was a trip. “Hey, Grandma, where’s the carrot sticks?” “In the butter container!” “Grandma, there’s 27 butter containers in here!” “It’s in the red one!”
:smack:
A year or so ago I was helping my mother clean out her china hutch and we found an unopened pack of Hong Kong Phuey napkins.
I’ve inherited some of their pack rat tendencies, but I’m trying to keep it in check. Once a year or so I’ll sweep through the house and just fill up trash bags. I don’t know where all the clutter keeps coming from, it’s not like we can ever afford to go shopping or anything, but there always seems to be a bunch of paper and random pieces of junk lurking around.
I like getting junk mail now that I have a shredder. Not the newspaper-like ads, but the envelope style credit card ads and such. I bring them in and head straight to the shredder. It’s like saying, “Screw you!” to the advertisers every time I do it. And nothing goes in the trash with my name, address or other personal info on it.
I was a major neat freak but the SO is not. We have collections of used kitty litter in the garage waiting to go out to the curb for pete’s sake. Now I am inspired and hopefully will actually get things shifted this weekend and to the curb on TU.
During my mother’s final years I used to take her out to dinner at a fast food place once or twice a week (usually Carl’s Jr). She would invariably take most of her hamburger home in the little cardboard container it was served in.
After her death I found those little cardboard boxes, all lovingly washed and stacked in the kitchen cupboard. there were about thirty of them, and what she planned on doing with them I can’t imagine.