Sounds to me like you have learned important survival lessons. The harder they are to let go of indicates the thoroughness of your lesson. Nothing to be bothered by!
Our family is very solidly upper-middle class. Actually, now that I think about it, my wife grew up in an upper-middle class family, too, so I guess I can’t blame this on old habits.
She’s not excessively frugal in general, but she routinely puts half-empty cans of Coke back in the fridge, so she can drink the flat soda later rather than have to open a whole new can.
I recommend what I call The Lori Method, named in honor of my best friend.
When I moved here she came up to Wausau and helped me pare down my books. We had 4 piles: toss because they were in such bad shape, donate, think about, and keep. Because she had no sentimental connection she was able to be ruthless. At least a couple of times she yanked books out of my hands saying “no. You hated that book!” I told her the first time " but if I reread it, maybe this time I’ll like it". “No.” And she’d put it in the donate or toss pile. Harsh but needed.
I have something like that for clothes. I’ll go through and make four piles: donate, throw away, definitely keep, and reevaluate. The reevaluate pile often consists of things like ratty undies (can’t donate them, might wear them again if I get too busy to do laundry for a while), stuff I’m too fat for but hope to fit into again, stuff my husband really likes on me but I don’t much care for, stuff that doesn’t really go with anything else I own, and, like OP’s sandals, stuff that’s cute but not comfortable. I put the reevaluate stuff away somewhere I can’t see it but can get to it easily. Anything I pull out and wear gets to stay, and after six months or so it’s a lot easier to get rid of the rest.
It wouldn’t kill me to buy new kitchen towels but these old ones from 1988 are holding up just fine despite the stains, and ragged edges. I just never think about it.
I cleaned the windowsills last week and used two cotton repurposed cloths from the bottomless rag bin. I was debating whether to clean them to reuse. They were filthy dirty. Boldly I tossed them in the garbage.
I have contemplated patching the threadbare areas on my flannel sheets, or buy new ones? Knowing these sheets will one day make it to the rag bin made it an easy decision to throw out the dirty cleaning cloths. More where that came from.
I too kept using mismatched cutlery. Where the heck do all the spoons get to? Then when my folks passed away and we’re cleaning out the apartment nobody wanted the old silver plate utensils in the wooden chests. My mom’s and another mixed set from a grandmother and great aunts. I was loading them up for goodwill when I could’ve smacked myself for a fool, here I was about to toss out untarnished perfectly elegant utensils because they looked old and somehow junky. And all those extra spoons! Teaspoons, gumbo spoons, ice tea spoons, serving spoons! I use them everyday, making sure I wash and dry them right away too. I even sourced out extra pieces for one set. I dearly appreciate these sets now from my Mom.
In my trunk right now 6 boxes of books. All kinds. Many oldies, cleared out a book shelf. Now to stealthily drop them off somewhere.
I believe @kambuckta is Australian and didn’t realize that wasn’t a common term over here.
I’m from the US and got it from context.
I was too lazy to look it up at first. But yeah it meant something?
It’s slang like Housos or deros are slang too.
Do you have VVA ( Vietnam Veterans of America) where you live? They pick up donations and take anything one guy can load on the truck. You don’t get anything for it (other than a tax deduction), but you don’t pay anything either. I’ve gotten rid of a ton of books (and other assorted discards) over the year with them. I do try to sell more valuable books that I don’t want to keep, but that means having those books hang around until someone buys them.
If they’re in nice shape, maybe a retirement home.
I checked and no there is not a local VVA here
I wish some were large print, many are small hard covers, a varied lot. Pilgrims Progress like 3 copies sheesh! and similar titles. A few Christian novels signed by the author Paul Hutchens. Mixed in with Hardy Boys, Motorcycle Chums , woodworking books, trail atlases, birding books, old old dictionaries, some Rodale published stuff. WW2 books from that era. Then vintage titles I picked up solely for their pretty covers and spines.
Lol my spouse wants to keep the Gary Larson and Hunter S Thompson books thinks he can sell them eventually.
Yes, it’s common courtesy when using terms that may be unfamiliar to one’s audience to explain them up front.
Well I’m American and it seemed pretty obvious what it meant.
Ditto, although I’ve occasionally not caught onto things that were obvo to others.
But like I said, where kambukta is, it may be quite common.
If the Hardy Boys books are in good shape maybe a homeless shelter.
Or a library sale drop off.
It’s a deadly obsession!
Too bad about not having a local VVA. Since I’ve started my bit by bit downsizing, they’re saved me a ton of inconvenience.