yep, that’s my main use as well. My choir often can’t afford to buy nice octavos for everyone so we scavenge paper from everywhere (even dumpsters) and make copies. Which then need holes punched in them to put in your choral binder.
I use paper, scissors, stapler, tape, paper clips, tacks, stamps, all the time. I am an aficionado of the nearly-lost art of handwritten letters – my favorite pen is a 1910 hardened latex rubber fountain pen – but I also have a lot of other things I do with simple office supplies. For example at this moment I am making calligraphy labels for our various jars of loose tea.
I am not a hoarder by any description, but my husband is a collector of all sorts of “junk” like odd pieces of lumber, detergent buckets, scrap wire, fasteners, rope, you name it. However, he repairs and builds everything around here on the Farmette, from computers to solar water systems to retaining walls. He uses his stuff. When he says “we might need this”, he’s usually right.
MrTao has more computer odds and ends than anyone could ever have used, ever. I mean big, blue storage bins full at one place, more in storage, plus our closet. And none of it cool, like old Coleco-vision stuff, just bits and parts left over from upgrades over the years. SOOOOOOOOO much stuff…
Luckily we’re moving at the end of the month, and I, for one, welcome the chance to dump as much of this as possible. I, too, am both a pack-rat and relatively computer-savvy but, yeah. If we could build a media server or something out of it all, great, but most of it is too old and out of date to use even with each other. I think there’s a couple decades of computer history in there, which is neat…if it were at someone ELSE’s house.
What a timely thread. Last week I asked my husband if he had any use for some three-ring binders I was about to throw out. He looked at me oddly and said (not surprisingly) that he hadn’t used a three-ring binder in years.
Yesterday (so, three - four days after the binder conversation) while cleaning up prior to our barbecue, I asked about the three hole punch that had appeared on the kitchen table along with a bunch of scrap paper. He damn near panicked - yes, I could toss the scrap paper but he needs that three hole punch!
I have one tiny little one-hole puncher, and that’s all I need (and “need” is probably pushing it).
Speaking of culling books, I just did a big cull on my books - two boxes sent to my local charity. I did keep a bookcase full (well, some shelves have double rows, but I digress) of books that I actually will re-read over and over, but the rest - I made a list of them on my computer and sent them off. If I want to read any of these in the future, my local library is storing them for me now.
My husband on the other hand culled his books by donating two (2) books. Yes, he does have some hoarder tendencies.
One time I should be grateful for a geek husband. When I wanted to clear out books all I had to do was promise him the ability to buy what he wanted to replace in ebook format.
MrTao and I are both geeks, with him preferring audio books and me loving my Kindle, but…we still have many boxes worth of books that we just can’t give up. I know I like some of them because they are unique, one-offs I found random places that, yeah, I keep around just cause they’re neat or dorky, but others…we just like the various series so much we just…keep them around 'cause…um…
For when the power goes out for days, yeah! That’s it…
I do clear them out at least once a year, when I go home to visit family. I cram whatever books I can fit into my suitcases for my niece/nephew/sister, and they love 'em. Last time I had to take some out cause it was over the 50 pound weight limit though, lol.
My current donate pile contains Tom Sawyer and Vanity Fair because they are old (but not antique), and hardcover. This is exactly the sort of material I can get from the library, or free on Kindle, or for $0.50 at the used book store, in the unlikely event I should ever want to read it again. I’m with Moonlitherial on this one.
It is my firmly held opinion that people should be genetically test before marriage; if they both are carriers of the packrat gene they should not be allowed to marry.
I live in a four bedroom house with no children - and it is full. I could probably furnish another house out of the attic. Since I have no kids I have no idea who we’re gonna leave this stuff to.
It’s not crap, most of it is antique furniture in good shape. I inherited from my mom; he inherited from his parents and grandparents. We just have too much stuff.
I’ve been fortunate in life so far, in that I tend to move every couple of years, and that often involves me saying ‘Screw it’ and packing a bag and starting over fresh. This is the longest I’ve sat in one place and collected stuff. I am having SO much fun throwing stuff out before the move, wheee!!!
Those were the days! When I was in elementary school, on the list of school supplies to buy was this item: Gummed Reinforcements. And yes, we did use them. I always thought it was a funny name.
Don’t know where they are, but there’s a one hole pliers type punch, and one of little cube types also, plus the big multi-hole punch that can do more than three I think. Why would you throw perfectly good stuff away?
I try to use the 1-year rule. If I don’t use something at least once a year, it’s probably not worth keeping. I’ll do better to get rid of it and buy, borrow, or rent another one when/if I actually need it.
Exceptions made for sentimental possessions or things that I am sure I want in the future, even if it’s less often than once a year. I’m not going to go through photo albums every year, but I want to do so every five or ten years.
Books get given away except for a few that I use as signaling devices to fellow readers who visit my house and do the “bookshelf check” to see what sort of person I am by the books I own.
I moved across the country in March. Insane amount of stuff to sort and cull, plus I was going from a three bedroom house (with a shed in the back) and a full basement to a two bedroom apartment with a galley kitchen.
The furniture and stuff was hard but the accumulated crap was harder… I bought these to make blankets for Christmas gifts… I know I only have one half done and I bought this 4 years ago but … seriously I will get on it in September this year! The office supplies… we had an office briefly so it ended up with us having multiple phones and things… rulers… we ended up donating it to a local chairity that was setting up a second office on a shoe string budget…
Books are hard, but not worth shipping coast to coast. I promised myself I could buy any novel I wanted again as an ebook and any non fiction I wanted again I could have. I weed it down to 4 bankers boxes which are stored at my mom’s. the upside to leaving my books behind is it has made me go out and find libraries and used book stores and things instead of “hey maybe I will re-read this…”
Oh yes and paper punches/etc. My dad used to work for the Ontario government and they briefly flirted with metric sized paper formats with a 4 hole punch. For years he would bring home extra binders with 4 holes thinking he was helping me out for school. Um, no dad… NOTHING fits this! Even when he brought a 4 hole punch home when the government finally went back to A4 this was the most annoying stuff. Big Ugly 4 hole punch
Instead of looking at something I never use and dithering whether or not to keep it because I might need it some day, I chuck it into the trunk of my car. If I need it someday, it’s accessible enough. I can just walk right out to the car and get it, if I need it. But since I started doing this, I haven’t needed ANY of the junk in my trunk (heheh :D). I have stuff in my trunk that’s been there for like 2 years, now. Usable stuff, perfectly serviceable stuff, just stuff I don’t need. I keep meaning to make a trip to the dump to get rid of it all, but I procrastinate of course.
With stuff that isn’t needed on a daily basis, out of sight=out of mind. Maybe you could get your boyfriend a place to put shit he thinks he might need someday. If 12 months have gone by and he hasn’t needed it yet, then he would be better off to chuck it. If he really needs a hole puncher someday in the future, why can’t he just buy one then? A cheap, functional 3-hole puncher costs under $6 on Amazon. Isn’t it worth a few bucks to clear out the (mental *and *physical) space it’s taken up for god knows how many years? Does he really think it’s better for an item to lie there, unneeded forever, instead of being bought secondhand or adopted by someone who could really use it right now?
These are questions he needs to ask himself, really.
Just ran across a multitude of VHS tapes. I haven’t had a VHS player in at least 4 years. Getting rid of all but two: Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 'cause I still don’t think I can get it on DVD <might be wrong by now, but I searched for what seemed like forever previously> and my original Star Wars Trilogy.
'cause Han shot first, damnit! AND I HAVE THE PROOF!!
The Bell System was so big that we could have our own standards incompatible with the rest of the world. All looseleaf paper used within the system was four-hole. We suspected it was to prevent employees bringing it home for their kids - ditto binders. However stores (in New Jersey at least) sold 7 hole paper, so you could use either binder type.
In fact the punch I inherited from by Bell Labs boss who inherited from someone else and which found its way into my house has four adjustable punches, so you can use it with 3 hole or 4 hole paper.
