Last night, and most of the day today, I helped a friend of mine move into a new house (in the rain). When it came time to pack up all of the things in his garage, I was dumbfounded. This guy owns his own business and makes a very good living, however, I have not seen so much stuff in my life in one garage.

He is the type of person that will go in his garage, look for something, and then if he can't find what he is looking for, he goes and buys another one.

As I, and another guy, went through the stuff, Dale told us to throw away anything that looked useless, and to take anything else that we wanted.

He had a sack full of real nice Stanley measuring tapes, a sack full of brand new leather work gloves, several packages of brand new pollen (expensive) pollen masks, about 10 pipe wrenches, 2-3 cordless drills, and much, much, more. He had stuff that he didn't even know he had. He told me that he lived in that house for 9 years, and could not believe all of the stuff that he had collected over the years.

I know that lots of elderly people keep things, saying, "I'll probably need that one of these days, so let's keep it."

My theory....I figure that if you have something that you haven't used in over two years, then it is time to get rid of it...unless it has sentimental value.

So, are you a pack rat? Do you hate to throw anything away?

How did I miss this thread?!?!?!

NOOOOOO! I am not a pack rat! Hate the pack rat way of life. Probably because I come from a whole herd of pack rats and can't stand the "stuff" everywhere.

A few years ago, my mom was moving out of her condo into a house. She'd packed for a couple weeks and still hadn't got everything. The movers had even come and removed all the furniture and boxes. I had to fly down from Michigan to help her finish. It was unbelievable. I started throwing stuff away (silly stuff...nothing of major importance) with the motto of "When in doubt, throw it out!" After we got done, we had to rent a U-Haul to get the rest of the stuff to the house. Never mind the 10x10 storage bin she and my brother shared.

Anyway, I have historically moved pretty frequently, so I carry a relatively light load. I like to have my "stuff", but am not keen on lots of knick-knacks and things everywhere. My garage contains the essentials (though I have a pile of plywood that I can't decide what to do with) and my home is decorated in a simple manner.

I also go through my closet every 6 months and weed out anything that hasn't been worn in a couple years (unless it's a formal dress) or that I've finally decided will never fit again.

Now that I think about it, my cats & my dishes are the only things in my home that I've had more than 7 years.

I am kinda if its something that could be used to make a repair on something or fix somethign thats broke I keep it. I have done alot I mean alot of repairs on my things others things and stuff aroudn the house without buying a bolt, screw, nail. I have bunches of nails. Stuff like that I keep even little bitty scraps of wood may be used to fill a gap or something, when money is tight you get pretty resourceful on things you have around the house to make a repair on something. Though I do need to do my useaul once a month look around and chunk some stuff that needs to go. But all in all I can say I am a pack rat, I hate to see something trashed if it can be used for anything.