Frugal, or hoarding?

There is a fine line that appears to reside between being frugal and being a hoarder. My recent exercise in selling things I no longer want or need on eBay was an exercise in defining exactly where that line exists. This week, I discuss as I reflect on my experience.

What Value?

I'd like to start by stating that, while my home has never looked like those on the television show "Hoarders," a room or two in my basement may have approached this level of disarray. Through this, I can understand how a person can get to the point of filling their house; I saw first hand how easily I could fill a room beyond a reasonable capacity. If I didn't exercise discipline in restricting my "Collection" to the basement, I might very well be the next subject on a show on hoarding. Was this a by-product of being frugal? As I pondered this notion, I came up with four reasons that I could account for my hanging on to stuff I no longer need or use: 1) It's something that has sentimental value, 2) It's something I believe I may have use for in the future, 3) I feel guilty about contributing to our landfill problems, or 4) It's something I believe has inherent value that makes it worth hanging on to. Now I'll visit each of these categories to fully explore them in my life, and share my thoughts on them.

Sentimental Value

I'm a sentimental guy. For example, I still have my Pentax K1000 film SLR camera, not only because it was my first good camera, but also because it was once owned by my aunt who has passed away, was a Christmas gift from my parents, introduced me to the world of SLR photography, and was used for taking the first pictures of my son when he was born. It doesn't matter that this camera now has light leaks, nor that I've long since moved on to digital photography. I'll probably never take another photograph with it again. It's the same with many things I've accumulated in my life. Any guest in my house can point to any particular object, and I'll tell them the story behind it. Even the things I buy today have some kind of meaning that relates to something I've learned from my past, and become woven into the fabric of my possessions.

This personal investment I make into the things I own accounts a large deal for the things I've accumulated. They become a part in my life, either big or small, and then become part of my living memory. It becomes all too easy to build memories around these objects; as I hold them, I feel as though I'm transporting myself back in time, reliving a moment; perhaps to relive things a little differently. To consider the possible outcomes in my life. As I hold my K1000, I wonder, what if I devoted my life to the art of photography? I imagine myself as a photojournalist, or perhaps in my studio creating dreams for people. I would be an artist extraordinaire, immersed in a world of creativity and living amongst the revolutionaries of my time.

As these words flowed from my fingers, I have come to terms as to the reasons why I didn't choose that path. I had other goals that were in conflict with the "Starving Artist" lifestyle necessary for greatness, and the desire for me to pursue those paths was greater than my desire to become a great photographer. Therefore, the entire exercise is futile and pointless. I've made different choices in my life, and those choices have been good ones for the person I was at those times in my life. This isn't to say that I can never become a great photographer, but my potential to make that dream a reality will never happen as long as I continue to revisit the past. Only by looking into the future unencumbered by such thoughts can I evolve my lifestyle into the kind of life I want to live.

Having clutter from the past in my life is what really holds me back from the greatness I aspire to become. The memories I have of my aunt, of my son as a baby, and of Christmas mornings can be revisited in photographs, now converted to digital jpegs, which doesn't take up any room. After all, there's no harm in the occasional nostalgic trip to the past; it just can't be allowed to dominate my life. The stuff has to go.

Future Use

I've held on to a lot of stuff because I believed I might have use for it in the future. For example, whenever I bought a new winter jacket, I hung on to the old one with the belief that, should the new jacket get lost, stained, damaged or torn, I would still have my old winter jacket to wear. The problem with this thinking was that I tended to accumulate jackets. In my clutter room in the basement as well as in my workshop, there are plenty of items I have "Just in case" I need them. I would think I'd feel foolish if I got rid of something, and then discovered that I actually needed it a week or a month later.

The problem with this logic is that I cannot possibly anticipate what I might need in the future, and so I hang on to everything that I think I might use one day. Over time, old tubes of glue get hard, and things get buried, lost, and forgotten. In my search for something, I came to the realization that the time I was spending in searching for the item was not worth the few dollars it might have cost to buy at the store. That's when I realized that every time I saved extra screws and material from products I buy, I'm adding to a pile that becomes increasingly difficult to search. At a certain point, I'm further ahead tossing the spare items out, keeping only those that have very common uses, such as wall anchors, #8 wood screws, and washers, and only to the point where they accumulate to a handful. The extra Allen keys I get with particle board furniture can go straight to the trash, and I really don't need to hang onto any extra winter jackets. 

Landfill Guilt

When I was a child in the public school system, I was inundated with films and videos about the landfill crisis of western culture. Mountains of trash, as far as the eye could see, painted a bleak and distressing picture. I was convinced that throwing out something as useless as a broken audio cassette would hurtle my world to that envisioned in the movie Wall-e. In fact, I'm absolutely certain this campaign of the 70's and 80's has contributed to a growing culture of hoarding today. 

I don't deny that there is a problem with garbage in western culture, and the problem becomes apparent as soon as we stop throwing things away: It doesn't take very long before a house can become a landfill. Thing is, I don't want to live in a landfill, but I exist in a consumerist culture. I have these things and they have accumulated.

I now make conscious choices to reduce the garbage I personally generate. I use reusable shopping bags instead of plastic bags. I buy music and watch videos online rather than purchasing physical media. I keep the pictures I take in digital format as much as I can, and display them in a digital picture frame. That said, things will still become broken or worn out, and something needs to be done with them. Old electronics need to go to an electronic recycling centre, some things that contain metals like aluminium and copper can go to a metal recycling centre, and old batteries can go to a battery disposal bin, but ultimately there are some things that really do need to go to a landfill. I have to break myself of this guilt, put garbage in the trash, and use this as a lesson to guide my purchasing habits in the future.

Inherent Value

Now we arrive at the biggest issue: The belief that things have an inherent value. Moving beyond the sentimental value, future use potential, and having eliminated garbage, I'm left with the notion that the item may still hold monetary value. Being frugal, I might feel as though I'm throwing away money getting rid of some of these things that I no longer want or need. I kept saying to myself, "I can put it up on eBay or Kijiji and get some money for this item." 

EBay has an interesting feature in that a person can search completed listings of a particular item or type of item to see what it has sold for. It makes it easy to determine if something has value or not. I decided to set a lower limit on the items I would sell. Anything worth less than $10 would be donated to Goodwill. I soon discovered that a lot of things I was holding onto fell into this category.

I realized that much of the stuff that I believed had value but no longer had a use for was stuff that was either given to me by someone, or stuff that I had bought from a thrift store. In other words, this was once somebody's stuff that they wanted to get rid of. They didn't throw it out because it still had value. That was why they donated it or gave it away instead of throwing it in the trash. They weren't stupid; on the contrary, they were smart to get this stuff out of their homes and lives.

It doesn't do me any good to hold on to this stuff. Eventually, the backpacks get mouldy, the jackets get musty, and stuff that may have been useful slowly deteriorates into garbage. It's wasteful. I decided that, if it's any good at all, I'm either going to use it or donate it, just like other people have done. After all, if it can be useful to someone less fortunate than I, I'm contributing to a better society. I get rid of clutter, someone less fortunate gets something they could really use. Unless it has a lot of value, then I'll sell it.

My eBay experience has demonstrated that perhaps even $10 is too little of a lower limit. It takes time to photograph the item, package it properly, weigh it, measure it, and create a listing. There is expense in getting appropriate packaging materials. There is also the time and expense in delivering the package to the post office, if the item sells. For the sakes of argument, consider the minimum wage in Ontario is currently at $10.25. If I can get the time I spend on each item down to an average of an hour, including the time to purchase packing materials, create the listing, pack the item, measure it, weigh it, and ship it, if I account for the cost of that packaging plus eBay and PayPal fees, I'll be making significantly less than minimum wage on something I sell for $10. 

The truth of the matter is, I'd be further ahead doing side jobs on a Sunday afternoon than I would listing things on eBay. It's a better use of my time and I can earn more money.

Conclusion

Being frugal doesn't have to mean becoming a hoarder; in fact, the true nature of being frugal is the opposite of hoarding. Incorporating frugality in my life has meant applying frugality not only to matters of finance, but also to my living space and time. Needing to deal with clutter has taken me away from the things I want to do, including writing this blog. At this point in my life, I can honestly say I have finally moved beyond my attachment to things. I've spent the past two weeks carting boxes of stuff to either Goodwill or to the local waste transfer station. By eliminating this stuff, I can look forward to a future of continually evolving into the person I want to be.