{"id":1154,"date":"2007-06-04T07:00:12","date_gmt":"2007-06-04T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/2007\/06\/04\/clutters-last-stand-the-cost-of-buying-things-you-will-not-use\/"},"modified":"2018-11-01T13:33:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T20:33:25","slug":"clutters-last-stand-the-cost-of-buying-things-you-will-not-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/clutters-last-stand-the-cost-of-buying-things-you-will-not-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Clutter&#8217;s Last Stand: The Cost of Buying Things You Will Not Use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the 1990s, I used credit cards to fund my every whim. I bought books and games and computers and gadgets. Now, ten years later, I&#8217;m still carrying a lot of that debt in the form of a home equity loan (into which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1593373295\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/clutterslaststand.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"130\" height=\"190\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"3\" \/><\/a>I rolled all my credit cards several years ago). I also still have a lot of the crap I bought.<\/p>\n<p>I have a plan for getting rid of the debt by next spring, but until recently I had no intention of getting rid of the things I had bought with the money. Instead, I let them take up space in the garage, in the workshop, in the basement. Physical reminders of my foolish purchases were all around me. The clutter was as much a mental burden as the debt!<\/p>\n<p>Then a reader recommended <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1593373295\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Clutter&#8217;s Last Stand: It&#8217;s Time to De-Junk Your Life<\/i><\/a>. Author Don Aslett is a cleaning zealot \u2014 reading this book opened my eyes. In a chapter called &#8220;The Economy of Clutter&#8221;, Aslett lists the costs of clutter:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Clutter makes every job take longer<\/li>\n<li>Clutter makes cleaning take longer<\/li>\n<li>The value is in the <i>using<\/i>, not the owning<\/li>\n<li>Storing clutter costs you<\/li>\n<li>Guarding clutter costs you<\/li>\n<li>Moving clutter costs you<\/li>\n<li>Even <i>owning<\/i> clutter costs you<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;No matter how you look at it,&#8221; writes Aslett, &#8220;clutter is a poor investment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kris and I spent Saturday sorting through my poor investment. Our community garage sale is this weekend, so this seemed like a good time to get rid of some of the junk that has been cluttering up our lives. It took a <i>l-o-n-g<\/i> time. We have way too much stuff.<\/p>\n<p>We sorted through dozens of boxes, purging junk. We saved the best items to sell, <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"This is what I saw as I put all the junk in the trash can\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/iStock_moneybasket.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"140\" height=\"213\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"3\" \/>but many things went directly into the trash. Every time I pitched something, I winced. These things are physical representations of my debt. I felt like I was literally throwing my money away. It especially hurt because I&#8217;m still paying interest on this stuff!<\/p>\n<p>When I tossed my electronic chess game (missing two rooks and the instructions), I recalled buying it for $79 at Radio Shack in 1995. I spent over $500 on computer programming manuals around the same time, manuals that haven&#8217;t been opened since I bought them. This morning they&#8217;re sitting at the curb in the recycling bin. I couldn&#8217;t bring myself to throw away the box full of computer games I acquired (but hardly played) over the past fifteen years, but as I write this entry, I know that when I get home today they&#8217;re all going in the trash. Is there really any reason to hold onto a copy of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Duke_Nukem_3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Duke Nukem<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve written before that you should not buy things you cannot afford. Here&#8217;s another tip: <b>Don&#8217;t buy things for which you have no use.<\/b> Don&#8217;t buy things you do not need or want. This is common sense, I know. But for a decade, I bought anything that sounded bright, shiny, and new. I&#8217;m not the only one. Aslett writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There are people who all their lives dream [&#8230;] whatever they want above all, and as their live nears its end, they finally accumulate the cash to have the big dream come true. Even if they can&#8217;t use it much, they go buy it \u2014 thinking that the having is the ultimate. But it all comes to little because they can&#8217;t smell and feel and share the glory of daily use. The value is in the using and building and growing, not simply the having.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><b>The value is in the using, not in the having.<\/b> It has taken me 38 years to realize this!<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, I&#8217;m not the same person I was five or ten years ago. I still buy dumb things now-and-then, but mostly I&#8217;ve learned to control myself. I bring less junk into my life. What has changed?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;ve learned to ask myself, &#8220;Will I use this?&#8221; If I&#8217;m at a bookstore and feel the urge to buy something I ask myself, &#8220;Will I read this?&#8221; It&#8217;s shocking how often the answer is &#8220;no&#8221;. When it is, I put the book back on the shelf.<\/li>\n<li>I used to buy things on impulse, not because I wanted them. I simply had the urge to spend. Now if I really want something, I generally force myself to wait using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/control-impulse-spending-with-the-30-day-rule\/\">the 30-day rule<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve also begun to purchase <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/buy-it-for-life\/\">quality items<\/a>. So much of what we threw away Saturday was cheap and shoddy. It&#8217;s worthless. Now, for example, if I decide I want a messenger bag, I save until I can afford one that is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.filson.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">high quality<\/a>. By taking the time to save, I often decide I don&#8217;t want the thing after all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Though it hurts to think of how much money I threw away over the weekend, it&#8217;s a relief to get rid of this junk. The debt I incurred to buy it is a mental burden, but so was having this stuff in the garage. It feels great to be clearing out this space. It&#8217;ll feel even better next spring when I&#8217;ve finally paid off my home equity loan!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the 1990s, I used credit cards to fund my every whim. I bought books and games and computers and gadgets. Now, ten years later, I&#8217;m still carrying a lot of that debt in the form of a home equity loan (into which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1593373295\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/clutterslaststand.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"130\" height=\"190\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"3\" \/><\/a>I rolled all my credit cards several years ago). I also still have a lot of the crap I bought.<\/p>\n<p>I have a plan for getting rid of the debt by next spring, but until recently I had no intention of getting rid of the things I had bought with the money. Instead, I let them take up space in the garage, in the workshop, in the basement. Physical reminders of my foolish purchases were all around me. The clutter was as much a mental burden as the debt!<\/p>\n<p>Then a reader recommended <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1593373295\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow\"><i>Clutter&#8217;s Last Stand: It&#8217;s Time to De-Junk Your Life<\/i><\/a>. Author Don Aslett is a cleaning zealot \u2014 reading this book opened my eyes. In a chapter called &#8220;The Economy of Clutter&#8221;, Aslett lists the costs of clutter:<\/\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31921],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}