Stuff is Cheap! Living with it Can Be Costly

The holidays have ended, and all the gifts should be out of their packages and being utilized. Those who are really efficient have gotten rid of old belongings to make room for the new, therefore reducing the clutter in their home.

With the recession, it has been a difficult year for many families. I expect people were able to control spending, and avoid the Mass Media's persuasions to spend all their money on gift giving. Opening credit card and bank statements after the holidays can be frightening. They lurk in the dark shadow of the bill pile, appearing like a venomous snake. Unfortunately it is not rational to take giant steps away from them and run and tell a grown up.
I think I managed to stick to my budget a little better than previous years. I even considered wrapping up my ten year old son's gifts from last year, and regifting them to him. He probably would not have known the difference... Instead, I decided to purchase less.

So now I am looking around at our new things. The glow in the dark basketball sits on the shelf untouched. It has been raining... The Dagobah Frog Habitat sits empty. But we are still waiting for our mail order polliwog, which our son has already named 'Luke', to arrive. I still have not found enough room on the kitchen table to play safely with the 'build your own volcano' kit.

I tested everything else for functionality. Sometimes when electronics and appliances arrive at my house, they seem to lose their will to operate. I made sure all the parts are there and they work the way the instruction manual describes. It's not always the way they made it look on the TV... but okay...

My family has a lot of stuff. When our son was born, I bought the various baby products. It seemed important to have them. I wanted him to have all the equipment a baby should have. That is what a good parent would do right? The baby time went by really fast. He did not need a lot of those objects. It really is not necessary for five different types of Exer Saucers to roll around a living room like some insane solar system. Mankind has managed to walk for thousands of years without the aid of all these various baby training tools. So after filling our home with baby paraphernalia, our son chose his favorite toys, a pencil holder, a spatula, and a cloth light up eyeball keyring. In all actuality the personal interactions with my baby was what mattered. Although I have to admit, the soft chewable books and the baby swing really did come in handy. I didn't keep the baby gear, but there was more to come...

The unnecessary baby toys, should have given me a clue about the toddler and preschool years. But when I saw how happy he was playing with another child's toy set, I ventured off to get him the same set, so he could play this way at home. I soon observed that toys are often more interesting when they are at other children's houses. Then I thought, "Well maybe that set wasn't right for him", and continued to invest in sets. Some he used and some he did not. In all honesty, I may have been the one that wanted to play with the toys.

Financially, it is a good thing I enjoy going to garage sales. I believe I am very good at bargain shopping. Unfortunately bargains are similar to diet foods. They are at least half off so I get twice as much.

My family has moved around a bit. We recently opened our out of state storage unit. I compared it to exposing a tomb and unveiling a sarcophagus. It was somewhat horrifying to see the piles and piles of mysterious junk. It had been years. I could not remember what was in there. I discovered an entire storage box of Jello packages. This would have been great if I were a person with a fantasy of bathing in Jello. Although that would have been preferable to dealing with the storage unit, I discarded that box immediately. We have been paying over a hundred dollars a month to store Jello...

Unfortunately Jello was not all I found... Among the 'treasures', I found several large boxes of kid's meal toys. If you are what you eat, my son would be a french fry. Did we feed him that much fast food? I threw most of those out. I admit I kept a few of them, because with minor modifications they make great Christmas tree ornaments. It took days and all my husband's vacation time to sort through the storage. It was cold so I wore my scarf and hat. I also wore them to avoid the sight of my husband give me the hairy eyeball.

I get that same look when we watch the movie Labyrinth and the Junk Lady is showing Sarah, played by Jennifer Connelly, all her toys. Sarah realizes its all junk... "Oh, what have we got here? Your little bunny rabbit! You like your little bunny rabbit. Don't you? Yes, yes, yes! There ya go. Oh, and there's Betsy Boo. You remember Betsy Boo? Yes, yes, yes! What's this? Let's have a look. Oh, it's a pencil box. Got lots of pencils in it too! Here's your panda slippers. You know how much you like your panda slippers! You never wanted them thrown away, did you? Now, then, what else? Oh, it's little horsy. You love little horsy, don't you dear? And look at this! You got a printing game. Here's a treasure. You'll want that, won't you dear? Put it on. Make yourself up. And here's dear old Flopsie. You'll want her. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Charlie Bear. There's Charlie Bear for you, hmm?" (Henson, Jim, Labyrinth. Video Henson Associates, 1986.)

I actually discovered a pencil box, panda slippers, a toy horsy and printing games inside our storage unit. However, I am adamant the stuff wasn't entirely all mine...

We packed an entire truck bed full of garbage and hauled it off to the dump. We drove the largest trailer we could rent, full of donations, to the thrift store. Prior to packing everything into storage, my bargain shopping had included taking advantage of the 'It all must go' sale at the local Toys R Us. Our son had by now outgrew all these unused toys. He rolled his eyes at me as I got all teary eyed giving away his once cherished Woody, Buzz Light Year and his friends.

As we left the thrift store, I waved goodbye to what could have potentially been our relaxing family vacation fund. I hope someone shopping at the thrift stores will be happy to find so many toys new in their packages. I guiltily gave some belongings away to friends. Now they are stuck with the burden of having it. I also felt guilt for being a consumer of all that plastic and waste. We finally managed to reduce our ten by fifteen storage unit down to a five by five unit and a trailer packed full of objects.

My bargains will now cost less than a thousand dollars a year to store. We drove the trailer, full of what I easily convinced myself were prized possessions, hundreds of miles, to our current home. The moving of boxes took it's toll, so we can add finding a good chiropractor to the list of expenses. Now my husband can barely turn to look at me to give the hairy eyeball. I also need to figure out where to put everything in our already cluttered home. I know we are fortunate to have things, but in retrospect resources were used poorly. I hope to make better choices in the future. Maybe I will see you at my garage sale!