Why Do Americans Have So Much Stuff?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- It's a question I've been asked often: do Americans own too much stuff? Here's what I think.
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My mother always said the more room you have the more stuff you collect.
Your mother is so correct. Every time I have moved to a bigger place, I end up just doubling the amount of stuff I have.
Mom is always right! ❤
She was right!! Lol
That's exactly why I turned down a 2 bedroom apt. and took a 1 room. I'll just fill it with cr@p I don't need any way.
I find myself desperately fighting this trend so I can have less stuff and more space. I have a Tiny apartment tho.
I lived with a hoarder once. It was terrifying. I worried every night that some fire would start and the mix of her oxygen and piles of junk would cause a fast burning fire that would kill the whole house. I appreciate my mom's rule of getting rid of anything one hadn't used in a year so much more after that.
I finally bought a home with a garage 6 years ago. I’ll never understand filling it with stuff. I love finally having a garage and not having to clear the snow off of my car!
OR the bird droppings!😇
I agree. We got some great racks that hang from the ceiling in our garage which allows us to store our vehicles and our seasonal items. Wow. I'm in the garage looking around smoking cannabis and admiring my wife's sheer ability to organize. I wish I was more like her...
My garage is full of 4 kids worth of stuff now that they are grown. all packaged and waiting for them to decide what they want to do with it. they have until this fall to get it or it goes bye bye.
My wife and I live in a large, middle class, subdivision (Housing Estate I believe in Brit-Speak) in Florida. All houses here have two-car garages. We are the only family we have ever seen in this neighborhood, who can park at least one car in the garage.
Seriously! Not having to scrape snow off my car every time I drive it during the looonnnggg Midwestern winter is worth far more than simple storage space for more junk!
I am a Certified Legal Assistant in The USA; I work mostly in Probate. I hear these stories all of the time. The solution? Let family quickly go through and take what they want. Then set up an estate auction, and it usually will be gone in one day. This works very well.
If you own a home, possessions accumulate over the years. And for some the accumulation is generational.
Truth. Especially if the previous generation NEVER threw anything away. When I moved into my first house my father gave me every broken tool or piece of furniture that he refused to get rid of because it was "still good" (despite him NEVER using them because they were broken). It was basically "Here, you throw this out."
I have several boxes of my grandmother's dolls. I'm a middle-aged man. I couldn't care less about dolls. I'd throw them in the trash except I'm afraid they might be worth something. Those stupid things cluttered up my parents' garage for 20 years and now they're cluttering mine.
I used to get browbeat by my mom for throwing out anything remotely useful. She also loved to buy things after being poor for a good chunk of her life, which she would hide everywhere.
I felt like such a bad child for getting rid of her collection after she passed. A lot of her stuff was part of the family, in a sense, and it was burying her all over again breaking the collection up. I wish I could afford a dumpster right now and have a huge purge.
I moved from the UK to the US with two suitcases, one for clothes and one for books. Then a decade later I moved to Canada with the same payload, and 5 years later came back to the US from Canada with the same two suitcases plus one wife. It kind of breaks my heart to throw/give away the junk, but at the same time it does declutter and it makes Amazon wonderfully happy.
As a collector of things I am outraged and deeply embarrassed. Two lava lamps sit before me right now.
WHAT??? NO old school LITE Brites?!?!?!?!?
If the lava lamps spark joy, don't let a cantankerous Brit make you feel bad for having them!
Enjoy your lava laps, just because some people want to sit in an empty box all day doesn't mean you can't enjoy a little light 🛋️
My sister has leftover candy wrappers from 1999 if that makes you feel any better.
Make an 8 hour lava lamp TH-cam video please. ❤
I grew up in the midwest and my family had a 2 car garage, but at any given time only 1 side was useable. In the summer it housed the lawn mower, and in the winter the lawn mower was swapped with the snow blower.
Now I live in Virginia, I have a 3 story townhouse with a 1 car garage, driveway, and 1 assigned parking spot. Currently the garage is filled with things. We don't have anywhere we can store things such as our Christmas tree, Halloween decorations, the LARGE trash cans and recycling bins, a chest freezer because we have to horde a supply of food now with all the random shortages... it's a lot. If I had to fit a car in the garage i'd be able to do it with a full day of shuffling things around and some extreme Tetris. The stuff filling happens gradually. It also tends to happens to those of us who make less money. You hold onto things because of the investment of purchase. You think 'oh but what if that one other thing breaks, this will be nice to have". Like my window air conditioner. Do I need it now? No. But if during the insane heat waves we get here in the USA, if my air con unit cant keep up I will drag that heavy thing up those 2 flights of stairs to make sure our bedrooms are livable during the summer. We've also loaned it out to good friends when their air con died and they were waiting for parts.
You do what you can, because most of us don't make enough money to have much of a savings to quickly fix things. :)
Your last sentence at the end. That's a major issue that most 'throw it out people' don't have to contend with. It's tough to find a balance.
That last sentence is how I explain my hording; I grew up poor and have a hard time getting rid of stuff that works and might be useful one day unless I find someone who needs it more then me.
Luckily I found a craft supply recycling group neer me that takes my stuff I don't need or got/don't like. That's most of my hord.
Your last sentence is nailing it. I'm still hoarding, but mainly because I don't have the goddamn money to let go what I paid for unless I know for sure that someone else would find use with it instead of throwing it away...
Having a clean house also costs, money, remodeling costs money. Getting rid of things may seem like a loss, but it really is just a price to have something better in return, like more space, less clutter, and more calm and quality of life. That said, it's so American to hoard things instead of selling things or giving it away to those who might need them more. If you sell the A/C you might gain 50 bucks now, and invest it for when you actually need it. You don't even know but that A/C might not be efficient to run it, might cost you more in electricity, might not even work after such a long time, or might be incompatible with other things. So sell it if you can. Enjoy the space in your basement or garage. If you have too much space, rent it for profit or exchange it for a smaller place that has a smaller homeowners tax or upkeep cost. You get the idea. Living in Europe, we'd just sell things that we no longer need. So we wouldn't keep bikes with outgrew, we would just sell it to others who might enjoy it more. Same with unused ice skates, or rollerblades, or pontoons, or tents. There's really no reason to keep it. Even if you get $50 for something or $10, that's one less thing in the landfill, another person who can enjoy that thing, and you with a bit more money to invest in whatever else you want or need in life.
It's definitely a balance. I tend to keep more than my husband does. For me it's because I hate wasting things. I've had enough "reduce, reuse, recycle" environmentalist dogma drilled into me that I don't want to contribute to overfilled landfills or excessive consumption by buying something twice when I could have just reused the old one. For my husband, he's used to a military lifestyle of only taking what you need. He doesn't have a problem with dumping something because you don't need it now, and then re-aquiring it when you need it later. I think we have a good balance between us.
Hoarding is a big problem around where I live. My dad is a recently retired firefighter, and he's told me stories of how people died/nearly died/suffered harsh injury because a fire caught amongst all the trash, and either they couldn't escape or firefighters couldn't reach them in time wading through trash. I've been with him on scene a few places like this, and wow. Please, people, just throw out your trash. Trust me you will never need those month old take out boxes again. If you can't, seek help.
They say a lot of that type of hoarding of actual trash is because of depression which basically immobilizes the person from even performing simple tasks like taking out the garbage
Yeah, there IS true garbage and that should go. Very few papers need saving, they can recycle. ditto jars and cans. Old take out boxes is just nasty. Cook your own food.
As a teen I loved going through some of the stuff my parents kept from their childhood and young adult years. I wore some of my mom's old clothes, read her old notes and letters, listened to my dad's music, and had great conversations with them about all of it. I am so grateful they kept some of that 'stuff' so they had a chance to share it with me. So I know I have stuff I'll never wear again, may rarely listen too, or won't use as decor. But I will keep it so I can share it with anyone who may be interested. Eventually everyone will be all grown and I can pitch what they don't want.
Memories matter.
Also i keep useful things and go thru it all once a year to remember, organize and get rid of. I really do use a lot of the stuff i hold onto.
@@seedsoflove7684 That's a good habit. I also used to keep a bunch of weird stuff when my kid was young because I made him toys and you never knew what odd bit of foam, button, tube, etc would come in handy. It took a bit to break myself of the habit once he was grown and I didn't make anything with the stuff anymore. Probably would have realized it earlier if I had a routine!
@@spinthepickle1244 yep, u never know when u have kids. For crafts. Also shelves and containers help me stay organized. So it doesnt SEEM like i am a hoarder. Haha.
@@seedsoflove7684 Gotta keep your stash subtle, lol. If you aren't apologizing for the clutter when you have guests, you are probably still in the clear (pun intended).
As a Southerner I feel like it's not just my stuff, but grandma's china and great-grandma's quilts.
Yeah, stuff that actually LASTS.
I'm definitely holding onto my grandma's washer & dryer, that have been running with only 1 minor repair, for over 40 years now.
Sometimes I can let go of that stuff by keeping a few representative items from the ancestor, to stand in for the rest I never look at, display, or use. I sell or give away online, feeling that I'm honoring grandma's intentions more by finding someone who will actually use her old linen tablecloth than by keeping it in a closet. (Did keep some linen napkins for nice dinners.)
@@GoAwayNow-iz3du I bought a 1956 GE stove and tossed the 200 glass top. It looks good in my 1920 house and will outlast the newer one i got rid of.
@@GoAwayNow-iz3du what china do you have that lasts? you leave that packed away except on holidays when one of the kids in the extended family inevitably drops it on the floor and shatters it to pieces
@@gristen good point. The china is on display now, but I won't feel bad if my sons don't want it.
"...There are those who will walk into Walmart, clear the shelves of all the beans, and Stock up for the Apocalypse!"😂😂😂😂😂 That is classic Lawrence!
We have a two car garage. It's home for the washer, dryer, various tools ; garden, power, hand; a cabinet with gardening items; pots, pots, and more pots; a bench press, snow thrower, tractor, and shelving full of various drum heads; my partner is a musician. Oh, it is also home to a pair of Robins nesting in the rafters. 😊
At one time I had five pairs of pants that I kept just in case I wanted to wash the car. I NEVER washed it myself, I always took it to the car wash. I also lived in a one bedroom apartment with four good size closets filled with stuff that "May come in handy one day." It never did.
I am downsizing to move to a smaller place. I found that I had so many duplicate items. I think a lot of it stems from having a long period where I barely had any money. When I replaced or upgraded something, I kept the old one just in case the new one broke or gets stolen. Then, I wouldn't be without that item. Having doubles has actually helped, but it means I have a bunch of stuff I don't need.
After WWII, America got into a huge buying spree. Those of us with older parents have been dealing with cleaning out their houses once they pass or move into a smaller house. My parents had to build a pole building on my siblings land to house all their crap.
My brother has a two-car garage which is so full of stuff it has never seen a car. He eventually built a barn to put even more stuff in while the cars remain in the driveway. Meanwhile, my one-car garage actually has a car in it.
Sounds like your brother has hoarding disorder.
"I could watch you read the phone book " 😂😅
Your lovely wife, maybe.
Ours is actually a 1.5 car garage according to the city, since when the previous owner converted it from detached to attached they stole part of the garage to make an entry way into the house. And yet we keep 2 cars in it because (a) we don't like our cars being broken into or tires slashed, and (b) in the winter we don't have to remove accumulated snow and ice off them.
Yessss! As an American, I can say that yes, we do have too much stuff. I need a bigger house so bad!😩
Remember: The clutter expands to fill the available space.
then you would fill it up and need a bigger house
You don't need a bigger house. You just ... need to better utilize the space you have? A bigger house would just mean you'd have even more stuff you can't figure out what to do with.
No, you don't. You just need less stuff.
A bigger house isn't the answer, you either need to reduce stuff or get better storage solutions (or both).
Growing up the garage was always my dad's workshop. As an adult we used to run a PC repair business out of ours, when we stopped that we converted the space into a dan for all our gaming PCS (4 people 4 PCs) and a TV. I see no point in parking a car in the garage at this point.
I’m a Brit living in the States now. My friends have moved to bigger homes to accommodate their stuff. We’ve added four kids to our family over the past six years (and acquired a lot more stuff) but it’s almost a daily battle to reduce the stuff we have vs moving. They outgrow clothes, toys etc and I pass them on on my local buy nothing group. I just had my last baby in December and I gave away all my maternity clothes. We gave a bunch of furniture pieces and cookware to a local community housing project. There are some brilliant charities that want household things and come pick them up. Less stuff means the house is easier to keep picked up and clean. Less visual clutter = less mental clutter for me so I work hard to keep our inventory as low as possible. I like what you said about having as little stuff as possible to live comfortably. That’s what we aim for.
My parents were born into the Great Depression. They never got rid of anything. When I cleaned out their basement in 2008 (after they were dead), I found their income tax forms dating back to 1946. I also found a picture of my mom from the 1960's. Later the same day, I found the dress she was wearing in the picture. It took three visits from 800-got-junk and 19 visits in our cars between my sister and me to Goodwill to clear out what we didn't need or want. I filled a large trash bag with photos of random scenery, the backs of people's heads, and people I had no idea who they were. It was a nightmare. When that was over, I began ridding myself of my own clutter and it feels great. I confess that I hung on to my Beatles cards from the 60's 😊.
This sounds like my parents’ house that I just cleared out for renovations. Every checkbook and tax return from the last 45 years had been saved, every receipt and packing slip too. Throw in 20 years of cats that peed and pooped and shed on everything too!
Add to that a 3rd generation, no probates and you have the legal and logistical mess I’ve been doing myself (in multiple locations) for the past year plus. It’s impossible to describe the overwhelming sense of frustration and exhaustion. I feel your pain! Worst part is how much I miss my mom still.
I feel for you. Over the last year or so my kids and I have been clearing out my mother's five bedroom house built in 1886, plus the barn/garage complete with hayloft. She had to move into assisted living and left everything to us. Receipts and Christmas cards going back 40 years, freebies from charities she donated to (how many wall calendars does one need?), thousands of books and vhs tapes, stuff still in boxes from her previous house...ad infinitum. We rented the biggest "industrial sized" trash skip and filled it to the brim. The Goodwill people got so they recognized us because we made so many donation trips there.
AND a day AFTER getting rid of all of it you found out all were priceless antiques!!! When I pass I intend to make it a treasure hunt for the relatives by having gold coins, silver dollars and small, expensive collectables mixed in with the old tax forms and the like!
@@YouthfulOne Yes, I could have included possessions they had from my grandparents and things they had saved from our childhood. And there was no will. It was fortunate that my sister and I get along so well. We went through so many things saying "do you want this?" "no, do you?" "no, it can go to Goodwill". We didn't fight over any of it. Sadly, my sister is going through the same thing now with her in-laws possessions and her MIL was a shopaholic. Seriously, who needs 15 - 20 sets of dishes?
Hang in there. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
We have a 2 car garage that has shelves of jars and canning supplies, shelves of rarely used appliances, shelves of fabric and sewing supplies, shelves of beading supplies, shelves of holiday decorations, two freezers, one refrigerator, and a handful of large power tools and tool boxes. Oh, and a smattering of yarn and other craft supplies.
I enjoy hearing the different pronunciation of that side enclosure for your vehicle. I say "grodge," while folks in Britain say "garridge."
Your wit and comedic style resonate with me. I could listen to you all day. Which is mildy frightening. I need to get out more.
We're working on paring down 30+ years' worth of stuff before our first long distance move in 30 years. 😅 It's astounding how much stuff that can entail, and how much easier it is for a big move than for a short distance one. 😮
You do make me laugh, Lawrence. Love your sense of humour.
As a fellow Brit, I must remind you that hoarding is a problem here in the UK as well. It's usually triggered by traumatic events and as we see on TV programmes, it has a serious negative effect on mental health.
I turned my “garruge” into an art studio. If you count all the bits and bobs and beads and brushes, there are probably 300,000 items in there alone!❤️🤗🐝
Our garage is our workout & martial arts room.
Also the first 3 months of the year, it’s a Girl Scout Cookie storage area for our troop!
This is always a struggle for me. I hate to get rid of things that might be useful, and I really hate having to buy something twice because I got rid of something I thought I wasn’t going to use and then ended up needing it anyway! But I also dislike clutter or feeling crowded. Some of the reason why I hang on to things has to do with being raised by parents who grew up during the Depression. If you managed to buy something, you kept it whether or not you used it just in case you or your children (or grandchildren) needed it someday. As far as garages are concerned, one of the places I lived I noticed that a LOT of our neighbors were using their two-car garages as spaces to entertain friends with a pool table, large screen TV, a fridge for drinks and snacks, and outdoor furniture. On nice days the garage doors would be open and neighbors could wander in and out of each others’ garages to chat or there’d be parties and friends would spill out of the garage onto the driveway and yard and sometimes into the street. At Thanksgiving there’d be people sitting around talking, drinking, and usually there’d be a huge pot on a burner for deep fat frying the turkey. Using the garage in that way sort felt similar to people sitting out on porches and visiting with friends or saying hello to neighbors as they walked by.
Guilty on the garage thing. The cars only go in if I'm working on them (e.g. rarely). Nope, half is a woodworking shop, the other half is some storage, where we keep our freezer, and more woodworking shop lol.
We've been slowly downsizing for about 3 years, so stuff from other rooms migrates to the garage prior to going to Goodwill, the dump or sold. I'm also remodeling, so the garage is swing space for that as well. Nope, not a car in the garage in years.
Magnolia blossoms and moving chores. Ah, spring.
My Garage has been turned into a hobby woodshop. The garage is only a one car but it is very long.
So, I’m an American, who over the past 10 years has lived in a spaces that at largest were 600 square feet. At smallest, about 120 square feet. When I was in the smallest space, i was just renting a room in attempts to save for a house, and I rented a storage unit for all my stuff that didn’t fit. That storage unit was a mistake because it gave me room for extra stuff.
I’ve bought myself a home in the past year. It’s 1700 square feet, and somehow I’ve filled it up. There’s lots of stuff, but I have trouble getting rid of it because I do have the space. I’m not a hoarder by any means. But I’ve lived in so much smaller spaces, and had all I needed to live there, that I often question why I am keeping these extra things. But it’s also like “okay, but if you do have the space to store it, why get rid of it?”
And I think that’s the American dilemma. We know there’s stuff we don’t need, but we have big houses. So why get rid of stuff we have space for?
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
We have a two-car garage, but we don't use it to fit two cars in. We do keep it clean enough that we can put one vehicle in it, especially in the winter. The other side has my stationary bike and a TV to watch while I bike. A couple arcade machines, my motorcycle, old kids stuff, bikes, and holiday decorations.
I split the difference, as I have one big door for the garage. On either side is either party supplies, brewing equipment, holiday decorations, and camping/sports equipment. I also have a shed/workshop where my heavier tools and home repair supplies are kept. In the middle is where my singular car goes.
Because we've been told our entire lives, from birth to death, by a constant stream of advertising on every radio and television and computer and phone and tablet screen we've ever seen, that stuff brings happiness. Therefore more stuff is more happiness.
Those are people who never learned the word "no" or learned how to critically think.
I built shelves in my garage so that we could store more stuff in it… Craft/art supplies, freezers, out of season clothes, sports equipment, small kitchen appliances, books, tools, memorabilia etc etc etc
Don't forget saving clothes in multiple sizes because we just know we will get into that XXX again. Several people have also commented on passing of family which leads to taking on stuff to pick out the treasured memories. Another reason to consider are people who live in flux. The part of the country where I live has a large transient population due to the local industry (Oil & Gas), meaning people move here for 2 - 3 years for a job and then leave.
I have a two car garage. We sold our second car during covid and now that half is a home gym.
My two car garage is a place for my lawn equipment / lawn care items (riding lawn mower, tools, grass seed, etc.), a work shop for all the home projects, and a storage place for everything from outdoor recreation equipment to extra refrigerators/freezers. I think it's time to build a dedicated workshop so we can park our vehicles in the garage 😅.
I have WAY too much stuff, and I am not an American. I am literally avoiding unboxing, shelving and making more shelves, by watching you.
Cleaning out grandmothers house we were going through her photos. She very carefully wrote on the back: names, location, date etc. we did have to laugh at one. On the back it said “the whole group of us, a week ago Wednesday”!
I love getting rid of stuff. My husband and I only keep what we actually need and use. Other than things like movies or books and a select few knickknacks, we dont have much hanging around. We are constantly making donate piles for clothes. If you buy a new shirt then get rid of an old one. I'm always offering my assistance to friends and family to purge and organize their houses.
My roommate is a hoarder--a very serious one. We share a small apartment. For six years I kept on urging her to get rid of much of the stuff. Finally my landlord made her put much of it in storage before he would renew the lease. I was so happy and she was so sad!
My Dad worked with an older man that had a strange compulsion to buy 2 or 3 of every item. He filled a 3 car garage and 2 large shed with shtuff. When he passed away, his wife sold everything that was stored/hoarded. 3 air compressors, 2 drill presses, 3 table saws (different sizes), complete sets of expensive cookware, linens, etc... The man had a whole woodworking shop but never died any woodworking. Same with welding equipment. I wish my Dad had told me about the sale as it would have been great to pick up such great deals on stuff I ended up buying for myself.
Our one and a half car garage has been pressed into permanent woodshop duty, but it has helped tremendously with the remodel of our house. Cars can get wet, table saws cannot. And since it's not attached to the house, we'd probably not park in the garage and then haul groceries from that far away - we'd park where the cars are now. And in the winter it means we only have to shovel half the length of the driveway.
Recently, some neighbors moved away and in the weeks before they left, they put out a table in front of the house with a sign: "Free Stuff" and a bunch of free stuff. It all disappeared fairly quickly.
Meanwhile, my house is starting to look kind of "hoardy" after 25 years in it.
I put a number of boxes up in the rafters in the garage in Feb of 1990 when we moved and they’re still there.
I absolutely love breaking down boxes!🎉 Somehow it feels therapeutic to break down boxes.
My garage contains the washer and dryer, a tiny laundry line, a backup refrigerator, a work space for my husband's hobbies, my husband's power tools, Christmas and Halloween decorations, and stuff to maintain the yard. It does not contain my car.
We have a two car garage. One of the bays is used for a car, and the other is just stuff that made the last move with us that we didn't have room for because the new house has fewer rooms (though is larger overall), and hence has fewer nooks and crannies to stick things.
I use my garage as a shop for my race car! You should check oval track racing; Grundy County Speedway in Morris Illinois! They don’t have that over seas haha
Absofrigginlutely!!!! I do. And every friggin body i know does too 😂
I've lived in one house that had a garage, it was a 2-car garage that held my dad's motorcycle and the family computer. It wasn't filled with junk, we just didn't pull the cars in there for whatever reason. My mom would use it to host "Bunco" which is some dice game old ladies play. There was plenty of room for 2 fold out tables and a keg! I lived in another that had a carport, which is a garage without walls, so basically a pointless garage. That had a couch and a patio table on it lol.
We park our one car in half the garage. The other half holds an inflatable hot tub and a patio table and chairs. Plus other stuff.
I bet the "box room" was HEAVEN for your cat!!
"jumble sales" is such a more pleasing name
My current house has a 2-car garage with 2 cars in it! Contrast that with the house i grew up, where we never could fit a car in the garage, couldn't safely get past the 1st room in the basement, and also had a full attic . . . THEN my grandfather died, and the house filled up even further with all the stuff from his house, due to my dad's grief-hoarding. Sometimes it's not just the stuff, but who had it.
This is so funny. I never thought about it before, but yes - everyone I know has a lot of stuff. Nice stuff. Then we have yard sales and buy more stuff. Why? I don’t know but it gives us pleasure. In southwest almost every neighbor has a swimming pool as well. Most households own more than one car. We also have a lot of hobbies. We have farmers markets and sell our hobby stuff.
On the average house having 300,000 items it could be possible if you add collections that people have.
If a person has a collection of 20 sets of annual baseball cards, that could be counted as 16,000 items (800 cards per set times 20), and it wouldn't take up more than a 4x4x4foot space. A box of 5000 sports/memorabilia cards takes up less than 2x4x1foot space
I have a collection of stereographic images/viewers that has over 8,000 pieces in it and that only takes up roughly 2 bookcases
I very much miss being in the military and moving every three to four years, that process went a long way in keeping me from accumulating tons of unnecessary crap.
Been a long time viewer, first time commenter... my favorite line is, "Ooooohh! Lowrenceeeee!"
Wonderful stuff , Lawrence. 😊
George Carlin has a great bit on "Stuff". You should check it out, if you haven't heard it before.
I remember jumble sales from when I was a kid, many moons ago. Now in the UK we tend to get rid of things at charity shops or car boot sales, the latter held in big fields. See the occasional house/yard sale, a good idea as you don't have to walk too far.
Our garage contains my husband's tools (power and manual), the yard maintenance tools, a habitat for the feral cat we look after, and a conglomeration of other things that probably should be thrown out.
We bought a house with a 2 car garage. It was designed poorly. It has poles right in the middle of it making it a very tight squeeze to get any cars in and out of it. So it is used for storage.
We use our garage for 2 street bikes and all the stuff pertaining to those. Such ad tools. We also keep our camping gear which fits into one Stanley box. We have a tiny east coast type garage though.
If the world goes south, a bit of hoarding can make a big difference between surviving well, or not.
I’ll add this to my watch later tabs. Right now I’m busy taking a load to my storage unit.
Our stuff was fine until the passing away of our parents. Not only did we "inherit" some of our parents' stuff, but we inherited what they had accumulated from their parents. Pertaining to photos the accumulation goes back even further.
Maybe we have more room? We have a 3-car garage and only my car goes in it. One side has my husband’s “gym” and the other side has cabinetry that the previous owner built, which has his tools, etc.
Half of my 2 car garage is bicycle storage and a bike shop and general work bench. Interestingly, the garage is barely wide enough to put two cars in side by side, but it is 1.5 cars in length.
Yes, I have a 2-car garage that doesn't hold any cars. The space is used for storing things that don't fit any where else (e.g., Christmas decorations), the garbage bins, bikes for each family member, and my home gym equipment (squat rack, power tower, various weights). Being in California, we don't have a basement or an attic to store these things.
I never think we have too much stuff until it's time to move. Moves create stuff purges.
Lol! This post is spot on and sadly accurate. Time for me to gather up “stuff” and be rid of it. However- the sentimental stuff- like the kids baby clothes (who are now 27 and 29) are so hard to part with. Sigh- 😢, yet I must.
In Florida, you don't have an attic, can't have a basement, and we don't have a shed. So our garage has a lawn mower, weed eater, generator (for hurricanes), 6 large gas cans for said generator, hurricane shutters and rails, air compressor, pressure washer, ladders, chain saw, tools and parts for plumbing, electrical, carpentry, car repair, painting, drywall, camping gear, and I am sure I've forgotten to mention a few other endeavours we have tools for in the garage. Unless you hire someone to do everything on your home, I don't know how you can do repairs to your home without the necessary tools and parts. So yes, our cars are sitting in the driveway.
Yes, Americans do have way too much stuff. When my husband passed away in 2015, my 13 year-old daughter and I downsized from a three bedroom house with a two car garage and home office to a two bedroom apartment of only 950 square feet and no garage. After I purged almost 3,000 books and a huge pile of other things by having a garage sale and donating the rest, but I still needed a storage unit. That's gone now, and my Christmas decorations stay in my son's shed 11 months of the year. But I work from home as a freelance bookkeeper in a bedroom that's cluttered with my bookkeeping needs as well as my huge collection of fabric and sewing supplies. So this video is a rather painful reminder from Laurence that it's time to purge again.😢 Love you anyway, Laurence. You didn't mean to hurt me, you're just telling the truth. Sigh.
We have 2 cars, but only a one-car garage. Do we fight over who gets use of the garage (especially in our lovely Chicago winters)? Nope! Because my partner has all his woodworking equipment in the garage, plus the lawnmower, snowblower, etc. Several of our neighbors have 2 cars and a two-car garage, but they use the garage as an extension of the house--there's a TV, fridge, small bar, and seating in there that tend to be used for parties, especially those centered around football games. Not sure if this is a Chicago thing or just a Southside thing, though.
When you have less stuff, you feel lighter; more carefree
Laurence, you would likely enjoy George Carlin's comedy routine "A place for my stuff" from, I believe, the album of his of that same name. Great vid! Thanks for the laughs and the insights.
Anyone else lowkey love having a big pile of boxes to break down. We don't save boxes, and cut them all up into small pieces to burn in the firepit. But when you've got a big pile and you get into a groove and put on an audiobook or podcast (or TH-cam playlist 😉) and cut up boxes. Then again I have 2 young kids so it's also an excuse to get some alone time, becuase of the presence of sharp big cutters.
Lawrence, even though I saw your hand at the very bottom of the frame move the matress slat so that it fell, it was just as funny.
I’m a Brit and a recovering hoarder. I opened one store room last month and found a vine from outside had grown through an air brick and it was like a triffid was digging through my “stuff”.
Edit this store room was last opened over 4 years ago.
When my family moved to a place with a two car garage we only had one car, so felt okay about using the second bay for the outdoor toys and bikes and things like that. But now that there is a second car, there's nowhere else to put those things, so one car parks outside.
Almost everyone I know has gotten rid of something that they wish they had back.
Many people seem to think “I’ll just buy another if I need it “ only to find out that they’re not available to buy, way too expensive, and/or cheaply made crap that doesn’t do the job as well as the “junk” they threw away.
If you feel the fabric of a 1970s 100%cotton shirt versus what it is today you’ll be amazed at the difference in softness.
If it still serves its purpose or might serve another and I have room for it, it’s being kept.
When my husband passed away young from cancer last year, I spent several months figuring out what was even in my possession (since, in his absence, with neither kid being over 18, everything we owned became de facto mine), then had my MIL, BIL, and SIL come over Memorial Day weekend to go through all the stuff in “our” (mostly his) closet to see if anyone else might want any of it. Then I went through some more corners of our home (it’s a three bed rental townhouse) I’d forgotten about that didn’t have much that was strictly “his”, but that I still wasn’t really aware of. It’s a bit scary thinking about where we would have ended up if he’d lived another 30 years… 😬
My family and I moved in with my mom a few years ago to take care of her because of her failing health. Originally we put a lot of our own stuff in storage or into my mom's attic. My mother had talked about moving to an assisted living place, and we thought we would be selling her house, moving out, and putting our stuff into a new place. That was almost ten years ago, and as my mom got worse, she expressed a desire to stay in her own house, where she's lived for almost 50 years, until the end. So over the last few years, we've all gone through the attic, the basement, the garage, and the storage unit, and slowly given away anything that wasn't really wanted or essential. It's been a liberating process.
Having said that, only one car fits in our two-car garage, because the other side is filled with woodworking tools, yard tools, and my adult kid's motorcycle.
I’ve heard some people use their garage or a rented storage unit for the their holiday decorations.
My garage is 2,000 square feet. It's bigger than my house and has two separate rooms. The people that owned it before me had it extended to function as a cabinet shop. The only time I park my car in it is when there's tornado warnings and there's a chance of hail. But I have parked four cars in it at once during hailstorms with plenty of room for my garage clutter. I'm pretty spoiled.
My husband has his garage(two car) and shed is filled with stuff! I’m a neat freak myself.
My husband used the garage for wood work and motorcycles. So tools tools tools, no cars 😂
My garage is a woodwork shop/plant area/general power tool area/diy painting 😂 I'm a multi-craft person so I almost nearly hoard craft supplies
I have a 2-car garage that I don't currently use for cars. About 5 years ago my garage door opener broke. Around the same time I was doing a home renovation project where I needed to store large palettes of flooring, and the garage was really the only place for it. So the cars went to the driveway, and the garage became the "war room" for home improvement efforts. Five years and multiple home improvement projects later, I finally cleaned out the garage itself. All I have left to do is to organize all of the tools into the newly-added cabinets and I'll be able to fit both cars back in. I think American's have so much stuff because our houses are too big. I'm a single woman with a domestic partner and we share a 2400 square foot 4 bedroom house. That's too much space for 2 people. I bought it back when I thought I would have a family, and that didn't happen, so now I have tons and tons of arts and crafts supplies, and an entire guest room full of gaming memorabilia and toys that I've "outgrown". I'm starting to give things away in an attempt to simplify my life. I like many 'hoarders' see getting rid of useful things as wasteful but forget that having things you don't use is also wasteful. Find it a good home!
We have never parked a car in any garage at any place I've ever lived. I never thought about it.
We have a 2 car garage but also a long driveway so we park outside. We store things in the garage, but also lounge in there and in the summer it’s just a cool dark room to chill in cause it’s air conditioned
We use both our car spaces in our garage, we use a shed for everything we cant fit in there. We purge our junk every year.
My late mother graduated high school at 16 (early schooling in a 1 room where students progressed on ability), and had to move out on her own (long story won't get into). Problem was, that was 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. So she was frugal and bought items for just in case to her dying day.
Which was in 1994, and nearly 30 years later, I still haven't used up some of her stock from her frugal buying.
We recently acquired a considerable amount of things from relatives selling their homes and/or passing away. We seem to have a fear of losing memories of good times or loved ones if we don't have trinkets and things to remind us. Also, I'd say as a society, we Americans are massive procrastinators and will put off anything unpleasant, such as arguing with your spouse about what is a momento worth keeping 😂