Things-The ERE Book

[HSpencer]

Chapter 6, 6.1, Things.
I was reading this a couple nights ago and it dawned on me that I was storing too many unused tools. Over my working careers, I had accumulated an embarrassing amount of hand and power tools.

Some of this is exactly my own fault, and some it is not my fault. When I moved my shop from the apartment complex to my home in March of this year, I wound up with many duplications of tools. Last week, doing a "get together" inventory, I have come up with 17 tool boxes of specialized and common tools.

Now the part that is my own fault. Over my life, I have been a sucker for tools of all kinds. This started when I was very young and at that time I bought a complete roller cabinet of mechanics tools. I used to work on my cars and hot rods all the time when I was young. Since then, I have added and added and collected and collected. This is the part that is my own fault. As I worked on this and that and here and there, I continued to add them. Spending the seven years in apartment maintenance seemed to be a blank check to add even more. I was not intentionally hoarding, but it turned out that way. Also when my dad passed away, I inherited his complete shop of tools of all kinds, and he was worse than me at being a tool sucker.

So, I had three buildings full of shops. Two small, one large.

After sorting everything into sets and kits and such, I had an unadvertised sale to some friends and associates. I made a little money on that. Prior to that, my son in law came over and I told him to take anything he needed, that he did not already have. (I had already given him two chests of tools when he married my daughter).
So thank you Mr ERE. I am a little richer, more liberated, and have much more space that I had before. I am now storing only a set of needed things, but I still have probably one of every tool you could think of. I just kept the good stuff, the stuff I think I need.

I feel pretty darn good about it.

[jacob]

You're welcome. I could say the same thing about my books, DVDs, and CDs until a few years ago, when I started selling them.
Now I'm actually accumulating tools instead. At least it's "things" that make it possible to do more. What I do is to buy outrageously expensive tools. That way, I can sell them back again at the same price if I tire of them. So far I got a Lie Nielsen dovetail saw, a Lie Nielsen block plane, and a handful of Sorby mortising chisels. I got them all used. That's close to $400 right there in inflation protected tools.

[Maus]

Things are a definite conundrum. As a general rule, I haven't been galvanized by the "100 things" movement and its progeny. But I have tried to decrease my footprint, with mixed success.
I de-cluttered my kitchen. I went from 12 place settings and many additional coffee mugs and bowls to 4 place settings (either I'm feeding a date, or at most one other couple). Much better. On the other hand, I had two of the same excellent, pricy chef's knives because my brother used to work for Williams-Sonoma. I gave the unused one to a work colleague who was just setting up. His response was underwhelming. Perhaps not everyone can appreciate how much nicer it is to work with a $200 knife as opposed to the crap sold at Target.
I hate to waste anything, but I frankly don't want to invest the time to sell surplus stuff like books. I am thinking of a couple weekends of wholesale divesting by donating: clothes to charity, books to local library. Not certain what to do about some surplus chairs I have but never use. I do not want to deal with Freecycle or Craigslist. So, inertia exerts itself and another weekend passes.

[dragoncar]

Maus, for books you can try Amazon. I recently sold a lot of textbooks there. You don't necessarily get the best price, and they don't take everything, but it's so simple (plug in the isbn, put in boxes, print free shipping labels, put on porch, schedule free USPS pickup). You end up with Amazon credits, which isn't so bad, especially if you sign up for the free Prime offer.
And if you have any more expensive knives, I'll definitely take them with overwhelming enthusiasm.

[jeremymday]

I concur, Amazon is super easy... I make anywhere from $1 to $5 for the books I sell. Been trying to downsize a library that I estimate to be over 500 books.
I am trying to narrow it down to less than 50 books that have high "re-read" value. It does take time but I think its worth it!