S/O of minimalist vs. pack rat.

veloelle

I don't buy a ton of toys for DD. Trust me, she has plenty, but I'm never tossing out old stuff. I feel like the more crap I buy her, it's just more crap to throw away and end up in a landfill. Same goes for my clothes; as I get older, I tend not to buy impulse stuff at Target.

I'm not a treehugger or anything, but after having a child, it seems like my consumer consumption quadrupled. Same reason I don't buy her a shitton of clothes.

Anyone else? I'm going through our extra closet that will be DD's big girl room, and holy crap ofshit pile, I'm tossing so much stuff, 10 years of married stuff, and about 13 years of being on my own stuff. I feel dirty.

j-w

DH and I always laugh that our kids are so deprived...it seems like every single house we go to with kids has 3x the amount of HUGE toys that we have.  Justcrap everywhere.  I just can't look at all of it.  And even when I went through the toys after Christmas to make room for the new stuff, there wasn't THAT much to get rid of.

I was trying to do some reorganizing of the Christmas decorations and realized that my wedding planning stuff was in one of the biggest Rubbermaids that they make.  It was GROSS how muchcrap was in there.  I got it all out/organized it/and it went into a Rubbermaid 1/3 of the size that it was in.  DH had like 3 Rubbermaids of ridiculous memorabilia.  Like golf trophies from high school.  What are you going to do with those, really?  Got his down to 1 small container.  It disgusts me when I realize we have something like that sitting around!

JOEBunny

We have a 2500 square foot house, which is large for my neighborhood, but most of our house is entertainment focused, not storage or bedrooms.  We toss stuff all the time.  I buy a lot of DD's toys at consignment, especially plastic crap, that is easy to clean.  Not only are they cheaper, but I don't care as much about passing them on after 6 months or so.  I really try to get rid of as much stuff as possible and to avoid purchasing things.  I prefer to spend my money on entertaining and doing things with my family or others.  We have memberships to the zoo and a couple of museums, we go to a lot of different events.  Stuff like that.  I don't shop for a hobby. 

Still with birthdays and Christmas, it seems like kids get so MUCH stuff.

 

buffalo_buckeye

Yes. I never felt guilty before about my carbon footprint, until I had a kid. Everytime another plastic toy comes in our house I just cringe. I plan to have a massive garage sale this summer, so that some stuff gets reused. Mh is terrible about clothes. He doesn't give away/throw away any clothes and they just move to another room (where he forgets about them), and then claim he has "nothing". Sigh. I want to sign him up for therapy about his clothes. Obviously I'm a minimalist, but I live with a clothing and toy packrat.

Printergirl

One of DS's Christmas presents is already in the yard sale pile I have going in the basement. He's played with it enough that DH and I are annoyed with it and don't want it around for another year. MIL has seen it at our house so we are okay to get rid of it.

I'm on a purging rampage right now. Too much clutter in my house and with DS's bday coming up I know we'll be getting more toys.

melmax

We have a large home- 4700 square feet (not including basement) and I still have to throw stuff out!  This is not because I buy my kids stuff all the time (in fact, I only go to TRU 2X a year- birthday and x-mas) but moreso, b/c MH has 3 siblings and I have a over-generous MIL, so DD gets a ton of toys for these 2 occasions. I have since requested MIL stop bringing something over every time she comes to visit (once a week). I cannot stand the crap anymore.  But, like you-- I no longer impulse buy. I'm quite proud of it actually. I'd rather have LESS stuff that I use and are quality, than an over abundance of things I rarely use.